I wish I knew more about Clojure, which is the programming language we use most at Nubank. If I did, I could better understand some of the more complex problems we're trying to solve, and I think I could ask better questions when we're setting priorities. I'd like to be able to communicate at that level with the technical side of our team, and I think they would appreciate it, too.
Originally asked
Vox, to writers and thinkers, 9 Questions, 2017
This exact prompt is one of Vox's nine recurring questions about intellectual habits.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Yves Petroff, Humans of ESRF source ↗
Others on this question
View all 21 →I still regularly read New Scientist to try to keep up with quantum theory and cosmological discoveries and so forth. And I read National Geographic—that’s not a plug.
Wonder Why would say, 'Why is the sky blue?'…Then Wonder Why would tell you. I was fascinated, because I wanted to know how things worked ... that was my introduction to science.
I feel myself still like a student learning many things doing films.
More from Ada Yonath
View profile →I still don’t understand everything about the ribosome. I must say that the more lectures I give and the more questions that I get, the more thoughts they trigger. And also, we are now interested in the proto-ribosome, how life started. So we are trying to understand this and this really excites me, not just from the point of view of philosophy, we are trying to show it.
Try to make better antibiotics. I’m not sure we can cure everything, that we can win the game against bacteria, but we can try to control it, to make the appearance of resistance more controllable. We can look for new antibiotics, not overuse antibiotics, not use antibiotics where they are not needed. If possible, if somebody has an idea for something completely new, I would love that.
I did not meet Franklin but admired her work and scientific attitude. I did meet Hodgkin and learned a lot from her.
Oh ya, I doubted more than expected. I had doubts all the time. The way was extremely, extremely difficult. … At one point I had to describe what I am doing to a person who is a great intellectual but not a scientist, and I told him what we felt is that we are climbing mountains in order to reach the climax – and these mountains are like the Everest, the biggest most difficult to climb – only to find out that there is another mountain waiting behind it to be climbed afterwards. So every climbing was an achievement but there was a bigger problem behind it or above it. I had lots of minutes that I didn't expect, but I thought science in general and this science particularly is worth the effort – even if we would never get the ultimate result.
I like reading, I like swimming.I go snorkeling if I can. But not because I’m stuck, but because I enjoy them. And when I am swimming or whatever, I find I have more time to think.
I look for how to get out of it. I try to use here [points to her head]. I tried to read, I tried to talk to others. I tried my best to get out of it. I had lots of times climbing one Everest to find that there is a bigger Everest, but don’t you find your life like this too?
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