Saturday, 18 April 2020

On Shoulder of Giants

When one begins to think about any human endeavor, one feels a deep reverence for the amount of work, different people have done over their lifetimes. If one takes neurology - Korbinian Broadmann, (while inspired by people before him) classified human brain regions based on their cellular architecture. For people who haven't done microscopy or prepared histological slides - it is hard to describe the amount of labor and careful work over hours, days and months that goes into achieving this kind of feat.

If one takes neuroscientists studying language, their work further rests on neurosurgeons who carefully studied the pre-operative brains of epileptic patients, physicists who studied magnetic resonance, engineers and scientists who developed imaging techniques to study the human brain, "online" and non-invasively.

Neuroscientists who work on functions that are also observed in animals, have spent years studying these animals and training them, hoping to polish earlier knowledge and get a better understanding of brain. (Gratitude to animals who are sacrificed.)

Shifting to a different field - algebra. Though most of the books don't mention any history of mathematical workers - a little bit reflection is enough to know that these theorems and proofs have taken time and effort of many human minds. Elaborate proofs, theorems which build on previous theorems, connections which are brought up between different constructs were not made in a day.

These are the things which inspire a student.

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