Mind of a scientist

Ever since I started thinking sensibly, science has been my real passion. I used to get thrilled dreaming about the great labs I would work in and the great discoveries I would make. When I was quite young and had nothing better to think, this was all I did - dream. ( Something similar to what Maugham said, He fell in love with love itself.) I am very fond of one word, why.

When I was a bit older, I started getting so many ideas which I would excitedly go and tell my granddad. He would be so happy with my ideas, but would smilingly say that someone had already done that. Slow realisation came that I had to know first what everyone had done before getting ideas. So I switched off the idea generating part of my brain.

Well not for long. Then came B.Tech and the famous "Srini's Diary" It was the imaginary diary into which went all my brilliant ideas. But the common refrain was that it was not enough to get an idea but one has to execute it!

But not to meander further from my intended discussion. For me, science and discovery is associated with two thought processes, one to extend what we already know by an inch or so and second is to generate a completely new, out of the box idea (like relativity for example). When I see science as a career, I (and many like me) set out in the quest of something similar to the "out of the box". Something that will be pure genius. Not do everyday science of getting the spectra of something no one has got before or characterising one more unknown protein....

But what is this genius about? Some are born with it and it keeps flowing out all their lives like Newton, who made inroads in everything from heat to light and gravity! Others it strikes just once like for watson and crick when they decided to steal the poor woman's x-ray picture(just joking, i meant when they proposed the DNA structure. Did they do anything significant after that?)

Well sometimes I think of the hundreds of second grade painters who leave everything they have and head for Paris thinking they have great talent. After years of poverty do they realise that they do not have that "genius" that sets apart the masters. That realisation tears them apart. I think the same experience is had by thousands of scientists in so many research labs across the Universities and Research institutions. Most of them would have topped their class during their times and would have had great job offers with fantastic salaries which they would have spurned to pursue their ideal.

To be truthful, the work of these majority of mediocre scientists (judged so only by their lack of that brilliant discovery) has helped the progress of science over the years. It is considered the spadework necessary before the genius comes along and creates the Bang.

What sets apart the Genius? I always thought about it because I always used to wonder why I was not one. My approach to life has been that of recipe book. There has been a formula for everything from learning physics to being in the college I wanted. But there is no formula for genius. No amount of hardwork will make you one. Then I start wondering about luck and again the whole purpose.. why do I have to work in a fancy lab to publish in a fancy journal a paper that doesn't have a single seminal idea.

Or should I just to coast through science, taking the opportunity to revel in its unsolved mysteries (though I may not solve them) and just enjoy its company without bothering whether I would ever make a great discovery or not?