This is what it's all about!!
Hi guys! :) I just had a short post I wanted to share with you all. So in my Ay1 class (it’s called The Evolving Universe) we had a final project. The project was this: “The objective of these projects is to explore the scientific creative process. First identify an interesting scientific question or hypothesis (related to astronomy), and then reason out how to evaluate it. We do not want the students to do web searches or background reading searching for established answers to the question – instead it would be good to reason out how you would analyze it if there were no prior analysis.” THIS PROJECT. WAS AWESOME.
So we had to think of a question that interested us pertaining to astronomy. Like, what causes Jupiter to have stripes? How far is it to the center of the galaxy? What would happen if you fell into a black hole? You get the picture. Now, all of these questions can probably be answered with a relatively quick google search, but the point was to make order-of-magnitude hypotheses about these problems using only the freshman year physics, chemistry, and biology we know.
Sooo you’re probably thinking, “Okay, I don’t get it, what’s so awesome about this?” What’s excellent is that it was one of the most fun and engaging things I have ever done here at Caltech.I sat for several hours at my whiteboard, just using basic laws of physics and math, and createdstuff! This is what Caltech is all about!!!It’s not just solving a bunch of math problems on a homework set. It’s finding a question, and then incorporating all aspects of science to take a stab at solving it. It’s not just listening to the prof. It’s about innovation! It’s aboutusingthe scientific tools you’ve gained thus far! One guy in my class used a program to calculate the probability that intelligent civilization would arise in a galaxy, and the probability that two civilizations would make contact. Another guy calculated how fast a comet would need to be going past the sun to get a “tail.” I was seriously sitting there in amazement! Everyone’s projects were so different, but so creatively brilliant! Ahhhhh I love it here so much.
Anyway yeah, there’s my random rambling of the day! Haha. Oh yeah, and..
I’m a tour guide now!!! :D So come visit Caltech and get a tour from me ^_^ Now go do something creative :) Love, Lori PS. I absolutely love this… And now I always say “blag.”https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/mispronouncing.png
