President's Message

I am writing this column on the first official day of spring while “sheltering in place” in Northern California. In these uncertain times, we are all experiencing the anxiety that comes from an unpredictable situation that we do not control; the shock of seeing, perhaps for the first time, all of the shelves in grocery stores empty; and the stress of working, living, and sleeping in the same place.

I have made a concerted effort in my previous editorials to cover topics that embrace our humanity and diversity and touch on issues of social value, the environment, the universe, our history, and science. In it all, I hope that you were able to see the reach and impact of our discipline into the depths of our existence.

Many of us marveled in awe in March 2018 at the sight of the Ghana teacher who, using colored chalk, drew on his blackboard a snapshot of how an open window of the Microsoft Word software would look like on the screen of a computer...

Imagine sitting in a room where every individual is able to read every other individual’s mind. Would you lose your mind? We are living in an age where many of us have already surrendered our personal privacy to online interfaces either knowingly or by deceptive means.

It is an amazing sign of the times when the youth across many nations are uniting in their will to raise awareness about the perils of global warming and the need for immediate action.

It is an amazing sign of the times when the youth across many nations are uniting in their will to raise awareness about the perils of global warming and the need for immediate action. 

During the Christmas break, I had a mundane problem to solve. Most PCs today no longer come with disk drives. This was problematic for me since, like for many of you, my family videos are stored on CDs and DVDs.

The title of this editorial is borrowed from a popular children’s lullaby from the 1800s, which reads “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are!” It reminds me of the vast expanse of unexplored space (and science) that lie before us. 

I started drafting this editorial on July 4th while sitting in my hotel room in Versailles, France. Both the date and location have great significance in our modern history, which motivated my choice for the theme of the article.