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| Robin Hood |
 Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:35 am Post subject: Your childhood attitude to science? |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 35
Location: Nottingham
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What were your childhood attitudes to science? Were you always destined for a life in science? Were you obsessed with chemistry sets and dissecting ants?
Or did your interest develop later in life?
Would love anyone to post memories or funny anecdotes...
I'd like to pop them on my website to accompany a film I've made featuring UK scientists' childhood memories in this way... see some here:
http://www.test-tube.org.uk/videos/pages_promo_film_november.htm
(childhood memories start about 60-90 seconds into the film)
My favourite is Dr David Scott from the University of Nottingham saying he became interested in "species" because he didn't understand why dogs and cats couldn't have babies!
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Check out scientists doing their stuff
http://www.test-tube.org.uk/ |
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| Algae |
| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 08 Nov 2007
Posts: 8
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I was first interested in religion which brought me to cynicism of it which than lead me to philosophy than turned my interest of science, especially space science. Of course both of my parents are phD scientists...so I followed the trait.
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С днем рождения, нежная моя... |
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| paralith |
| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Cosmic Wizard
Joined: 06 Jun 2007
Posts: 2326
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I distinctly remember my family I getting together and watching sunday night nature documentaries on PBS, which was always one of my favorite things. I also was particularly fond of toy animals, both plastic and stuffed, and accumulated loads of them. And, I liked dinosaurs. But I think that's as science-y as my childhood got outside of school related things. It wasn't until late college that I truly formed a solid vision of my future in science.
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Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
~Jean-Paul Sartre |
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| Demen Tolden |
| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Bachelors Degree
Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 486
Location: St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
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I really wish I had been more interested in science when I was in highschool, but the fact is that I really wasn't. I actually was under the impression back then that there really wasn't much more to discover. The only thing that really held a sense of mystery for me was art related studies such as painting, drawing, stage performance, music, and movies. In these subjects I felt there was an infinite amount of knowlege to learn and that my efforts to study these subject would not be wasted like they would have been in science.
My interest in science really came about in the same way that Algae discribes for himself. Early this year I accidently ended up reading a book that contained a lot of philosophy, and this sparked an idea to learn a bit more. Before I finished the book I was reading though I ran into a friend that was studying Joseph Campbell. Joe Campbell really changed everything for me by drawing connections from the art I loved and studied for such a long time to ideas of the human psyche, and suddenly I was obsessed with the question why. I started asking questions about everything, and researching the answers to everything. This lead me eventually to physics.
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Emotions are contagious, and passions create room for ignorance. Please treat others with kindness so that we can all understand each other and are not waylaid by needless hostility. |
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| KALSTER |
| Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 6:32 am Post subject: |
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Moderator
Joined: 08 Sep 2007
Posts: 4267
Location: South Africa
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I was always one of those kids that kept on asking why. I always opened all my electric toys and soldered extra batteries to make them go faster, lengthened the cord from the control box to these cars and opened everything I could get my hands on to see how they looked on the inside. In primary school, I read all the science related books in the school library as soon as I was allowed to. In sixth grade I went to the public library and started reading all the science fiction I could get my hands on. I read all the Dr Who books they had and started moving over to non-fiction. In the eighth grade I started on more advanced books and discovered all the gems from Arthur C Clark, Asimov and the like. I'd rather watch documentaries than sitcoms and movies, except for sci-fi movies like Star Wars and Star Trek. (Strangely, I always stayed up late for the French art movies). I will never forget watching Contact for the first time and the overwhelming excitement I felt when Jodie Foster first heard the repeating pattern on her headphones. I waited until 3 in the morning once for the first images of the Mars Lander to be shown on Sky. In Short, I have always been fascinated by science in general and I never understood why nobody else shared my fascination.
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Disclaimer: I do not declare myself to be an expert on ANY subject. If I state something as fact that is obviously wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me. I welcome such corrections in an attempt to be as truthful and accurate as possible.
"Gullibility kills" - Carl Sagan
"All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it." - Harry Block
"Always drink upstream from the herd." - Unknown
I am a Bright. |
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| (In)Sanity |
| Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 6:53 am Post subject: |
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Campus Security
Joined: 19 Oct 2004
Posts: 2927
Location: Phoenix AZ
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Let's see, I was soldering at 5 and programming at 8. I use to read technical reference manuals as a kid for enjoyable reading. In the end I would say I was just kind of destine to the field. Nobody else in my family had the same drive in that direction.
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| Quantime |
| Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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The Doctor
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Posts: 4107
Location: England
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I used to like Space as a child and Star Trek. Never really cared about how things happened or why. But I was told I had the potential to be a great scientist, and then one night about `.5 years ago I had a brilliant idea about the universe and since then my love of Physics has rapidly grown and so has ALL my knowledge. My IQ was about 102 then, its now 126. An increase of 24 in 1.5 years.
I personally beleive God pushed me in that direction some how. Shortly after my beleif in science I found Christianity and beleived in that too. How ironic ey?
I tell you God works in extraordinary ways.
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Merry Christmas! Oh wait its over isn't it? Happy Valentines day! Oh wait that was too soon also, Happy Eas-... Screw it... Merry Christmas! |
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| sunshinewarrior |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 7:11 am Post subject: |
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Moderator
Joined: 26 Sep 2007
Posts: 1531
Location: London
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| I'm not a scientist (as I confess in my introduction) so my approach to it has always been a bit more armchair than hands on. But I realised I was interested when I was 5 or so and wanted my dad to tell me whether submarines were made of iron or of steel. |
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| Bunbury |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:52 am Post subject: |
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Forum Professor
Joined: 26 Sep 2007
Posts: 1560
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I'm not a scientist, I'm an engineer. I had some vague notion about going into the arts; I even enjoyed reading Paradise Lost for O-Level English Lit. Then O Level results more or less forced reality upon me, and A-Level chemistry was so easy and clear that Chemical Engineering seemed the right way to go.
My interest in science arose from a lifelong skepticism, rather than any deep love of science itself. My dad gave me a book called "The Universe" that had a picture of the "Primordial Atom" in it. I thought, "all right then, where did it come from", which of course the book didn't address. (My son treasures the book now as an antique  ) |
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| KALSTER |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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Moderator
Joined: 08 Sep 2007
Posts: 4267
Location: South Africa
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Yeh, my dad had a paperback edition of Asimov's I Robot from 1968. I must have read it more than 20 times growing up.
_________________
Disclaimer: I do not declare myself to be an expert on ANY subject. If I state something as fact that is obviously wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me. I welcome such corrections in an attempt to be as truthful and accurate as possible.
"Gullibility kills" - Carl Sagan
"All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it." - Harry Block
"Always drink upstream from the herd." - Unknown
I am a Bright. |
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| goodgod3rd |
| Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 02 Feb 2005
Posts: 982
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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always had some interest in science, from when i was younger. kept with me all the way through secondary school, and now im here.
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Stumble on through life.
Feel free to correct any false information, which unknown to me, may be included in my posts. (also - let this be a disclaimer) |
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| Robin Hood |
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 15 Oct 2007
Posts: 35
Location: Nottingham
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| captaincaveman |
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Professor
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1460
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I have always had an interest in certain parts of science, mainly the electronic side, school quashed my love of physics and chemistry and it was only rekindled after i left from my own person interests and jobs(lab technicians, prototype engineer etc)
But school almost made me hate it
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I ANSWER TO NO-ONE - The wonders of athiesm
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| spuriousmonkey |
| Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:42 am Post subject: |
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Forum Professor
Joined: 12 May 2005
Posts: 1905
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I was always reading (looking at pictures) of the large popular science books that you my mother ordered from a specialized company. You know, the one where you are stuck with ordering for at least a year because the first order is relatively cheap.
Those books came in a few categories. A lot were about the war. My father liked those and I devoured them too.
The others were picked by my mother and were more sensible. There was one fantastic book on animal life. It went through the animal kingdom in a thorough fashion absent in the more modern versions. There was a lovely book on natural sciences with topics ranging from plate tectonics, to how rain falls. Loved that book too.
And then there were some substandard books on different animal groups.
I would read and re-read them. Mostly just going through them and look at the pictures when I was a tiny lad.
When i was a bit older I would start to actually read the text.
I still have fond memories of these specific books, although they are no great masterworks of science, or famous ones.
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