Celebrating Science Day and Air Force Week

Last week, Jay celebrated Air Force week by attending several events around the state, including the Governor's proclamation in Concord and the Air Show at Pease. He was invited to give the keynote speech for Science Day, which took place at the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium on Tuesday.

It was a very exciting day complete with the landing of a Black Hawk helicopter, robots made by enterprising high school students, rescue and survival gear, and a F-16 jet. The children - and adults - who lined up after Jay's speech were enthusiastic, asking him what it was really like in space. On our way out, I heard someone thank Jay for coming. "Your speech was really inspiring," he said. "I wish my kids had been able to hear it!"

And so, here it is...

Dr. Jay Buckey offered the following remarks on Science Day, part of the region-wide, week-long celebration of the Air Force.

Back in high school, I got the chance to take advanced placement math. The thing I remember most about that class is that I had this great seat by the window. I spent a fair amount of time looking outside instead of at the blackboard. Right now, I can’t remember what I was daydreaming about as I looked out the window, but I can remember the difficulty I had when I arrived at college as an engineering major. I didn’t place out of calculus, and I had a pretty hard time my first semester when I really started learning math.

The good news is that, eventually, I came to enjoy math. In college, I finally saw that what math did was provide a way to describe how the physical world around us works. Math sure came in handy in all sorts of engineering problems. We used it to describe how electrical circuits would work, how planes would fly, and how engines would run.

But in high school I hadn’t seen that connection. Math was not what got me interested in engineering. Also, although I did well in science classes, it wasn’t physics or chemistry that got me wanting to study engineering.

I decided to study engineering because I just thought that things like radios and cars and planes were cool. In high school, I got really interested in cars and wanted to work on them. Since I was young and I didn’t have much money, I looked around for something to work with. And there was my Mom’s 1966 Oldsmobile Delta 88.

I managed to convince my parents that what the car really needed was a carburetor rebuild. They went along with this and pretty soon I became expert on the Rochester two-barrel carburetor. I was so expert that one day, when we were visiting the house of some friends and our car wouldn’t start, I was able to pull out my toolbox, disassemble the carburetor, adjust things, and get the car going again. Naturally, it couldn’t have been the case that the reason the car wouldn’t start was because I had been fooling with the carburetor in the first place -- but we will let that go.

The bottom line is that my interest in science and math didn’t grow out of class work, it grew out of actual experience. And fortunately, my parents were willing to put their car at risk for me to get that experience. They put up with salvaged TVs in my room, blown circuit breakers, and the disassembly of items that probably didn’t need to be disassembled. But from that experience, I wanted to learn more about science and engineering because I could see how it would help me do more interesting things -- and get better at my experimenting.

Today, we’re here to celebrate Air Force Week. Our Air Force has the unparalleled ability to meet threats to this country. The Air Force manages many of the assets that detect threats to the country, and the Air Force can deploy rapidly worldwide to meet any threat. But behind all this technology and capability are people who got interested in math and science and made a career from it. Our Air Force has such amazing capabilities because we have people with the experience, talents, and drive to create and use the world’s finest aircraft, satellites, and rockets.

These people probably started out not knowing the first thing about advanced algebra or the second law of thermodynamics. But many of them probably built a crystal radio, or played with a 20-in-1 electronics experimenter’s kit, or worked on the family car. They began learning through hands-on experience -- and that got them started.

And that’s what the Planetarium and this Science Day is all about. When you see that Black Hawk helicopter out there, don’t you wonder how it hovers? And that F-16. Don’t you want to know how it can come off the runway and climb straight up? How about that fly-by-wire system—isn’t that something? Or the GPS—how does that work? These hands-on and up-close experiences show what is possible. And from that starting point you can start imagining. And as you imagine more, you want to know more. And then school doesn’t seem like a place to daydream, but as a gateway to more interesting things.

So as you experience Science Day here today, remember that the people who designed these amazing things like the Blackhawk probably just started out by asking questions and wondering what if……. Our country always needs new inventors, new designers, and new engineers -- and maybe you could be the person to take the next leap for technology in the future. So go out, ask questions, explore and enjoy! Thank you!