MIT Grad Blog

The fun-ness of all this

He had soup kitchen 2 approached the window looking like everyone else: wrinkled, dry and leathered from the sun. He was hunched from sleeping in some urban crevice – a stairway, a doorway, maybe two or three in the same night. But his tired eyes were unblinking. He asked me again.

“Why are you here?”

I didn’t know what else to do, so I smiled, and offered him a plate. He didn’t take it; he pressed again.

“Why are you here? Are you having fun?”

“Um,” I replied, intelligently. After an eternity, he accepted his plate and moved away. He tossed his final thoughts over a withered shoulder. “This is not a fun place. Don’t have fun. I don’t know why you’re here.”

No one else at the shelter asked me any questions that night. Nothing more than the usual what’s your name, where are you from, can I have mine with no sauce, please. But his question would not quit. Would not SIT DOWN. Kept spinning and reeling and dancing in my head.

To be honest, it scared me. By the end of the night, I scared me. Mind you, I was no stranger to soup kitchens; a large portion of my adolescence was spent cheerfully racking up community service points by playing “Restaurant” at my church’s monthly feed. I donned my favorite apron and circulated the seminary room, doling out hot bowls of chili, refilling glasses of punch, and serving up seconds on cornbread and thirds on smiles. I smiled because this work made me happy – I was near food, I was feeding people, I was having fun. And THAT – that last bit – that was his question, and my fear. The fun-ness of all this. And whether I should be having fun.

It took a week of brain-racking and soul-searching, but I think I made peace with my friend’s question. He just wanted me to remember that those community service hours were serious, too. Those extra points on my pretty pink card may have been someone’s only meal that day, and after they turned in their plate, and I turned in my card, they went on to deal with problems bigger than I could ever hope to understand, and I just went to go home and wash my apron.

And now, even though I am long out of high school, and I return to shelters because I still like being near food and feeding people and doling out cornbread and smiles – despite all of these reasons for being here, I have to remember that what I am actually doing is something real and important. At its core, service is not something fun; it is something necessary.

Last night at the shelter, I smiled a little less, but stood a little taller and moved a little faster. My friend returned. “Back again, Crazy?” His eyes were unblinking, but this time I think I detected a smile. “Why are you here?”

I look what?!

“You look tired.” This definitely tops the list of “Ways Not To Start A Conversation With A Grad Student”. Other favorites include, “How’s your research going?”, “What year are you?”, and my personal nemesis, “So, when will you finish?”

I’m sure Timmy (names have been changed to protect the identity of the offender) did not mean to ruin my morning. But the fact is, when I hopped on the Northwest Shuttle and ran into Timmy, Timmy had greeted me not with “Hello”, not with “What’s crackin’?”, not with, “Catch that episode of Hell’s Kitchen last night?”, but instead with “You. Look. Tired.”

And as I stepped off the shuttle, and every time I stepped out my office to grab a drink of water, or ran down the hall to grab some notes from the printer, indeed all morning long – I just kept mouthing the words to myself in different ways, trying to impart some positive meaning to them.

i-is-tired-wurk-too-hard

“YOU look tired.”

“You LOOK tired.”

“You look TIRED.”

Nope, no two ways about, this is the grad school equivalent of the day someone calls you “Ma’am”.

On one trip to the printer, I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass of the Triaxial Consolidation Test for Cohesiveness of Soil poster hanging in the hallway. I studied my reflection over the faded diagram of a triaxial cell. What had Timmy seen? What had provoked this particular greeting? Bags under my eyes? Brows in need of plucking? Had I gone not far enough, or too far with the cosmetics? Should I have held back on the foundation and mascara? Or added more blush? Was it something bigger? Poor posture? Walking too slow? What, Timmy? What? WHAT?!

I slapped myself and continued towards the printer. Maybe Timmy had meant it as a compliment. MIT is a really special place. Work is kind of social currency around here. If I looked tired – it means I am tired – which means I’ve been doing things at night time – which at MIT means I’ve been working at night time – which means I’ve been working hard – which means Timmy actually respects me – which might mean Timmy even admires my work ethic. Maybe Timmy was simply greeting me with an acknowledgement of my high MIT social status owing to my hours and hours of hard work. Timmy didn’t mean, “You look tired,” he meant, “You look like a hard-working MIT student, the cream of the crop!”

Judging by the looks of the people in the computer lab, I think I actually said, “WELL WHO WANTS TO LOOK LIKE THAT?!” out loud as I snatched my printout from the HP Laserjet. I stormed back to my office with the intent of reading about the Conditional Expectation of Random Variables, but instead I just sat there and thought about Timmy. Timmy hadn’t looked all that hot himself. Timmy had a few bags under his eyes. Timmy could have sat up straighter, could have ironed his shirt that morning. ‘You know what, Timmy?’ I thought. ‘YOU look tired.’

I wanted to run back to Timmy and tell him that. But that would be mean. Instead I opted to turn my anger into good and let all you Timmy’s out there know that “You look tired” is no way to start a conversation. I don’t care if it’s midterm season, I don’t care if quals are coming up, I don’t care if your friend has bags the size of suitcases under her eyes, do not tell her this. Grab her arm and ask her “How’s it goin’?” instead. Take her for a coffee. Tell her a joke. Inquire about the latest episode of Hell’s Kitchen. Just – don’t go there, or you might actually give her a reason to look tired. And for both of y’all’s sake – you don’t want that.

Nobel Predictions 2009 – economics

I am only going to make predictions for economics. I think what makes sense is to predict which subfield would be awarded, and from there, we should be able to identify a short list.

Econometrics (Jerry Hausman (MIT), Halbert White (UCSD), Dale Jorgenson(Harvard))

Finance (Stephen Ross (MIT), Eugene Fama (Chicago))

Industrial Organization, Applications of Game theory and Theory of Contracts/Firms (Jean Tirole(Toulouse/MIT), Oliver Hart (Harvard))

Economic History (Paul David (Stanford), Joel Mokyr (Northwestern))

Wild Cards:
Alan Krueger (Princeton), Peter Diamond (MIT)

10 songs I’m listening to right now

a mix of classic rock, new stuff and the cheesiest 80s music possible.

Me and a robot saxophonist

Maybe my advisor sent him

Last Friday was one of those lovely days where you jump up, pack your books, and tell your office-mates you’re going to “go read in the sun” (Nothing can tear you, Scholar-of-Scholars, from your precious work — not even a gorgeous day.) Well I am a Scholar-of-Scholars, so I did that, and I was just getting really into the micro-detection of the plastic zone in metals beneath the shade of an ancient tree — when I sensed some movement near me. Some impatient movement.

I looked up. I screamed a silent scream and jumped up. About two feet away from my rear, well within my personal space, my human bubble of protection, was a squirrel. A gritty, street-wise, impatient squirrel. I know he was street-wise and impatient because he didn’t run away when I shouted at him. He didn’t flinch when I clapped my hands and raised my arms to look intimidating. I think he actually rolled his eyes. And chuckled. (Kind of like a group of tourists strolling along the walk at that moment.)

I was really creeped out so I kept backing up, and when I had stepped sufficiently out of his personal space, he hopped over my books, scurried right through where I had just been sitting, and paused beneath an open window on Building 1. He made sure that the coast was clear — and leaped into the window.

I didn’t dare sit down until he reappeared about three minutes later, empty-handed but in an impatient hurry. He scampered off to wherever he had come from. Apparently he had just needed to check on his experiment or something.

Central Park ain’t got nothin’ on the squirrels at MIT. From now on I’ll be doing my reading inside. With the window closed.

just another grad student

GSC Member Rings The NASDAQ Stock Market Opening Bell

Our very own, former HCA Chair, GSC mascot and rep to CJAC, Tanguy Chau!!!!

http://www.nasdaq.com/reference/200907/market_open_073109.stm

I’m a research genius

Determine the actual concentration of hydrogen peroxide by diluting 1:1000 and measuring the optical density at 240nm

That’s a piece of cake, I thought to myself. I’m an organic chemist; I’ve used a UV-vis spectrophotometer more times than I can counts! And the step makes perfect sense. Peroxides are unstable, and even under the best conditions they degrade over time to water and oxygen. The bottle I was working with was nearly a year old, so this step was essential to get accurate data about the antibacterial properties of the hydrogen peroxide.

I collected my reagents and equipment, did some quick math in my head. 1:1000 dilution, so that’s 1000 uL for every 1 uL, so that’s 1 mL for every 1 uL, so that’s 10 uL H₂O₂ diluted up to 10 mL total volume. Simple!

Pipetman in hand, I transfered 10 uL of H₂O₂ to a conical tube, then added 9,990 uL of distilled water. Just like I was taught in undergrad, make mixtures starting with the smallest volume so that you get more thorough mixing. No shortcuts here, no adding 10 mL and saying the final volume was close enough. I wanted this data to be good.

I turned on the spec, programmed 240nm, and threw in a cuvette with distilled water for my blank reading. Swapped it out and replace it with my sample, hit the read button. The machine paused, made the high-pitched whine that signaled it was analyzing, and popped the result on the LCD dispaly.

- 0.053

What?!? Absorbance values can’t be negative!

Alright, fine, no big deal. Something must’ve gone wrong. I know! Maybe the distilled water from the tap was relatively impure, and that threw off my reading. I’ll just try it again using distilled, deionized water for the dilution and the blank reading.

- 0.048

Damn! Ok, ok… maybe this H₂O₂ is old and a 1:1000 dilution is too much, so I’m out of the linear range. I’ll try using a 1:100 dilution, still using the distilled deonized water.

- 0.051

Huh…. ok… maybe this H₂O₂ is really old, so I’ll try a 1:10 dilution.

- 0.042

…what the hell, I’ll try it undiluted.

- 0.055

What the hell!?! I was at my wit’s end. I was ready to sue Fisher Scientific for selling me negative molarity H₂O₂. Why didn’t this work?!?

Ok, ok, calm down… maybe… hm, maybe my math is messed up in my dilutions? Maybe I’ve forgotten how to use a spectrophotometer? Maybe this isn’t actually H₂O₂? I ordered a fresh bottle of ACS certified, Baker analyzed, reagent grade H2O2. I asked one of the postdocs in my lab to sit and let me talk through the math with her, to make sure I was doing it right.

Me: An X% weight/weight solution means X grams of solute in 100 mL of total solution, right?
Her: Yep.
Me: And I can convert from grams of solution to volume of solution with the density, right?
Her: Yep.
Me: And the density of a 30% H₂O₂ solution is 1.2, right?
Her: Yep.
Me: And I can convert from grams of H₂O₂ to moles using the molar mass, right?
Her: Yep.
Me: And the molar mass of H₂O₂ is around 34, right?
Her: Yep.
Me: So a 30% solution of H₂O₂ should be around 9M, right?
Her: Yep.
Me: And a 1:1000 dilution means 1 uL for every 1 mL, right?
Her: Yep
Me: And…
Her: Brandon, why are you asking me questions I know you learned in high school?
Me: Because this damn step won’t work! It should’ve taken 5 minutes, and I’ve been trying for a week now!

She smiled a little, then looked curious. Then she stood up.

Her: Come on, let’s go do it right now and see if we can figure this out.

I happily followed her, confident that the problem had nothing to do with my technique.

Her: What wavelength are you doing your readings at?
Me: 240 nanometers.
Her: Hm, and which cuvettes are you using?
Me: Oh just the disposable plastic ones.

She raised an eyebrow at me, and I stared at her like she had a second head.

Her: Plastic?
Me: Yeah, I don’t…

And then it hit me.

Our disposable cuvettes are made of polystyrene. Polystyrene is a highly conjugated organic compound. Highly conjugated organic compounds absorb light in the 200-300 nanometer range. I knew that. I’d used UV-vis to identify conjugated compounds in my undergrad organic chem lab. So why had I been trying to take readings using cuvettes that absorbed at the wavelength I was analyzing?!?

I popped in a quartz cuvette and tried everything again. The result? 9M, right on the nose.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go lock my door before some thugs from my alma mater show up to take my degree away.

I can’t fix your computer

Here’s one I’m pretty sure every MIT student has had to endure at some point. It goes like this:

Non-MIT person: Hey, do you know how to deal with (random computer problem)?
MIT student: Uh, no…sorry.
Non-MIT person: What? You go to MIT, don’t you? And you can’t fix a COMPUTER?!?

The way I fix a computer is I buy a new one. The perception that MIT students are all computer geniuses is based on ignorance and stereotypes. True, a lot of people at MIT major in computer science, and a lot of technological work is done with computers, but just because everyone eats food doesn’t mean they all know how to cook.

And another one:

Non-MIT person: Do you know what the answer to (random question) is?
MIT student: Uh, no…sorry.
Non-MIT Person: Ha, MIT Boy here doesn’t even know how to solve it!

Ok, Tardtastic. Just because I did well enough in high school to get into MIT and somehow managed to fool my department into admitting me for MIT grad school does NOT mean I can solve every single problem ever conceived. I can barely even solve the problems in my own field of study. If I knew so much, do you think I’d be talking to you? No, I’d be thuggin’ with Stephen Hawking.

I think people from “prestigious” schools like MIT are automatically put at a disadvantage due to this amazing ability that everyone thinks they have. If people have few expectations of you, it’s easy to surprise and impress them. But if expectations are always high, disappointment is a single mistake away. It’s gotten to the point where I’m reluctant to tell people I go to MIT because I’m afraid of what they’ll automatically assume.

On the social front, though, the MIT reputation can work to our advantage. If you have the ability to converse with other humans and have a good time with minimal awkwardness, people will often say, “You don’t seem like you go to MIT!” Their expectations were so low that just being able to act somewhat normally impressed them. And it really makes you feel good, until a minute later when you’re talking to a hot girl and you knock over the punch bowl.

Quidditch!

I’m surprised I haven’t been almost-run over by an MIT quidditch player by now. Can you imagine being the snitch?

http://tinyurl.com/muggle-quidditch

Excerpt from the article:

“So how exactly does one play the Muggle version of Quidditch? As in the book, each team has seven players, but earthly competitors must get used to the difficulty of running with a broom between their legs (as well as throwing and catching one-handed). There are three chasers who toss around a quaffle (a deflated volleyball) trying to score into three elevated (hula) hoops which the opposing keeper defends. Then, there are two beaters who throw bludgers (deflated dogdeballs) at opposing team members; if players are knocked down, they must drop any ball in hand and run around to their goal area and back to account for the time that would be lost in falling from the sky. Lastly, there is one seeker per team (the position of HP himself), whose job it is to catch the snitch, ending the game.

Now, this is where you’ll find earthbound Quidditch at its most creative: An actual person embodies the snitch, which is a malevolent, flying, golden ball in Rowling’s version. This player, typically a lanky and nimble cross-country runner clad head-to-toe in yellow garb, has full domain of the campus, darting on and off the playing field as he or she chooses. The snitch has arguably become the most humorous part of the game, making a point to taunt other players and pull off various hijinks come gameday. Snitches have been known to tackle, do handstands, climb onto dormitory balconies, go on bagel runs (only to return to the field and peg players with the breakfast food) and even jump into nearby ponds in order to evade seekers trying to snatch the tennis-ball-in-sock hanging from their backsides.”

The Man of Steel

This was published in Nature a while ago (Nature 456, 836 (11 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456836a; Published online 10 December 2008). It was a very welcome breath of fresh air in the midst of all the technicalities and scientific rigor.

—————-

The suicide note itself wasn’t particularly remarkable.

Handwritten, of course. Even the oldest computers would have detected the quiver in the voice, or parsed the strained phraseology, and automatically alerted the authorities. The blue ink scratched its way across the paper, as if hard pressed to recall the individual shapes of letters. At one point the nib had pierced the white sheet. Few people wrote regularly with pens. It was still taught at school, but the odd love letter or shopping list was as far as most people got. And suicide notes, of course. This was no different; the writing was that of the very old, or the very young.

In a way the hand was old, the oldest that had still lived. But just as the sunrise is as old as time and new each dawn, so this hand was new: three months and twelve days, according to the factory’s records.

Even the words, the symbols of the man’s thoughts, were not worthy of note. They would have won no literary prize; inspired no doomed, romantic quest; enquickened no tired and demoralized army. The very human story was the usual one: of love, of ennui and, ultimately, of heartbreak.

No one, least of all himself, remembered quite when or how he had lost his first hand, more than 300 years ago. The accident was recorded, but if the loose-leaf binder still existed, the cheap ink was long faded into obscurity. Sometimes he claimed it was an explosion in a fume hood; at other times a gas cylinder had fallen from its moorings and crushed him.

What his memory was clear on, and what was attested to in the medical literature, was that he had attached (’single-handedly, haha!’ he would joke) an artificial limb to the remains of his own arm. Not a simple prosthetic, but a fully functioning organ of composite fibre, ceramic joints and golden threads carrying two-way nervous traffic. The body’s own electrical impulses provided power to the tiny servos that drove the slender titanium flexors and extensors.

No accident, the second prototype: it was tested and retested, planned months in advance. His wife directed the operation, and when he woke, his right arm to the shoulder was fully robotic. A fortnight later, while he was still delirious from antibiotics and analgesic, she was killed by a drunk-driver.

The record shows that he opened a new lab with venture capital, employed three dozen scientists and disappeared into his research. The exclusive clinic followed: he himself was its first patient, walking out on legs of alloyed titanium — and straight back into the lab.

Half a dozen more clinics started up across the nation, opening their doors to anyone whose medical insurance would pay the fees. For ten years the company replaced natural limbs with artificial constructs that were functionally equivalent to the original. More than equivalent: these never wore out, never got cancer, never got tired, never felt weak or cold.

For ten years the clinics operated and the lab researched. No papers were published, no patents applied for, and investors grew nervous. Interest waned. Two clinics closed; a third of the research staff was laid off. Rumours circulated, created by and lost in the noise of the Internet. It was another three years later when, finally, a press conference was called on the lawn of the first clinic, the handful of journalists who bothered to turn up were turned away — — and were called back, to face a man who under crepusculine clouds glistened.

The patents and the papers followed on the morrow: the artificial blood, the fuel cells, the intricate and minuscule fibres and vessels and motors: in short, a body wonderfully and fearfully man-made.

Only his face appeared natural, and over the following years even that was slowly replaced. Having no need of food, depending solely on a defined and especially formulated medium, protected by filters and powered by the elements, no toxins could threaten him. With hard, durable alloys and man-made composites in place of bones and tissues, redundant systems and every organ replaceable, he was all but indestructible.

Alzheimer’s had been cured by the time he reached 105, and the last bastion of mortality — the uncontrolled cell division leading to legion neoplasms — tamed a few years after that. And then he was a living brain in a metal and plastic shell, talking, walking and living: never fatigued, immune to all disease, the Tree of Life incarnate.

For 200 years he lived like this, never needing to eat: a weekly cocktail of nutrients and pharmaceuticals keeping the one, irreplaceable fleshly and uniquely human organ alive.

When the end came it was without fanfare or press conference. No papers were written, no patent lawyers notified. With the finest of Torx drivers he opened an access panel, removed a wire, took out a power cell, held it — his life in his own hands.

The suicide note of the world’s first immortal ended simply enough:

I cannot live without her.

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