Two Cultures (again)

I want to share the following with everyone.

I am now attending a Bio Physics Conference in San Diego, in the state of California, US. It is the western coast of US, and San Diego is a beautiful city on the shores of Pacific. There is much to say about California and its wonderful people. But I would reserve that for another occasion.

The conference is organised by University of California, San Diego (UCSD). About 300 students and researchers from many countries have come here. To my surprise there are a few old friends and acquaintances; and there are also many big names in real flesh and blood sharing their most recent work. Altogether the atmosphere is friendly and enthusiastic.

People came from different areas of biological physics; those who study physics of cancer, dynamics of cellular processes, self organization and pattern formation in biology, the science of protein folding, theory of simple behavior, and so son and so forth. To accommodate these varied and wide interests, the sessions would run parallel. But in plenary sessions we would all assemble in a single hall to listen to a leader in one of the fields. The quality of the plenary speakers is attested by the fact that, out of six, three were Nobel laureates- I have to admit it is the first I came across so many good people in a single place.

Yesterday we listened to Roger Tsien, who won the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2008. Dr. Tsien looked Chinese, but spoke impeccable English.  He looked very confident, and took the listeners with him quite easily. Tsien spoke non stop for an hour, frequently cracking jokes that made us all alert and waiting. He works on florescent proteins, and his latest attempt is to try to make cancer tumors fluoresce so that surgeons can remove them completely. All his talk was only about his darling fluorescing molecule. Even his jokes were about his molecule- after a while he started attributing human qualities to them. He cared them, scolded them, got angry, and showed how their stubborn nature could be manipulated to the best advantage of a surgeon or a neuro biologist. During the talk, Dr.  Tsien showed results that are only a few days old and narrated his difficulties obtaining that data- he wanted an ultra fast camera to collect that data, and he borrowed the camera from a manufacturer "under the pretext of doing a demo experiment". Now he will have to use that result to convince the funding agency to buy that camera for him!

After the talk we all felt he was extremely smart. He knew how to give good talks, how to ask a right  research question, and found a way to a carry out that work. This guy is indeed a big scientist. 

Today evening we had Ada Yonath. Ada is an old lady from Israel, and she spoke slowly about Ribosome structure. It was as if she was translating as she spoke, picking words one after other.  Her slides were less flashy, and style of delivery poor. Among people like Tsien around, she appeared naive and simple, like a good old grand mother. Ada spoke of ribosomes as if they were her babies; over years of painstaking work, she had unraveled their structure. And she then said how that knowledge can be used to beat drug resistant bacteria. "You cannot prevent them completely. Bacteria want to live too, and they will find a way to get around". Then as she finished she went on to show pictures of her mentors, students , and daughters. Then she showed a painting gifted to her by her grand daughter: 'Ada is the grand ma of the year'.  "This is the best award I received- and I have got it for last five years consecutively!  .... I wanted to show this, to show you that it is possible to do science and still have a loving family". She went on to show now how in Israel people imitate her hair-do and a caricature of hers by an admirer.

Then the organizers announced it was Ada's birthday. She just turned 72. A big cake was brought in, and Ada was overwhelmed, and tears started rolling through her eyes.

I could not help thinking about the contrast between two scientists, Ada and Rogers. There is an obvious difference in gender, but Ada has elsewhere said that did not matter to her (in last 45 years, she is the first woman to win a Nobel prize in Chemistry). I went on to check their biographies in Wikipedia. Tsien's biography says he is the 34th grandson of the king Quian Liu of the kingdom of Wuyue, China. His family always had very important engineers all through- his uncle started China's ballistic missile program, and his relatives are professors in the best universities around. "I am doomed by heredity to do this kind of work", he says.

Ada's family emigrated to Israel from Poland, and her father was rabbi and ran a grocery shop. Her father died prematurely and she was exposed to abject poverty and starvation. She started working to support her family and her own education at the age of eleven. Unlike Tsien, science was a luxury she could afford only later in her life. Ada said: "(simple) survival is far more complicated and much more demanding (than doing science) ... when you are hungry, you are hungry!"

I saw Ada sitting in the beach that night. She looked happy but thoughtful. I saw many young people going to her individually. They are not surrounding her to hear an inspirational speech from a great orator. She is speaking to them like a simple old woman and a mother. But otherwise she sat there alone, abandoned to wander in her world. I got the courage to go, because she did not appear like a big scientist  or a Nobel laureate. I told her that her talk was very inspiring. She blushed- and smiled heartily. "Thank you", she said,  "thanks for letting me know".

I had always ranked a scientist along with poets and writers and other great visionaries. All I saw was some smart people. Standing in front of this unpretentious woman, I felt I have seen a scientist of my imagination. I should have captured the moment, because she represents a fast vanishing tribe. But I could only stand there, feeling the breeze and the murmur of Pacific.