He calculates the Fourier-transform of a rational function in his mind. He inverts a 9 by 9 complex valued matrix on the back of an envelope in ten minutes. At the age of 30, He publishes one chapter of a book and 10 articles every year, in 3 of these articles he is a single author. He works 11 hours a day in his room and he is always busy thinking or calculating. He knows the answer to any physical and mathematical question you ask. He must be a genius.

But if you tell such qualifications of our hero scientist to the people who are sunning at the beach or are shopping in the street, if you could ever manage to describe what those qualifications mean and how somebody can attain them, statistically speaking he will be tagged as a nerd.

I also have my own nerd-factors. I do get sleepless when I have an unfinished abstract for my article. I dream of discussions with one of my supervisor’s coworker whom I have seen only once but read many papers from. I wake up three o’clock in the morning with an idea for a new experiment and I cannot sleep before writing down the idea. I do not consume Ritalin, but I do dope myself with cup after cup of coffee to keep myself awake for finishing my data analysis, simply because I’m not patient enough to wait for the results till the next day. I am usually silent during the lunch time because I cannot distance my mind from the experiment I was performing. Over all this hardship, I have no complaints because I am fascinated by this endeavor.

But I am depressed from the inability to describe to my parents what my daily challenges are; why am I excited one day and exhausted the other day? I like to enlighten my neighbors, and not to confuse them, about what my job is. My success stories motivate nobody in the gym. The excellence of my destination conference charms no passenger in the train.

The gap between the scientific community and the society is far too wide to let me enjoy any sense of social satisfaction based on my profession.

print • E-mail • Share: