What a lifetime in science is like: some recollections and observations

I wonder what I will say this evening that will make a mark on young minds. I must first and foremost say that I am or hope that I still am the child that I was in those formative years as a child. As Picasso said, as a child I used to paint as a grown-up, and as an adult I have tried all my life to paint like a child. It is a child that is imbued with curiosity about the world, and is filled with a wonder and an urge to know what is what. Every color, every sound, every smell is new and wondrous. To a child every adult is a repository of knowledge, or experience and of learning. In the field in which I work, it turns out that every stage one relives the experience of the child. To me this is the greatest aspect of being in the field of research and science about which I have been charged with the responsibility to speak to you about. In the era of YouTube (the CEO of which Susan Wojicki by the way is the daughter of a particle physicist Stanley) and of TedX talks, what is one more talk? Why one more? Why here? I am not using projection facilities for a reason. I learnt from Patrick Winston a professor from MIT who gave several talks on how to give talks has emphasized, and ever since I first heard him, it became obvious that we have only one language processor. If you are seeing and reading something, you do not hear the speaker, and vice versa. That is why today I decided that if I am to make a mark on you, it is only through the auditory channel. Of course you will watch me and my every gesture and every nuance, and I hope that you will take something away.

A friend of mine who works in the publishing industry in Delhi told me that Indian students like to read even technical books written by Indian authors. This struck me as something unusual, or something that I had not thought of. I think she meant that the way in which the turn of phrase takes place, or the way and example is brought out is also culture dependent. I know for a fact that our students like to have many steps worked out, and also like explicit demonstration. Every culture has its own style. For instance American books have a lot of diagrams and drawings, and different sub-topics in boxes. If this is the case for something that is inanimate like a book, then what about a talk? A motivational speech? It is of course an untested hypothesis, but I would imagine that looking at me and hearing me would be qualitatively different from watching a lecture by a famous American or European scientist talking about his or her experiences about a life in science. A lot is said about role models. In the context of role models for women, it is said that you can only be what you can see. Surely this must also be true for regional, national, cultural categories. It is often the case that role models that are presented or held up are remarkable persons, indeed some extraordinarily singular persons like, e.g., Srinivasa Ramanujan, or C V Raman or Satyendra Nath Bose, who are persons from another era, and another time. Others include great institution builders like Homi Bhabha or Vikram Sarabhai, but that was from an era when India was a young country. An individual at the cross-roads of history would make a huge difference. That is also the case for legendary persons such as Richard Feynman or Robert Oppenheimer, who were charismatic and also had their destinies tied up with that of the world itself, having been tempered in the crucible of history. What about the normal and the ordinary? My mission therefore is to offer a few words in this direction as to what a career in science and research and teaching, both of which are inextricably tied up together.

I do not need to offer a definition of science here. We all know what science is. Is the human effort to come to terms with the world around us. To find out the relationship between cause and effect, with rigor and reproducibility at the core and heart of it. It is to find a precise language independent of the era or the place, which is universal. Modern science as we know it probably came into being in the last few centuries. Empirical science is as old as civilization itself, the latter founded on the taming of nature, to find out the pattern to the cycles of nature, to put natural forces to the service of human beings. From the rise and fall of the tides to the prediction of rains or to the annual flooding of the Nile, to the making of Wootz steel and Chola Bronzes, art and civilization have gone hand in hand with science. It is on the one hand a great co-operative effort of civilizations themselves, and that of the individual striving on the other. While there is a dance between the needs and impulses and urges of individuals and the harmonizing of the needs of the general vs. that of the individual, history has marched on.

Today, science is an international enterprise. Large science projects from the human genome project to alpha-fold, or the Large Hadron Collider or the LIGO have teams of hundreds if not thousands of scientists. And yet we do know that ideas from individual trailblazers cannot be under emphasized. How is a young person to prepare and train herself or himself for this noble endeavor? It also has to be kept in mind that science is probably like a marathon to be run like a sprint or sprinting a marathon. There are innumerable pressures of competition and rat-race which is a feature of advanced capitalist society. There is little substitute for hard work and concentration, and persistence and perseverance. The rewards are the joy of discovery, that Eureka moment for which one may have to wait a lifetime. The process of scientific work requires a great deal of knowledge, assimilation, analysis and synthesis. Henri Poincare is said to have spoken of his Eureka moment, and so has Albert Einstein. Psychology of creativity has rested on 4 important milestones of preparation, incubation, illumination and verification, which clearly have nothing to do with a given individual, culture, era or national or any other kind of category.

My purpose in being here is to talk a little about what makes a voyage possible for someone from India and what are the life-experiences. While it is impossible to be anything but anecdotal, it seems to me that the life-forces that shape us are our birth-families and the cultures of the cities and towns in which we are born, about whether or not there is exposure to a culture of science and knowledge, in addition to abilities of individuals, at e.g., problem solving, and whether or not there is access to life-influences like peer groups, the educational institutions to which go, the kinds of teachers we have, the availability of books and libraries. I cannot understate the importance that these have had on my life. In my being here I offer myself as an example of someone who has had a life in science, albeit of a rather esoteric and technical type, where there is little I can share with a non-specialist except to say that my work has used mathematics, field theory, and physical models to try to improve our basic understanding of sub-nuclear phenomena, from the determination of the analog of the electric charge of the strong interactions, the lifetime of certain unstable particles, the search for patterns among the masses of elementary particles, deploying of tools to improve the knowledge of scattering processes, and finally to solve problems of evaluation of integrals that arise in general settings, but also make an appearance in physical problems. Each day that I work in this field I feel that I have learnt a little bit more. Whereas the human experience is often a little frustrating, it can also be elevating. Like it is in every sphere of human life. Elsewhere I have written about what it takes to become a physicist. The years of work and toil. It is inescapable. I should also comment on the fact that my undergraduate degree is in Chemical Engineering. Strangely I do not feel any separation between disciplines. To date I use the methods and techniques that I learned in my UG days and my Ph. D. studies days.

What I can say is that even today, I feel like a child in the sense that I feel I still don't know anything and like after every class in school I felt I knew a bit more, I feel that way after every little I effort. Of course, the cycle must go on. We educate others, the way we were educated in this great temple of learning and it is once again an honor for me to be here. I hope that every one of you will take away a little bit and I hope that this half-hour will make a difference to your life.

I will now turn to some general observations on communication, which is not part of your curriculum, but will nevertheless be an important part of your life. Whereas writing is probably one of the oldest and best and time tested forms of communication, modern technology has enabled us to communicate in a multitude of ways. Including what we are doing right here. Using electronic communication. This has opened the path to methods of communication that are audio-visual. Talks, seminars, presentations are by now part of human culture. When I began, seminars would feature people with transparancies, with several colours. In many countries shortages meant that a speaker could have only 2 or 3 transparancies. People would use every square mm of the transparency and write, with all kinds of squiggles and arrows and curves. But the times have changed. We all now have softwares to produce beautiful slides, with lots of pictures and moving elements, and emojis and little creatures sitting on them. While the possibilities are mind-boggling, the content is the important issue. There is no substitute to knowledge and being able to convey it properly.

I find that some of my students in the years they have been here have improved their communication skills dramatically. My seniormost student now has excellent communication skills, both written and oral. I am particularly impressed at the way in which my students are writing. It reflects a high level of understanding of the subject, maturity and the ability to communicate their ideas very precisely. So, the question is how do they get to this high level of writing communication? In my opinion, it comes from concentrated reading of other technical literature. To learn by reading and then expressing it through writing. To pay attention to grammar and to be state clearly what one wants to state. It is also important to use short sentences. Break them up. I did not have to explicitly teach my students any of these things. They just pick it up from the air. One of my former students, who sadly is no more, came from Nagaland. His writing English used to be grammatically ok, but the turns of phrase were a bit unusual. Probably he was translating from his mother-tongue. But within a year or two, his written English had changed and he was writing what I would call `normally'. His spoken English was just fine and face to face there was little chance of mis-understanding. The issue with writing is that you may not have a chance to explain.

Professor Patrick Henry Winston is quoted as saying “Most scientific papers are unintelligible because the authors either don’t know what they are doing or hallucinate that they are writing clearly.” Another quote from Patrick Winston “Your careers will be determined largely by how well you speak, by how well you write, and by the quality of your ideas… in that order”. Mónica I. Feliú-Mójer writing in Scientific American blog says, ``...science communication broadly, meaning any activity that involves one person transmitting science-related information to another, from peer-reviewed articles to tweets.'' She also says, ``Effective communication means transmitting your message clearly and concisely so that it is understood. It’s about engaging your audience – it’s about the ‘So what?’ and ‘Why does it matter?’ of your message. When scientists communicate more effectively, science thrives. Science is increasingly interdisciplinary and the ability to communicate more effectively across disciplines fosters collaboration and innovation. Being able to communicate the relevance and impact of their ideas and discoveries can enhance scientists’ ability to secure funding or find a job. It allows them to write better and more comprehensible research papers. It also allows them to be better teachers and mentors for next-generation scientists. When scientists are able to communicate effectively beyond their peers to broader, non-scientist audiences, it builds support for science, promotes understanding of its wider relevance to society, and encourages more informed decision-making at all levels, from government to communities to individuals. It can also make science accessible to audiences that traditionally have been excluded from the process of science. It can help make science more diverse and inclusive. Although having more scientists who are effective communicators benefits science and society greatly, there are still relatively few training opportunities for science students and professionals to develop these skills. Fortunately, effective communication skills are no longer perceived as soft skills. Increasingly, they are becoming part of the core professional skills every science student and professional should have.''

Let me end by thanking you for inviting me, and participating in the process of renewal.