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2004's Science Talent Search Winners Are In
Slate is running an article about this year's Science Talent Search (concentrating on things like whether the participants are "weirdos"); there are better descriptions of the top entrants' projects at this results page. Congratulations to the winners!
I won my senior year in high school and now all I do is post on /.
I wonder how many of them had help from their parents...
Now i feel old AND stupid. Thanks a lot you insensitive clod!
I guess fart lighting is too controversial for the judges
One of My friends was an Intel Semi Finalist, He worked on his project for about 6 months. Lucky guy now got into MIT.
"Like any company eager to burnish its brand, Intel had produced a brochure with the finalists' bios and a description of their projects--from Boris Alexeev of Athens, Ga. ("Minimal Deterministic Finite Automata--DFAs--for Testing Divisibility"), to Ning Zhou of Plymouth, Minn. ("Quantitative Trait Loci Modulating Corpus Callosum Size in the Mouse Brain")." Did they supply a dictionary with that brochure, as well?
And the winner -- for the 10th consecutive year -- is... Clifford Stoll!
Come on up Cliffy, and give us another spaz^H^H^H^Hspeech!
Oh, that is bloody fucking terrible. This is the worst -- you are the worst scientist I have ever seen. Listen, do the world a favor and keep this... this thing away from us all. Kill yourself. Move far, far away and just hurl yourself off a cliff. Your parents ought to be ashamed of having you. Just... just take this 'cure for cancer' and get the hell out of my studio!
Now, where's the hot scientists?
</British Accent>
That said, looks like some rather spiffy stuff there.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
old Westinghouse science competition years
ago. The one thing that connected all the kids
was their PhD parents. Usually two.
Breeding will out.
-- ac at home (not my real name)
egged cars, or lit shit on people's door steps. As bright as these young people are, I think it's unfortunate that they have missed out on some of the more enjoyable things in their adolescents, especially the home schooled kids. If they truly enjoy it though, more power to them.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
The Slate article is insulting. There is no other way to put it. The starting assumption that these kids would be so-called weirdos is silly, though perhaps unfounded. The stated "corollary" that "The more homegrown a young researcher, the more humdrum (by Intel standards) his or her enterprise--and the more exotic the kids' names, the more esoteric their topics" and the associated analysis of project titles is equally silly. Intel project titles are shaped by the conflicting influences of showing scientific merit (thus specific, and probably incomprehensible for people outside of the field of research, titles) versus appealing to a lay audience (such as the author of this article?).
... was on American ingenuity -- useful applications rather than elegant speculations." The story about the first prize winner's project, if anything, could perhaps reflect some politics in Intel's judging. The listed applications for the other projects are just that -- applications. When you do a theoretical project, you're forced into a position of "selling it." People will come up to you and ask you why what you did matters, and for the majority of them it will not suffice to extoll the value of intellectual development for its own sake. Very few STS finalists would be willing to say "this was just interesting theoretical work, with no immediate applications" (even if that is the complete truth). Am I devaluing their work? Absolutely not! I'm currently working on my mathematics degree, and I'm very much leaning towards pure math -- the more theoretical the better. If anything, I'd like to point out the viewpoint that "useful applications" are important is very dangerous. You can't always be looking at the short term, or significant advances won't happen.
;)
The author later implies that these kids "may get short shrift from their popular peers" -- the standard "nerd" with no social skills stereotype. While, without a doubt, some of these kids fall into that mold, it is far from true for some, and in fact most, of them.
Lastly, the conclusion, in addition to perhaps being at odds with the earlier analysis of names, states that "the premium this year
Overall, the Slate article displays a certain viewpoint and tint that I find very distasteful (just look at the cartoon they chose to have accompany the article!).
With that, I'd like to congratulate the current crop of finalists. I hope they enjoy their time in the limelight, so to speak. It should be truly a wonderful experience. I personally know several of them and know that they most definitely deserve it.
Truth-in-commenting Addendum: I say the above as a former STS Top 10 awardee, so I'm not entirely impartial here
This is quite depressing, I am as old as the oldest of them and what have I done, nothing remotely that cool.
:p
Maybe its time to finally accept this fact and settle into a night of Jerry Springer
... that somebody would give me between 20.000 and 100.000 $ for each theorem I proved. These kids are lucky...
Why the MSN article gets choosed for /., with it's lame analysis of subject titles and physical attributes of the contestants, is beyond me.
Herbert Mason Hedberg, 17, of North Attleboro, beat up Andrei Munteanu, 18, of Washington, D.C., despite his pleas for mercy. Hedberg proceeded to steal his "Plans A through G" leaving Munteanu with his dreaded "Plan H."
Hedberg also gave "Plan B" to his mother, who posed as Linda Brown Westrick, 18, of Mechanicsville. The locations of plans C - G are unknown, though suspected to result in misfortune for a dean somewhere.
"I just realized: these nerds are getting popularity amongst their nerd friends. Now, that may not be great popularity, but hey, it's something. We can't let them be liked by each other. So I figure, beat one up, take his glory from his nerd friends and later beat them up, too. Everybody wins, really," commented Hedberg as he bludgeoned his opponent's faces with his trophy.
Boris Alexeev, 17, of Athens could not be reached for comment as he was reportedly hiding from Hedberg using his patented invisible makeup.
I really would like to know how much each competitor was helped by parents/people in the field. Neither of my parents have any college education (and one didn't make it through high school), so I can speak from experience that not having a scientist/engineering background makes life a whole lot tougher when you get into the field. Were these awards picked simply on end results? Or did they "normalize" the field by throwing out those who had two PhD's for parents?
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Any one else notice that 8 of the top 10 are from the East Coast, 4 of those are from the mid-atlantic (DC, Maryland and Virginia) and the absolutely none are from California or anywhere near silicon valley?
;)
I've always had my doubts about intelligence behind some of the things I hear from California.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
1) Most of the finalists had obviously a lot of help from outside and sometimes access to people and equipment mere mortals do not. For example a FIB machines as used by one of the finalists is only owned by a few chosen universities.
2) Many of them to be first or second generation immigrants (judging from name, style etc.) Again, this shows how lost the US would actually be without immigration.
Not to steal the kids' glory or anything, but we've been using dialysis at work for that very purpose for well over two years. Nice try though.
These are all Young Republicans... and have obviously been selected more for how they look than any academic merit!
What's the deal with the periods instead of commas? I've seen lots of people from england do this, so I can only assume that it's some kind of standard convention in the rest of the world (I'm from the US). I'm wondering, when you want to express a number, such as 20,000.003, how would you write that using only periods?
1st prize goes to the brainiac that comes up with a method for determining and recovering from random floating-point errors.
better article regarding these kids.
is that 99% of the projects are merely the result of a university research group that allowed, for one reason or another, the high-schooler to glom on to their work. Usually he/she is a son/daughter of a friend of a professor.
It borders on fraud.
Get an idea and keep it to yourself, so you can make a lot of money, kids. Then you can afford the house with six bathrooms and the fucking SUV. Then you can bring some more Haitians and Venezuelans into your fat, rich suburban American neighborhoods to mow your lawn and cook your food.
This is not science. This is a bloody obscenity.
yes you are a weirdo
... And I don't think I really deserved the recognization. My project was basically a subset of my mentor's Ph. D thesis and I did some experiments which he supervised. No big deal really. I had to write a 20 page paper and that was stressful, but not worse than the stuff I faced in college. It's weird really... how do you expect someone to be an expert at something when he didn't even go through the material taught in college and grad school?
I went to a couple of science fairs after I finished my project and before finding out that I was a semi. And the author is correct; I was basically a display at a museum. Press a button and I'll talk. Don't expect me to say something that I hadn't rehearsed dozens of times before though. And please don't ask me questions in the related fields because I simply won't know.
I wasn't a very good student in High School. I basically did a project as a last ditch to get into a good college. Unfortunately/fortunately most college admission boards were smart enough to see through this and I did not get into the most competitive schools. I did end up at an okay engineering school though. But the whole experience left a sour taste in my mouth and I changed my studies to other fields when I got to college.
Now that I am about to graduate, I look at my college record and it's a mirror of my high school record -- mediocre. Except now I don't have anything similar to get me into grad school. So now I'm looking for a job and can't really find one. There really is no substitute for solid grades and good extracurricular activities. They are far better indicators of performance in college -- and in life.
I'm not saying that there aren't brilliant people in the finalist or even semifinalist group, but take it from me, they have had a lot of help getting there. The winner this year seems like he is genuinely smart, since he got into all the colleges he applied for.
...but I look better in my photos than those losers. Except for #1, #6, and #10, but definitely better than #5. I still got that. Better photos than #5 all the way! Take that, number 5!
In france, we use comma as a decimal marker...
In the us, you use the period...
Well, I think neither are right or wrong but maybee we should make up another ponctuation symbol for the decimal marker as it would be measier to type lists of decimal numbers....
2.01, 3.14, 5.27.
2,01, 3,14, 5.27.
2#01, 3#14, 5#27.
Well, the third choice looks more logical... though it'ld be a pain in the ass to create a new symbol and force people to use it...
We better stay the way we are...american...and french ^_^
Most of the winners were born in other countries and (presumably) immigrated with their parents. Is this because Intel specifically looked for that or because the only people whose parents really push them to excel are from outside of the US?
I understood what all the projects were... so I guess I don't feel entirely retarded.
"Quantitative Trait Loci Modulating Corpus Callosum Size in the Mouse Brain" - for understanding what this is I deserve a fricking medal.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Clearly for all the smarts you claim, you can't read between the lines. Homegrown = kid's own work. Normal name = relatively normal kid. Exotic name = little darling of pushy parents. Exotic topic = A postdoc in Dad's lab had the idea originally. Get a clue. And further more as an aspiring young scientist yourself you need to open your eyes slightly to the nature of corporate funding. It explains a lot in this case. To put it another way, the NIH etc. aren't nearly as gullible as Intel are. And you need to realise that as early as possible.
I have to say, the work these young students have done is nothing short of amazing. Herbert Hedberg's work on analyzing telomerase inhibitors resulted in a tool that can run the analysis in 10 minutes compared to the standard method which takes 2 days. Imagine the potential impact that can have on the treatment of cancer patients, like his grandmother.
Boris Alexeev's work may yield this guy a visit from the NSA. With minimization of deterministic finite automata you have - as the article points out - a tool to reduce the memory and processing requirements of certain kinds of operations such as speech and optical character recognition - however, the article failed to point out another obvious application - signal processing with tons of applications in video and audio surveillance/recognition.
Ryna Karnik's work applies directly to processor manufacturing - using a focused ion beam instead of photolithorgraphy to etch wafers. I read about a similar technique, but using electron beams in a sub-.03 micron process.
Anyway, I was dumbstruck that these teenagers have produced such groundbreaking, original research. With encouragement and a suitable academic environment, teens can blossom - not just the gifted ones - and do amazing work that belies the stereotyping surrounding their age.
As gifted teens, I remember how few adults took me and my friends seriously, much less listen to our ideas. As a society, American really needs to invest more money, time, and expertise in our educational system to ensure that more of our youth can have futures as bright as these student-researchers.
here here! On top of that, she spelled the first place winner's name incorrectly!! It's supposed to be Herbert Mason Hedberg. Her perseveration on issues of name pronounceability and it's supposed correlation with project title comprehensibility(idiotic) seemed to border on being almost racist. And the section where she says "It had blank pages at the back, labeled "Notes," and I scribbled, though not very scientifically: "nice pants suit," "acne," "looks like she's got a real stage mother," "storytelling champion!!!!"" is an absolute joke and completely discredits her as a journalist. Those kinds of comments about kids coming from a supposed adult are juvenile, irrelevant and insulting, as you note. This woman is supposed to be an expert on raising kids? ha!
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
What happened to the kid who did the mold on the bread project!! He should have won... (the way that i didn't)
nice try dummy. go back on the beach and leave the real work to new england. enjoy your tan you fucking monkey while we compute under the shadows of our skyscrapers you fucking eloy
This is some serious, next level science these kids are doing with only a high school education. The first and third place finishers, especially have industry revolutionizing breakthroughs to their name. This is stuff businesses and Universities toss hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D money at... and hobbyists came up with the solution, in between swim meets and cleaning out the stables and getting straight A's in highschool.
I'm seriously impressed.
SoupIsGood Food
------
Although I never competed myself, I did graduate from Bronx Science, one of the several schools--Stuyvesant and lately Ward Melville on Long Island are the others--that have historically dominated the Intel (formerly Westinghouse) Science Talent Search.
New York State dominates the contest because of two key reasons:
Science was the most competitive environment I've ever experienced, and that includes the Ivy League school I graduated from and the bulge bracket investment bank I joined after college. There's a reason why in a little more than 60 years it has produced five Nobel winners, more than most colleges.
...is who Slate chose as the author of the article. Looking at the "by the same author" at the end of the article, it seems like Slate decided to assign its 'Parenting' columnist instead of any sort of science writer. Is it surprising that she then decided to focus on the "nerdiness" and "looks like a jock" aspects rather than the projects themselves?
Yes, of course these kids do it all by themselves. Like the kid one year who built a minature (yet functional) nuclear reactor. Doesn't everyone have access to nuclear level plutonium?
The more homegrown a young researcher, the more humdrum (by Intel standards) his or her enterprise--and the more exotic the kids' names, the more esoteric their topics. The correlation looked promising. Yuyin Chen's project sounded dauntingly abstract...
I know Slate is sponsored|run by MSNBC, so I shouldn't expect any real journalism here. I think we all know that MSNBC has been living off of Imus (a radio show with a TV camera) for years now.
Frankly, this reporting borders on the obscene. If Rush Limbaugh makes a commentary about black quaterbacks, the world ignites with rage. However, if some reporter for Slate mocks children with "exotic" sounding names or having acne, this is sound journalism. Of course if Slate did fire Ms. Hulbert she'd probably find a job at USA Today or the New York Times. At least she actually went to the news scene to report the story.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
is that 99% of the projects are merely the result of a university research group that allowed, for one reason or another, the high-schooler to glom on to their work.
Many times he/she is a son/daughter of a friend of a professor.
It borders on fraud.
here
It's a little dense, but interesting.