My youngest daughter went today to the Bakum (Army Rectruitment Base) and she is starting her military service. She will be assigned to a military court. It is a very dangerous place for a 18 y.o. girl, not because of the fact that most defendants are Palestinian terrorist suspects (pic), but because the lecherous judges and horny military attorneys. The courts are most dangerous places.
20 comments:
She is a bright girl and will have no problem keeping the sharks at bay.
My youngest daughter is exactly the same age (turning 18 in Sept.) and will be off to college in late August, so we will be empty nesters soon also.
What is the leave policy in the Israeli Army? Will she be able to return home on weekends?
Boston is around 6 hrs distant by car (which is "close" by American standards) and (if you could afford the plane fare) by the time you get to the airport and thru security, etc. not much less time by plane, door to door. So weekend visits are out. Parent's visiting weekend is in mid-October and then we will see her for Thanksgiving (late November) and at the winter break ( late December).
K
She might met her future husband.
A Palestinian terrorist or a military lawyer?
What is she studying, K?
Anon.
Engineering.
K
Electrical?
Anon.
She has not completely decided. She is thinking of a dual mech/ ee major, possibly. Do you have any thoughts or advice?
K
It is hard to give advice, but also hard not to have thoughts.
She seems more interested in high-end physics, so I just assumed she would tend to fall into EE rather than, say, Civil Engineering.
Also the other consideration is whether she is serious about finding employment subsequently, in her chosen field, or just doing it "for fun". I am quite struck by the number of women interviewed in, eg Nova documentaries on the Ultimate Composition and Fate of the Universe, etc, so perhaps it is easier to find employment in this area than I had previously thought.
It is none of my business, of course, but I hope she will meet some nice young man and "engineer" the next generation of K's.
Anon.
I don't think that work and children are mutually exclusive for women any more - I can't imagine her staying home.
I think she has realized that (even for a woman) physics nowadays means 10 years as a wandering post-doc and maybe they dump you after that and you have to teach high school.
As for which end of engineering, she doesn't have to decide yet - she will explore when she get there.
K
BTW, I would like to propose the Inverse Law of Results - at the start of the 20th century, physics was an obscure calling pursued by a handful of men. Einstein had no academic employment and was working as a patent clerk. Whatever equipment they had was crude and inexpensive. Today we have universities galore and most have a physics dept. and army of professors and grad students and post docs in each one. They operate multi-billion $ particle accelerators and other expensive apparatus. And yet, if you compare the theoretical advancements that came in the 1st half of the 20th century to the 2nd half, there is no comparison. After quantum mechanics, nothing significant appears to have been done at all - string theory is a wilderness of mirrors that may or may not have any basis in reality and certainly is without any practical applications (or even experimental observations) in the present. Brain power cannot be leveraged like muscle power - 1000 middling intellects cannot outweigh one genius.
K
Einstein's laboratory was his mind; he did not have to apply for some tedious grant to perform his "gedanken experimenten".
But he is only the most notorious example. The "British Einstein", Paul Dirac ("The Strangest Man"), was cast in the same mould; with only a pencil and paper, and minimal monetary investment in his education, he correctly predicted the existence of anti-matter.
Likewise, James Clark Maxwell, Roentgen, Rutherford, Dalton, etc, utilised some equipment, but not particularly expensive.
Given the high cognitive loading associated with all these achievements, I don't think we can hypothesize that it's a case of the "low-hanging fruit"; but I think there is an outside possibility - and I say this with a lot of temerity- that we are genuinely coming to a point in physics where there is nothing more to be discovered; either because we have genuinely reached the "end of history" as far as physics is concerned, or, more likely, because the strings, multiverses, etc are forever and inherently beyond our reach.
I hope I am wrong.
Anon.
I am not as pessimistic as you are --- all we need are some fresh geniuses. I think there are many unplowed fields remaining in physics. It does appear that in some applied areas,we have reached more or less the end - If you compare the aircraft of 1912 with those of 1962, the difference is stunning. The difference between the aircraft of 1962 and 2012 is minimal - in some cases (B-52) they are literally the same aircraft. Nor does it appear that anything radically different is on the table.
K
I predict there will be a huge demand for, and growth in biological/ artificial interface technology, for advanced, "smart" medical devices in the next 30 years.
Improving hearing, vision, joints, metabolic control, etc in the elderly is just going to explode as an unmet need, and might well be tractable with biomechanical and electronic engineering, to say nothing of nano.
She should think about it. It's not fundamental physics, but it is at the same time challenging, do-able, gratifying and will be very well rewarded.
Anon.
There are a few poison pills associated with biomedical engineering, Anon.
First, in the U.S., it takes years to get approval for medical devices from the FDA. That makes it harder to attract capital investment because investors get ancy about waiting so long for a return. They also worry that one unfavorable study could sink the whole enterprise.
Then there are legal risks. To take an example, you mentioned improved artificial joints. The first few generations of joint replacements have triggered an enormous number of lawsuits in the U.S. The patients apparently think the replaced joints are supposed to last forever and any deviation from perfection is a justification to sue. In the case of artificial joints, most of these lawsuits center around materials used (e.g. metal-on-metal), design, and surgical technique. I'm not so sure a "smart electronic interface" will do anything to solve these issues, although there might be other nice features. There might be an angle in tissue regeneration, but that has more to do with molecular biology than electronic engineering.
And who is going to pay for all of these wonders you predict? Retirees 20-30 years from now will almost certainly be poorer than the current cohort. Do you think underfunded government insurance will shell out for these improvements while they are still under patent? Health systems that are already socialized don't seem to prioritize quality of life interventions. In some Canadian provinces, one has to wait years for hip replacement surgery.
Look if you are 70 years old and in pain, which would you rather pay for, a new hip or a new car? Those who can afford it will buy these things whether they are paid for by the government or not.
MIT has a big bio-medical dept. My daughter is not interest in biology or medicine - it is just not her thing. It is also turning into sort of a women's ghetto at MIT. MIT (thru affirmative action - the applicant base is much more male than the accepted class) is almost 50/50 male/female. But they have not extended affirmative action to the majors (yet). So certain majors (aeronautics) are overwhelmingly male and others (bio) are overwhelmingly female. MIT, BTW, has no womyn's studies or other BS majors - they are all pretty solid but still some are less quantitative than others.
One area that my daughter is interested in is robotics. It is a fairly short leap between a pure robot and a robotic limb, so she may end up in this field thru the back door. A lot of times you end up in a place different from where you started and different from where you think you were headed. We'll see.
K
K
"Those who can afford it will buy these things whether they are paid for by the government or not."
In Canada, at least until recently, one had to cross the border for the privilege of paying out of pocket for a hip replacement. The original legislation implementing government single-payer insurance there prohibited private insurance or anything else that would create tiers of care. There may have been a recent loosening of those prohibitions, though. My point is that the leftie loonies who support health care reform in the U.S. as a matter of social justice are opposed to tiered health care here as well. Obamacare doesn't go far enough for them.
There will always be a need for, and a market for, medical innovation.
The lawsuits, to the extent they are for misrepresentation, might be justified, but we should remember it's generally not the innovators and the biotech companies that get sued by the end-consumer, it's the vendor.
As to payment, as K says, wealthy people will always pay for solutions to their problems. The business model just has to adjust to the evolving marketplace. It is currently in the process of doing just that. The cost of developing, say, drugs, is currently vast, excessive, and badly in need of redress; but innovation and ingenuity will find a way.
It always does.
Sure there are difficulties. But Christopher Columbus wasn't put off by the Atlantic Ocean, and nor should we be scared off innovation.
Anon.
Unless the socialist loonies can impose world government, people with means will still be able to cross borders to get care if they want it. There is already a considerable industry in medical tourism. If you go to somewhere like India or China that is not encumbered by the constant threat of lawsuits and that has lower labor costs, identical medical procedures can cost a small fraction of what they do in the US.
K
Yes, K, but:
1) You have to pay in cash a still not inconsiderable amount of money. That's the whole purpose of these enterprises from the other (Indian and Chinese) end. The wealthy can do this without a sweat. Less true for everyone else.
2) You may be forced to undergo your recovery there if the procedure precludes a plane flight out right afterwards. The hospital care may or may not be up to par with the surgical care. Better hope there aren't any adulterants in the IV meds.
3) Unless you plan to live in the 3rd world country where you have the procedure done or are able to travel there frequently, you will have to interface with your local insurance/hospital/doctor for maintenance.
4) Emergency events (cardiac, stroke, bowel obstruction) and those requiring frequent ongoing outpatient care or big invasive surgical procedures (cancer) aren't as amenable to medical tourism.
5) A "superbug" already appears to have been spread by medical tourism. This can happen at home, too, but it could be used to crack down on 3rd world medical shops.
All this is true but there is an almost insatiable demand for medical services and products.
Look at the "health food" and "alternative medicine" industries. No end of junk science yet enormous amounts of money change hands.
Anon.
Post a Comment