Leading in Water: Mahmoud Ali
Mahmoud Ali, an undergraduate student at Zagazig University in Egypt, was given a unique opportunity: to travel halfway across the world to study at Utah State University.
From the Spring 2021 Edition of Discovery
Absolutes and the World We Live In
At the start of my second term attending Utah State, I walked into my calculus class to find, standing at the front of the room, a lanky and energetic professor by the name of Duane Loveland.
It was clear from the outset that he was passionate about both mathematics and teaching, and I felt lucky to be in his class. There were only 20 or so students enrolled, and as we neared the end of the term, I had the highest score in the class. Maybe I was overconfident or got busy (probably the former), but I didn’t study for the final like I should have, and I performed badly. Nevertheless, I still had the highest cumulative grade in the class, so I was surprised when I saw that my final grade was an A-.
I approached Dr. Loveland about it, and he replied simply that I hadn’t met the standard for an A.
I had no response. What was I supposed to say? There was a standard that had been published in the syllabus and I didn’t meet it. It didn’t matter whether I did better or worse than anyone else in the class. The standard was an absolute.
As scientists, our professional world deals largely with absolutes. The Pythagorean theorem, DNA transcription, the speed of light, Dijkstra’s algorithm... the list is long. We use the scientific method to search for truths that are quantifiable, provable and, well, absolute.
But sometimes, even as scientists, we use the scientific method for things that may not be quite as absolute. Gradient descent, the uncertainty principle, genetic variation, and many other principles and techniques fall into this group. As scientists, we are generally pretty good at accepting uncertainty, approximation and probability. We understand that some things in our world aren’t absolute.
Do we transfer our acceptance of non-absolutes to living in aworld with other people? Do we accept messiness and diversity in life?
Some people view sports in absolute terms (every Houston Rockets’ loss is a tragedy for a friend of mine). Others don’t. Some folks view politics in absolute terms. Others don’t. Some see religion as an absolute. Others don’t. Where we each fall individually is maybe less relevant than whether we can appreciate others for who they are and what they believe.
I was a software engineer for 10 years before returning to academia. One day, after a visit with a climatologist, who showed us some beautiful hurricane prediction software he’d written, my boss remarked to me, “Well, that was cool, but it will never make him any money.”
I was shocked. What I had seen as inspiring science my boss saw as counterproductive to the bottom line. I realized that maybe I wasn’t in the career I really wanted. The next day, I started filling out applications for graduate school.
The problem was, I felt critical of my boss. I had an elitist, academic view of the world and felt that everyone should feel the same. But my boss was building a company that made software products to benefit people. And his company gave people jobs so they could live comfortably with their families. Who was I to judge him?
I’m grateful that I didn’t get an A in that calculus class. It was exactly the lesson I needed as I embarked on a career in science and engineering. But when it comes to human relationships, maybe we should live less with a syllabus in hand and more with gratitude for this diverse, uncertain, messy and beautiful world in which we live.
By Dr. John Edward ‘98
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