If you are a student, teacher, parent/guardian of a student, or just a general science enthusiast who has a sincere question about which you are curious, please ask: I will try my best to answer. It sometimes takes me a while to squeeze together the necessary minutes for a response, especially if the question brings up especially subtle points of physics, which they often do. I enjoy helping with those kinds of questions.
Most of the questions I receive by email tend to be one of three types. To save you time, the following are my general responses:
- I can offer no advice on how to be admitted to MIT. It is a mystery.
- If you are an MIT student with questions: come at me! Honestly, don’t hesitate to approach any member of the faculty or teaching staff with your questions or ideas. Listening to you is literally the job we are paid to do, and most of us chose to work here because we very much enjoy working with you. Yes, you. If I can’t help with your question, I’ll just say so and probably recommend someone else who can help. No problem. If you are a student at another university, you can ask questions, too. I’ll try to help if I can.
- If you are a member of the public with your own brilliant new theory of physics that proves everything we know about science is wrong, or provides an infinite supply of energy, or exposes the grand conspiracy to supress your ideas, or which you are sure is correct but just need someone to help you work out the math, then no, I most likely do not want to review your work or join your collaboration. Thank you. If you email me a copy of your work anyway, I will likely add it to my ever-growing collection of hundreds of other similar emails from similarly enthusiastic amateur researchers, but I am unlikely to respond. (If you show up unannounced at my office door, I am likely to already be occupied and unavailable to help you. If you attempt to become threatening or violent to demand attention, you will be invited in kind to leave.)I admire your passion for scientific work and encourage you to carry on spreading that passion to others in our society. Please understand that while professional academic scholars like myself exist — to a certain extent — for the sake of the public good, and as such should be accessible to the public in our professional capacity, our professional time is almost entirely already fully occupied with projects and responsibilities that are just as likely to advance the public good as the project you are proposing for us to review, join, or acknowledge. Time is a nonrenewable resource that is in quite short supply. We must therefore be extremely careful about the colleagues we choose to engage and spend our time with. For that fraction of our time which we dedicate to the advancement of scholarly knowledge, the most responsible use of that time is with fellow professionals who, like us, have dedicated many years to understanding the background of the problems they are studying, show respect for and knowledge of the extensive prior work of others on related problems, and who demonstrate an ability to engage their peers in a professional manner. Most of us will also allot a fraction of our time for dissemination of our scholarly expertise outside of our professional peers, typically through teaching or other less formal modes of educational practice, such as answering unsolicited questions by email. Approaching your questions about science from this educational point of view, rather than making a demand for recognition, is more likely to receive a positive response.