KRISHNARISHNA MURTY KOMMAJOSYULA RTICLE A U EATURE F I recall the story of Isidor Isaac Rabi, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance that has today led to MRI scans. A press reporter once asked Rabi, “What made you a scientist?” He answered, “My mother made me Dear Taranga, a scientist without ever intending to. Every Now that the celebrations are receding other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her and the infant boy who has just entered child a er school, ‘So? Did you learn anything into our family fold is tripping and today?’ But not my mother. ‘Izzy,’ she would walking, I thought I would write you this say, ‘did you ask a good question today?’ That letter. Well, your son reminds us of your quality—asking good questions—made me a childhood when you fell off the steps scientist that I am today.” in that great silk lehenga or when your Mothers make great men and brother fell face down wearing his short women. Never discourage your child or new pants. Technology now brings us dissuade him from asking questions. It is closer as we can watch him on Skype or his birth right. Children have the uncanny Whatsapp. We are delighted to watch his sense of asking questions at the most Isidor Isaac Rabi antics and hear his scrambled screamings. inopportune moments. If you are not able But let me tell you that babies to answer his question, then fi nd a source, and proceeded to answer them.” Children come into the world with many innate a reliable source. have a confusing curiosity to know things abilities. These abilities develop slow or When asked how he came up with and relate them. Leonardo da Vinci said, fast depending on various environments the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein “The desire to know is natural to good created by us. said, “I asked myself childish questions men…If you are good men or want to be 29 Science Reporter, FEBRUARY 2016 FEATURE ARTICLE good, you should ask questions and get Albert answers, of course!” Einstein at Let me tell you the story of one of the age three greatest scientists of all time. Passionately Curious He did not speak until age 3. When he did, it is only to ask a strange question. When he was two years old, his pregnant mother told him that a surprise was waiting for him. The child was naturally looking forward to an exciting new toy. After a few months, his mother showed him his new baby sister Maja. He threw a queer look at the infant and after a while asked, “Where are the wheels?” Can you guess who? Albert Einstein. That curiosity drove him down the road of discovery and exploration. He often said, “I am neither especially clever nor especially gi ed. I am only very, very Albert Einstein curious.” Once at the age of fi ve, he was bed ridden; his father Hermann gave him a magnetic compass. It was the fi rst time Edison as a Thomas Alwa Edison he saw a compass. The new device pulled boy him out of the bed stirring his intellect. Poor thing was obstinately pointing to the magnetic north, whatever he did, shake, twist or turn. Fever had gone but the passion continued. He was curious to know “something behind things, something deeply hidden.” He “never ceased to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we are born.” Encourage your child in his curiosity, never stifl e it. Give your child freedom of exploration. Allow him to wander in the neighborhood of intellectuals and interact with them tugging the curiosity along. If you kill his curiosity, he might prejudge you to be incapable. Many parents agree that they are stumped by the science Do you know that a fully-grown questions their children ask. While domesticated adult elephant weighing answering, you try to learn. Children’s several tons is just tied to a twig with a inquisitiveness kindles interest. Your thin rope? It won’t escape; in fact it feels encouragement inspires them. that it cannot and won’t even try. They are trained in helplessness. On the other hand, a young elephant is tied to a large Learned Helplessness tree trunk or pole. Initially the baby elephant cries for freedom, tries hard. Walk into any home with small children, Then it gives up hope and realizes its you will hear the father chiding his child, helplessness. When it grows, it continues “Don’t do it! You will hurt yourself!; usually the result of repeated failures or with a trained pessimism. “You are good enough only for second scorn by a superior. When he falls prey to grade!” We inculcate fear, discourage Do not let your child fall prey to this, give him a gentle push. Encourage inherent abilities, and make unfounded this “learned helplessness.” When this him to unlearn. judgments. We prepare our children for manifests, individuals gradually develop You are his fi rst teacher and of helplessness. disinterest even to attempt simple tasks, course his best teacher. Some of the Science Reporter, FEBRUARY 2016 30 FEATURE ARTICLE Marie Curie’s daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won the Chemistry Prize in 1935 with her husband. Her second daughter was the director of UNICEF when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. That’s a total of fi ve Nobels in the family. Hunger in the family?? greatest scientists were the products of Right: Marie their mothers alone. Read an extract from Curie and her a biography by Francis Arthur Jones on husband Pierre Thomas Alwa Edison (published in 1907): Below right: Curies “I did not have my mother very long with daughter Irene but in that length of time she cast over me an infl uence which has lasted all my life. The good eff ects of her early training I can never her resources and working here lose. If it had not been for her appreciation and there, his mother sent him to and her faith in me at a critical time in my the University of St. Petersburg. experience, I should very likely never have Her dying words to Mendeleev: become an inventor. “Refrain from illusions; insist on work and not on words. Patiently She believed that many of the boys who search the divine and scientifi c turned out badly by the time they grew to truth.” manhood would have become valuable citizens Researchers debate whether if they had been handled in the right way those great persons are born when they were young. …. I was always at geniuses or inherit creativity the foot of the class. I used to feel that the from their parents. Child teachers never sympathized with me and that motivation and development are my father thought that I was stupid, and at no doubt important factors in last I almost decided that I must really be a the ultimate growth. A nurturing dunce. My mother was always kind, always environment deserves more sympathetic, and she never misunderstood or prominent place than DNA. misjudged me. But I was afraid to tell her all Neither genetics nor environment my diffi culties at school, for fear she too might appears to work alone. Take the case of Human Photocopies lose her confi dence in me. the Curies, a complicated combination of Until October 2014, Lawrence Bragg One day I overheard the teacher tell the both. The Curies were the most successful was the youngest Nobel Laureate. He inspector that I was ‘addled’ (mentally ill) “Nobel Prize family.” shared his Prize with his father, William and it would not be worthwhile keeping me in Bragg for the analysis of crystal structure; school any longer. I was so hurt by this last effectively the duo founded modern Nobel Family – Noble Family straw that I burst out crying and went home crystallography! Marie Curie lived in some of the toughest and told my mother about it. Then I found out Danish scientist Niels Bohr won the circumstances. Then with relentless work what a good thing a good mother was.” Nobel Physics prize in 1922 and his son and fanatic faith, she won the Nobel with Aage Bohr followed him with a 1975 Edison’s mother defended him before her husband, Pierre. And one more on her Nobel. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1924 his teacher and then decided to take him own! out of the school and homeschool him. was awarded to Manne Siegbahn and That ultimately had a big impact on the Her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, his son Kai Siegbahn received a Nobel man that he became. won the Chemistry Prize in 1935 with in Physics in 1981. Hans Karl August her husband. Her second daughter was Simon von Euler-Chelpin was awarded a Remember Mendeleev, the maker the director of UNICEF when it won the joint Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1929 and of the periodic table of elements? Who Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. That’s a total of Chelpin’s son Ulf von Euler received a made him? His mother!! He dedicated fi ve Nobels in the family. Hunger in the joint Nobel in Medicine in 1970. his famous book to “a woman, who had family?? Well, we do not have a formula to instructed by example and corrected with Despite having faced the most trying create human photocopies. Intellectual love.” of circumstances, the Curies organized capacity could be inborn but a gentle Mendeleev’s mother had to support the best education, enlightenment and nudge in the right direction paves the way the family of nine when his father lost encouragement for their children.