INTRODUCING OURSELVES

THE SAMSAL SECTION

.......GREAT MEN EXPLORE THEIR THOUGHTS......GREAT MEN IMAGINE .....GREAT MEN THINK .. HOW SOMETHING CAN/COULD BE AND WHY SOMETHING IS.

Science, is a great course to pursue but for long I've wondered how well, we've come to understand the subject .

Science, is it discovery, or a collection of assertions plundering our hearts to cause something to come forth. Is science a birth of ideas , or a study of principles.

Science is the study of the extent of the ignorance of the experts...Science can be defined in many ways.

But what is the true meaning of this study, as it was in the beginning ...what is science then, and what is it now?

What is Science?

The writing that follows is a piece from an individual, who is very passionate about this subject and wishes to explore further.

This piece comes straight from his heart, listen carefully as you read and grab meaning from what he wishes to share.

SCIENCE IS A VERB NOT A NOUN.

It has always been an innate feeling, a desire I tried hard to sought a meaning, but created no result; science. Granny being a kind woman fetched me gifts such as remote controlled toy cars and sound-light guns, but anytime I ended up breaking them into pieces, clearing my doubts and ignorance about what produced the results I observed whenever I used them. Was I a scientist , or a hunter of knowledge that may be obsolete in my era?
In 2008, I reached a sack in which I kept broken radios, parts of TV, some motors and wires. I pulled out a motor,compared it to what I'd just read about motors and generators. At first, an idea that they are all just different came to me. I kept on observing the motor and all of a sudden my thoughts were drifted to the law of conservation of energy. I quickly took out a LED(light emitting diode) from a circuit board, connected to the terminals of the motor, and wheeled the armature; there was no light. Two questions struck me; is the connection wrong or that the motor just wont produce light .
I changed the terminals, wheeled the armature again and expectantly there was light. All that I pondered, that the motor and the generator are the same but only take different energy inputs to produce different outputs, I'm proved right. Is this a discovery of my fallible mind or only knowledge of which I'm ignorant?

If everyone thinks just as I do, then I say the law of conservation of energy has a twin brother; reversibility of energy. I thought of every series of transformation of energy having a certainty of being reversed with right materials put in place. So I constructed this: chemical--electrical--kinetic(mechanical) for the motor powered by battery, and kinetic--electrical--chemical(recharging the battery). I said to myself ," and this day have i perfected my principle, reversibility of energy".

Sharing of knowledge is the best way of empowering knowledge; this is part of the credo on which I live. Two weeks later, the class was discussing electromagnetism, so I perceived it the right time to share my finding with the class. I told my teacher that I thought so much that a motor can produce current and a lot can be from the idea in the world of science.
My teacher with so much knowledge claimed I didn't know what I was talking about. He explained to the class that such could never happen and they all fell suite to the thought that such a thing was impossible. Do you expect I would leave this jungle of thoughts I needed to clear? Well I didn't .

Science has been itself ever since creation and continues to be a process, a mechanism, a drive but never knowledge. The knowledge accumulated is only history which is either proved wrong later or used in creating new ideas if someone peruses well. I never felt being a science student until my little discovery. The whole element, the truth about science is now diverted to be a store of knowledge for the yet to be born generation. Science is being confused with religion, which is the culture of faith, and faith needs to be preserved; protected somehow from dynamism.
Science is rather a culture of doubt, trying so hard to bring out lies, to know and understand the truth that exists in the very nature we call our world.
"Science alone of all subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of the belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation. As a matter of fact I can also define science this way: science is the belief in the ignorance of experts". This was said by Richard P.Feyman, Nobel-prize-winning physicist in"the pleasure of finding things out".
An expert in a field is expected to be well equipped with knowledge and perfection in that which he does. Anything he is ignorant of in the field, is that which no one knows; discovery. Richard Feyman was trying to convey the message that science is not a body of knowledge but an intellectual activity designed to discover information about the natural world in which humans live. The body of knowledge is only a reason we can identify what a discovery is, and can be the inspiration to a true scientist. "ninety-nine percent perspiration, one percent inspiration", explained by Albert Einstein.
The factual reality of science being an activity does not restrict science to be only expressed by physical experiments. Science can remain a mechanism but not necessarily physical, rather it can also be an imagination; a deep conscious thought about our nature which may be possible. When Einstein was working on light quanta, he explained that gravity affects light and hence light is matter. Thus a beam of light from a point directed straight to its opposite point will not be incident on that point but a little lower due to a downward drag by the force of gravity.
Three years later, a bunch of scientists from Britain proved this to be true, by using the idea that: during solar eclipse, the light rays from other stars should be seen incident toward the sun due to the gravitation pull by the sun, as Einstein expected. The critical thinking here by Einstein did not involve any practical experiment but was still a process since that knowledge did not exist until his imagination drove him to the gates of wisdom, not only to himself but the world as a whole..

In my country, Ghana, students read science mainly due to the respect in the field. Students in the high schools accumulate a lot of knowledge from books and lectures with which they glare among non-science students.In the university, students come home on vacations with huge projects; well that is what they say.
One day, I visited my friend Samuel to discuss on how we were going to meet our designer.

salifu: so when are we going to meet this graphic designer? We need to finish things, you know.

samuel: I called him yesterday but he has a project to finish. You know he reads mechanical engineering.

salifu: really, so an engine I suppose.

samuel: no, that is not how the projects are done.They make researches from books and the internet and collate all gathered information as a booklet.

salifu: I thought you said he had a project.

samuel: yes, a project in Ghana, kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

This is the problem my country faces, science students unexpectedly turn out becoming only teachers. Teachers? I doubt, knowledge transfers will do and others later change their majors to become bankers.
Someone out there in my country reading this will say I'm a liar because practicals are done even in the High Schools. You need to know this: I have done experiments with the potentiometer for several times and been taught about capacitor but never realised what they actually are until I found out on my own. The potentiometer in the schools is only a representation of the real device but we are never told, and neither do we get the chance to see the real devices.
The manifestation in the theories, laws and principles of science and the currently generated scientific imaginations only get hibernated due to lack of enthusiasm which could be involved by the introduction of practical science. Students reading other courses in the very education as the science make mockeries such as," even your professors have never seen an atom, how much more you the students".
If I should comment on science as a course of study, I will say: science is the body of data so rational to help students exploit their very mind geared towards creation and manifestation of new thoughts known as scientific ideas. The lessons, books and other sources such as the internet are tools for a true science student, if one does not ponder over the theories, laws and principles, there will be no possibility for their rationality.

James Bryant wrote in science and common sense," the stumbling way in which even the ablest of the scientists in every generation have had to fight through thickets of erroneous observation, misleading generalization, inadequate formulations and unconscious prejudice is rarely appreciated by those who obtain their scientific knowledge from textbooks". James saw science as a body that needs correction and perfection of old knowledge. He saw the possibility that science, as it grows may have ideas that are actually untrue. Scientists therefore need to be in a constant process of experimentation to create and amend the science knowledge.
As a matter of fact, a true scientist is bored by knowledge, he always doubts scientific knowledge unless well proven.
Does this look close to knowledge from teachers and books only? knowledge is power but imagination is everything.

Interesting piece don't you think, was quite blown away when I was reading it, blaaaaah, as funny as it may seem , there is a lot of truth in there.

Its 9/12/2010.....and I flashback to the days when I used to sit in the hall with my elder brother and argue..I was just 10yrs old and I spoke as if I knew everything

and the 15 yr old dude I was arguing with knew nothing.

And I would go to any length to prove I was right and he was wrong. For me that was science, the fact that no thesis is good enough and that no principle or law fallible .

After all, it was enacted by flawed men, like myself.

In various discussions I have sought to make sense of many things but there has been limitations as to accessing the right resources.

Reading Salifu's piece just told me , If we will all begin to think and act alike and pull resources together we could discover science in a way that makes this journey even more exciting.

So the first thing we are going to do is, we want you to write to us and tell us about....the moment when you were scientist as with the description in my case and as in what you grasped from salifu's piece.

Want to have a feel of all the scientist breathing the air out there this very moment. Please express yourself vividly.

Send us an email : theiczine@gmail.com , ic_zine@rushpost.com

We will do well to publish most of them on our website and if possible the best on the part II of science is a verb not a noun.

Till next time............

Never stop questioning then, never stop reading , lets make our world a better place.