Curiosity
** I dedicate this to certain people in my life, I want you all to somehow not hate "knowledge". Yes, school and university might get on your last nerve at times, but just try to open up your minds a little okay?
There are many different types of curiosity, but when I say curiosity here I don't really mean being nosy. Yeah, I do admit to being a bit nosy, but I am also curious. Dictionary.com defines curiosity as "the desire to learn or know about anything". By curious I mean that I am intellectually curious; in simpler terms, I mean that I want to learn. Goes right back to the definition right? I don't suppose many people think of this definition when they think about curiosity. But enough about me, there's something I intend to send across to you.
We tend to read our textbooks usually after being told to several times by the teacher. I am guessing that at some point, many of you have skimmed through a certain textbook, saw an interesting title, and read a page or two. On the other hand I am sure that many of you own textbooks but know nothing of what is in them, at least until its time for the exam. The textbook might not hold the solution to a matter of life and death, honestly, a textbook will never have the solution to something like that. Still, is there something wrong with learning? I don't think so. Then why do many of us despise it, even fear it?
Something really shocked me while I was studying chemistry several weeks ago. I realized that all of the great scientific breakthroughs in chemistry (and also physics), have all occured during the last century. Those breakthroughs I'm talking about are very important ones, most importantly discoveries regarding atomic theory. Had not these discoveries been made, we would be living in a world so different from ours. In the last century, protons and neutrons, nuclear fission, and dark matter were discovered. Even pluto wasn't discovered long ago! Do back a little, dark matter? I bet not many of you have heard of that term. We know that everything is made of matter right? Well guess what, its not. Dark matter, also called antimatter, is exactly what it's name suggests. For all we know, it is the opposite of matter, and it exists out there somewhere. Where? people are still trying to figure that out unfortunately.
And finally, to my point. When people first got to the notion of matter, I doubt they'd have thought that something such as antimatter existed. I mean, who would've guessed that? When Ernest Rutherford discovered the proton, which has a positive charge, do you think he kept wondering about the existance of the neutron? A sub-atomic particle with a neutral charge, pretty useless don't you think? Let's make two things clear: without neutrons I don't think the world would exist, and Rutherford most certainly did never think about the existance of this particle. So why am I going on and on about chemistry? I'm trying to make a point, continue reading.
The researchers who make such breakthroughs, like us, have studied from books. So what makes them so special? Here comes back the curiosity. What we learn, what we are taught, we take that in as facts. Hard facts that may never ever change. Many of that is probably true. Wait, remember when we were children and were taught about the solar system and all the planets? Pluto was one of them, is it still though? Science is science, it is constantly being improved. So let's say Rutherford went to school and he learned about the atom and the electron. What made him do that experiment of his and discover the proton? Obviously what they taught him at school were all facts, why bother right? Say Rutherford did this experiment for whatever reason he may have had, and got results he was surprised by and did not expect - the results confused him. Had me and my friends done this, we would have just pretended things were okay and wrote down a bunch of irrelevant things in our sources of error to compensate for what we think we did wrong in our experiment. However, Rutherford was curious, this is the difference, he spent time trying to think of why he got such results. He came up with a proton. Something totally new.
And again I went on about chemistry, I'm sorry but I just seem to like Rutherford. The proton is such a big deal you know. Atomic theory evolved from Dalton's model, which was just a sphere. If people had stuck with that model, electricity would have not been discovered, or would have been impossible to explain. Many changes have been made to the atomic theory since then. And even now, with the "modern view" model of the atom, the atomic theory is still what it is. Just a theory. You know the difference between law and theory? A law is something that is taken as absolute, something tested and proven many times. A theory is, exactly what it suggests, it is something that cannot be tested, or has not been tested. You cannot really be 100% sure of a theory since you cannot actually test it; however theories usually have strong evidences to support them. In the end, you cannot take them as absolute facts.
To simplify all my talking about random things, I intend to say that all your textbooks may not be 100% correct. They may be correct in today's standards, but who knows what's going to happen in another 100 years? I just want to say that, whatever you are studying, sometimes is just doesn't make perfect sense. You could be, and usually are, the one slacking and not putting in enough effort. But you might also potentially sense something that could be proved to be wrong in several years. Who knows? In the 19th century many people thought that they have discovered everything that had to be discovered. You can clearly see how wrong they are. Just by having read this post, you have proved them wrong.
There are many different types of curiosity, but when I say curiosity here I don't really mean being nosy. Yeah, I do admit to being a bit nosy, but I am also curious. Dictionary.com defines curiosity as "the desire to learn or know about anything". By curious I mean that I am intellectually curious; in simpler terms, I mean that I want to learn. Goes right back to the definition right? I don't suppose many people think of this definition when they think about curiosity. But enough about me, there's something I intend to send across to you.
We tend to read our textbooks usually after being told to several times by the teacher. I am guessing that at some point, many of you have skimmed through a certain textbook, saw an interesting title, and read a page or two. On the other hand I am sure that many of you own textbooks but know nothing of what is in them, at least until its time for the exam. The textbook might not hold the solution to a matter of life and death, honestly, a textbook will never have the solution to something like that. Still, is there something wrong with learning? I don't think so. Then why do many of us despise it, even fear it?
Something really shocked me while I was studying chemistry several weeks ago. I realized that all of the great scientific breakthroughs in chemistry (and also physics), have all occured during the last century. Those breakthroughs I'm talking about are very important ones, most importantly discoveries regarding atomic theory. Had not these discoveries been made, we would be living in a world so different from ours. In the last century, protons and neutrons, nuclear fission, and dark matter were discovered. Even pluto wasn't discovered long ago! Do back a little, dark matter? I bet not many of you have heard of that term. We know that everything is made of matter right? Well guess what, its not. Dark matter, also called antimatter, is exactly what it's name suggests. For all we know, it is the opposite of matter, and it exists out there somewhere. Where? people are still trying to figure that out unfortunately.
And finally, to my point. When people first got to the notion of matter, I doubt they'd have thought that something such as antimatter existed. I mean, who would've guessed that? When Ernest Rutherford discovered the proton, which has a positive charge, do you think he kept wondering about the existance of the neutron? A sub-atomic particle with a neutral charge, pretty useless don't you think? Let's make two things clear: without neutrons I don't think the world would exist, and Rutherford most certainly did never think about the existance of this particle. So why am I going on and on about chemistry? I'm trying to make a point, continue reading.
The researchers who make such breakthroughs, like us, have studied from books. So what makes them so special? Here comes back the curiosity. What we learn, what we are taught, we take that in as facts. Hard facts that may never ever change. Many of that is probably true. Wait, remember when we were children and were taught about the solar system and all the planets? Pluto was one of them, is it still though? Science is science, it is constantly being improved. So let's say Rutherford went to school and he learned about the atom and the electron. What made him do that experiment of his and discover the proton? Obviously what they taught him at school were all facts, why bother right? Say Rutherford did this experiment for whatever reason he may have had, and got results he was surprised by and did not expect - the results confused him. Had me and my friends done this, we would have just pretended things were okay and wrote down a bunch of irrelevant things in our sources of error to compensate for what we think we did wrong in our experiment. However, Rutherford was curious, this is the difference, he spent time trying to think of why he got such results. He came up with a proton. Something totally new.
And again I went on about chemistry, I'm sorry but I just seem to like Rutherford. The proton is such a big deal you know. Atomic theory evolved from Dalton's model, which was just a sphere. If people had stuck with that model, electricity would have not been discovered, or would have been impossible to explain. Many changes have been made to the atomic theory since then. And even now, with the "modern view" model of the atom, the atomic theory is still what it is. Just a theory. You know the difference between law and theory? A law is something that is taken as absolute, something tested and proven many times. A theory is, exactly what it suggests, it is something that cannot be tested, or has not been tested. You cannot really be 100% sure of a theory since you cannot actually test it; however theories usually have strong evidences to support them. In the end, you cannot take them as absolute facts.
To simplify all my talking about random things, I intend to say that all your textbooks may not be 100% correct. They may be correct in today's standards, but who knows what's going to happen in another 100 years? I just want to say that, whatever you are studying, sometimes is just doesn't make perfect sense. You could be, and usually are, the one slacking and not putting in enough effort. But you might also potentially sense something that could be proved to be wrong in several years. Who knows? In the 19th century many people thought that they have discovered everything that had to be discovered. You can clearly see how wrong they are. Just by having read this post, you have proved them wrong.
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