 Figure 1. Adopted from giphy.com A scene from the breaking bad It is happening! The Second Post! Last week, I had a vision on the short-term path for Listen Read, and Write. With time, I will connect what I have l learned in polymers to chemical biology and biophysics. For now, it may sound confusing and complicated. But bear with me, if I can learn so can you!
Growing up, I enjoyed breaking things. I remember breaking stones, glasses, and my brother’s incisor teeth (unintentionally, of course!). I always wanted to know what constitutes objects around us. Breaking down objects is necessary to know what makes them (also applicable in human psychology). So, what happens if we break the stone? It becomes a smaller stone. What if you keep breaking it smaller and smaller pieces? When they are in the Angstrom length scales, the object reaches what is known as “molecular structure”. What happens if you break the molecular structure? Then comes the “atoms”. Atoms are the most fundamental structure of the objects around us[*]. It means that all objects, including your hair, food, or the walls are made up of atoms. It is believed (scientist in me trying to pose an alternate hypothesis) that the atoms were first described by Greek philosophers Democritus and Leucippus 5th century B.C. Notably, there are 118 different types of atoms, called elements, that constitute everything on earth. The elements differ from each other in their number of sub-atomic particles known as electron, proton, and neutrons. A permutation combination of the 118 elements makes molecules that make physically and chemically different things around the world! [*] We can play the breaking down game further to splits atoms to electron, proton, and neutron. Neutron is from quarks and it goes way smaller and smaller.
0 Comments
 Figure 1. An example for Michael's "that's what she said" joke. Adapted from tenor.com HELLO WORLD! So here I am, writing my first Blog post ever. Life does take unexpected turns, doesn't it? Otherwise, at this moment, I would be happily watching The Office for the nth time and laughing at Michael’s “that’s what she said” jokes (my most favorite one among several). For a very long time, I was convinced that I do not like changes in life. For example, I listen to the same songs everyday, order the same item from the menu, and follow the same work out routine. On a recent energetic Monday morning, I accidentally played Ali and Taibur’s discussion on “The Principles of Productivity”. I listened to the entire 62 min episode (which I am realizing now) during my 20 min drive + 10 min walk + 32 min work. Needless to say, the podcast content changed my life. The episode is based on the popular book (which I did not know then) “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Like any other graduate student, I marked the citation and grabbed the original article, i.e., “Atomic Habits”. The book inspired me to make one percent change in everything I do and it is already reflecting on my productivity[*]. And that is how this blog was conceived! HELLO WORLD! Welcome to Listen, Read, and Write. Every Sunday I will post what I learned from the recent content (mostly science) that I listened to or read. [*]I do not believe that I was ever less productive from a traditional graduate student metrics (imaginary) standpoint. I have published scientific content in reputed journals and presented my work at prestigious conferences. My work has also been covered in the mainstream media. However, I believe that my efforts in impacting my knowledge and work was restricted to a specific scientific community. Listen, Read, and Write is my first attempt at increasing the reach of science to a broader audience (mostly my dad).  |
