A little reminder to keep perspective

I’ve been slowly going through some old things, tidying up, getting rid of clutter and “baggage”. Today I flipped through a lab notebook from my high school physics class. I kept it all these years (26 now!) because the teacher had written a really complimentary and inspiring note in the back. I was thinking maybe it’s time to throw out the book, or maybe just keep that page. So I decided to look back through the book and decide whether it was worth keeping…

Wow! There’s no way I can throw this thing out! It’s hilarious. I carefully wrote up each experiment, detailed the methods, made beautifully organized tables, painstakingly calculated results, and thoughtfully analyzed sources of error. But the gems are in the “Conclusions” sections. I’m not sure if this is the kind of thing the other students were writing or not. I think it was meant to be largely tongue-in-cheek, but it was so long ago that it’s hard to be sure. Here are some of my favorite bits:

“Errors in this lab were due to an inability to read the micrometer and fire hazards in the first trial....”

[the following week] “This lab was encouraging compared with the past two. We got it done in one trial and avoided any fire hazards. What more can I say? We did measure the heat of vaporization and avoided getting burned.”

“This lab was not too bad at all. Contrary to appearances, we did not cheat to get these splendid and marvelous results…On the other hand, I’m glad this lab is over because I was very much afraid we would crunch our thermometer in the ice. I’m sorry I about my computer printout. I lost mine and had to xerox from my responsible lab partner”

“I didn’t like this lab because my fingers hurt from twisting the wires and pushing down the clamps…It was much easier the second time around when I did it by myself”

“For a while this lab was great. Just look at the pretty colors and record a few voltages. Not too bad! Then you calculate everything and start having problems”

” ‘V’ and ‘v’ look an awful lot the same to a novice atomic scientist…As it was, I spent a few pleasant hours trying to work with the WRONG formula…To improve the lab I would suggest modifications to the English alphabet...”

And my favorite:  “Avogadro was wrong – or heaven forbid, this lab write-up is faulty.”

This is all from a 17-year old girl who “grew up” to be a “real” scientist. I’m in a position now where I train and mentor students at a variety of levels. They are overwhelmingly bright, enthusiastic, creative, hardworking, and inspiring to me. But sometimes it’s hard for me to remember what it’s like to be new to scientific thinking. This helps me remember that we all start somewhere and that scientific inquiry doesn’t always have to be so serious.

(p.s. I am indeed very fond of a nicely organized data table. You can see from the picture at the top of the post that this tendency (predilection? obsession? “talent”?) apparently started way back!”