AsianScientist (Sep. 20, 2016) – The Olympic flame, symbolic of the fire that Prometheus stole from Zeus in Greek mythology, has been extinguished in Rio.
The Olympic Games have concluded; glory has been won, records made and broken, and the specter of Zika virus appears to have been beaten back by the cudgel of human ambition and sporting excellence. Now begins the four-year wait for the next Games to come around; an eternity for some, the blink of an eye for others.
In some ways, the Olympic athletes represent all of us in the search for higher peaks in our lives. Through them, we glimpse an irrefutable truth—that hard work and dedication are the seeds from which greatness takes root and grows into a resplendent bloom.
As I watched snippets of the Games’ closing ceremony in all its vibrancy and fanfare, I began to think that the athletes’ path to the Games might not be so different from the journey in science.
Many interlocking rings
Could activities so different in physical intensity as sports and science share common ground? Well, for starters, there is a flame. Sparked by parents, guardians or mentors, the scientist-to-be develops a burning interest early on in life that charts the course for his or her future academic inclinations.
Staying the course, this kindling can grow to become a bonfire of curiosity and resilience—both hallmarks of a good researcher. The person who bears this flame also traverses great distances, graduating from one education center to the next, an Olympic torch relay in its own sense.
Whether by coincidence or by design, four-year intervals seem to be the accepted length of time for academic preparation, as it is with preparation for the Games. Four years of cramming for the bachelor’s degree, followed by four years of training for a PhD degree, then another four years later, a bid for faculty positions.
Take longer if you must, but in science as in sport, we all run against time. Only here, the scientist has a slight advantage because age does not easily erode a keen and active mind, whereas youth more quickly upsets the medal podium for an older athlete.
Just like the many different sporting events in the Olympics, there is great diversity in science. An Olympic swimmer may select from an array of competition styles—the butterfly, the freestyle, the backstroke—each with its own set of competitive distances. Similarly, each scientist may choose a scientific discipline to ‘contest’ in, and here you will find fields within fields of scientific expertise.
I call myself a biologist, but I might be a biochemist, a structural biologist, a synthetic biologist, a bioinformatician; the list goes on, depending how thinly you want to carve up the pie. I can be a bit of each if the science leads me where I cannot help but follow. Often, the scientist chooses the field of interest. Yet sometimes, the field chooses him or her to be its champion. NEXT PAGE >>>
