Action Over Theory
August update: Lessons from Oppenheimer, silicon oil lab spills, and learning AI
Hey! Welcome to A Nerd’s Shower Thoughts, a personal newsletter about the adventures of a teen green tech researcher, me!
Each month I discuss 3 life things I learned (with a good quote) recapping the past month, what I’m working on now, and at the end, I leave you with one question to think about.
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Hey! I’m Julia, a teen learning about how the world works. Right now, I’m obsessed with long-term carbon-free energy & fuel solutions and about nanotechnology in medicine, green tech and business.
I spent a week cleaning silicon oil this August!
It is a lot worse than it sounds; silicon oil is:
Incredibly stable to heat & other chemicals
Insoluble — it’s amazing at NOT dissolving in water & many cleaning solvents
Low surface tension — spreads out thin & sticks to surfaces very well
It basically looks like liquid plastic from how thick it is. So, when you spill it in a small place like a fume hood in a chemistry lab, regular soap and water take FOREVER to do their job. This, btw, was my special surprise on a beautiful, summer Monday morning when the oil started bubbling and popping like crazy during an experiment. These are the situations you learn the most from, especially in hands-on environments like university labs. Thank you silicon oil!
Other than cleaning silicon oil, I completed the Soft30 challenge! I finished building my website from scratch (sneak peek at the end)! Also, read half of the American Prometheus (great so far), & finished The Magic of Thinking Big and How to Win Friends and Influence People (basically a guide on how to be a dog).
September’s Quote 📖
“Theory will only take you so far.”
- Professor Ernst Lawrence, Oppenheimer film
I finally watched Oppenheimer, and I LOVED it! The movie had so many lessons I loved: freeing your mind to learn about different dogmas; the importance of politics and how only a few words can influence it greatly; and the amount of intuition Manhattan Project people had to have in their fields to make difficult decisions that could determine the fates of thousands was amazing.
One idea I so deeply appreciated was that theory cannot take you everywhere.
SPOILERS ALERT!
No matter how much planning, calculations, or thinking you do, you will never actually know if any of it is true unless you have physically tested it out. (Oppenheimer experiences this when he finds out the Germans achieved the previously impossible fission.) This goes for life experience and science too, but especially in science we should still very much rely on theory, it's probably the biggest driver for how we get evidence to even consider spending millions on experimentation. Still, there are points where theory simply isn't enough anymore, where you cannot remain stagnant and need more data. That was the urgency of the Trinity Test, taking a massive risk for experimentation with the slight chance of blowing up the Earth.
Month 2 of Catalysts
August was my last month volunteering at the Fuel Cells & Green Energy Lab at the Energy Research Centre (ERC), University of Waterloo. Thank you so much again to Xin, Prof. Xinguao, and everyone else in the group this was such a fun opportunity.
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Over the past 2 months, I learned a lot about how the research process in academia works, how to conduct useful experiments, and applications of green chemistry and engineering!
AI Recognition & Plastic-eating Machines
Plastic Tools
I participated in the Hack for the Environment hackathon with Adara Hagman and Valkrie Holmes this past August!
We built Microbe Matcher, a website that provides researchers with microbe combination recommendations that degrade various plastics and plastic combinations.
AI Tools
I also participated in a BenchSci hackathon with Zobia Imam and Purav Gupta!
We were tasked with creating an AI solution for problems around employee mental health, recognition, productivity or diversity. In less than 2 weeks we designed a tool that gamifies employee recognition to make it a regular part of remote working. The tool automatically analyzes meeting transcripts to document recognition between employees that are more quickly forgotten. Texts are stored in weekly changing leaderboards, personal performance analytics, and an affirmations bank.
BioV Building 🌱
I participated in the fourth season (s4) of buildspace! Buildspace is a school for people to take their ideas to the next level, building them!
For this round, I built more bio solar cells but this time I went on a more watery route, where I used algae instead of plants. I decided to begin building a light and air-powered lamp, that functions via algae’s metabolism.
I’m starting with a desk lamp first since it’s easier to get working as a first functional prototype compared to larger-scale lamps. Plus, I’ve started recording all my learnings and buildings on the BioV blog.
Cool Things I Found
A 46,000-year-old worm woke up
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A roundworm, and new species of nematode, kept itself alive for 46,000 years while under 40m of permafrost. Btw, a nematode’s average lifespan is only 20 days.
It did this by slowing its metabolism so much to achieve cryptobiosis (a fake death). The worms didn’t need oxygen or water, and this is the longest record of this “fake death” that researchers have found so far.
A worm has been revived after 46,000 years in the Siberian permafrost: 4-minute article about how to revive cryptobiotic worms.
After Conquering Space, Water Bears Could Save the Global Vaccine and Blood Supply: 7-minute article about the anti-expiring vaccines.
Could an extremophile hold the secret to redefining the treatment of devastating injuries?: 10-minute article about applying cryptobiosis to humans
A new kind of gunpowder: Hydrogen
A new start-up, Mach Industries, is reinventing defence systems by using hydrogen fuel for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), hydrogen generators, and munitions.
Hydrogen as a fuel has massive advantages like huge advances in projectile range and power, much longer loiter time and speed. Plus it’s interchangeable across all their Mach systems, and they can easily create in in the field.
Meet the 19-year-old MIT dropout ‘replacing gunpowder’ for the defence industry: 5-minute article about the early beginnings of Mach Industries
The first methane-fueled rocket reached orbit
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A private Chinese reusable rocket company, LandSpace, launched a test flight in mid-June for their Zhuque-2 rocket and made history for it reaching 450km in altitude!
Methane is the new accepted rocket fuel for many great reasons: it doesn’t create soot inside the engines like kerosene, can be stored at -161.6° C which is way warmer than liquid hydrogen at -252.9° C, and could even be a natural resource on Mars.
Chinese company wins race for first methane-fueled rocket to orbit: 6-minute article about the growth of the Chinese space industry with Zhuque-2
Space industry eyes next generation fuels to send rockets to new heights: 2-minute article about the best rocket fuels & what’s changing about them
Making Rocket Fuel From Water: 7-mintue article about moon water rocket fuel
Something to Think About 🧠
Should dangerous actions be justified for hugely beneficial outcomes?
As you can probably guess Oppenheimer sparked this thought.
I think most would agree that we should always have the filter in mind: how many people could be harmed & how bad. Though, as much as individuals, companies, and countries attempt to follow this mindset, there are so many worldwide examples beyond the WW2 nuclear bombings where dangerous actions melded with "beneficial decisions" and ended up hurting lots of people. So, I guess it depends on your morals, should any action that hurts humans not be justified, and always considered dangerous, solely focusing on the decision itself? Or should the outcome of the decision such as how many people saved vs people who could have been killed rule for justifying a dangerous action? Also, depending on each of these do you think each situation should be treated on a case-by-case basis, or not?
I believe justifications or non-justifications should be held on a case-by-case basis. Though there is room for biases and differences here as well depending on the case which saddens my love for accuracy. 😞
What do you think?
Into September
Personal website = DONE!
I finished my personal website!! But I am still waiting for my domain certificate, so here’s another sneak peek for you. 😉
University Life
I started nano engineering at the University of Waterloo this September and I’ve got lots to tell you: design teams, classes, parties, and carnivals!
The Knowledge Society Program
I’m starting activate, the second year of the TKS program, this September! I’m going to work on building up my ideas like bio solar cells into something worth investing to sell to companies!