I arrived at SSP on a warm summer’s day and found myself breathless—both literally and figuratively. Unaccustomed to Boulder’s high elevation, I gasped for air just trying to roll my suitcase to my dorm. Similarly, I was taken completely by surprise when I discovered the intensity of our work at SSP.
I had heard that SSP was like drinking from a fire hose, but it felt more like drowning. The water soaked my face and I squeezed my eyes shut to try to shield them from the harsh streams. I think that was my mistake. I had an instinct to shut down and curl in on myself. Instead of asking for help, I holed up in a corner of the computer lab and tried to hide from the world. It’s no surprise, then, what I identified as the three great mysteries of SSP:
- How does anyone manage to finish their PSets on time?
- Where the heck does everyone disappear during breakfast and lunch?
- What are the SSP rules of this strange thing called “social interaction”? (this mystery was not unique to SSP)
My favorite part of a mystery story is when the mess of clues, testimonies, and red herrings come together at the end. Suddenly, the confusion clarifies into a simple answer that should have been evident all along.
That’s what’s happening now that we are nearing the end of SSP. The mess (I say this word lovingly) is starting to come together.
After nearly having a panic attack over the first PSet, I sat down with my team one day to work on PSet 2. It wasn’t a permanent arrangement, just a decision borne of coincidence and convenience. We were all at the same problem in the same place, so it made sense to work together.
The first problem we solved was a mess of algebra. We almost turned back—the equations looked too complex to be correct, especially when you’re not used to the diabolical (but interesting) SSP PSets. But something about the fractions sines and cosines and variables looked like it had potential. “I think it’ll work out,” I said. “This part’s messy and this part’s messy, so maybe the messes will just cancel.” We trudged further into the problem, struggling through the jungle of trigonometric identities.
And then, I could see a light at the very end of the tunnel of looming shadows. “It’ll work out!” I said, suddenly speeding through the rest of the simplification. “It’ll work out!” And sure enough, everything canceled down to one.
Just like how there’s nothing that solidifies friendships amongst wizards more than fighting a troll together in a bathroom, nothing solidifies group ties amongst scientists more than fighting a particularly troublesome trig equation. From that day, my group always worked together on the PSets—and it was so much easier. And when Maggie joined, we were finally able to figure out the photometry by sitting down and thinking as a team.
It’s the last full week of SSP, now, and we’ve come a long way. Throughout the past four weeks, I’ve learned so much, from how to keep track of lots of time derivatives (r dot dot dot r dot r dot dot r dot) to how to identify hidden burial sites to our most recent guest lecture on the physics of jazz. I finished many individual OD code assignments as well over the past few weeks. But now, it’s becoming time to finally put it all together.
Today, I discovered that everyone was eating breakfast outside this whole time. I don’t know how fast I can drag myself out of bed in the morning, but if I can get to C4C (our dining hall) in time, that’s where I’ll be.
Yesterday night, I took my finished Method of Gauss (in which we have the wrong answer but mess with it a bunch of times and miraculously end up with the right answer) and added the Monte Carlo simulation. Like the Method of Gauss, Monte Carlo Simulations involve purposefully starting with an “incorrect” answer (within a normal distribution) and then doing this a bunch of times until you get the right answer: in this case, a Gaussian bell curve. I started with a hot mess of functions, which are various self-contained segments of code, and wrangled them together into a successful research project. And then, some of the girls nearby started saying I was “cracked” for finishing (mostly) the code. I had to look up what that word meant (apparently, it originated in a video game where people cracked other people’s shields).
But to see my code go from a tangle of functions, print statements, and commented out failures to a neat(er) finished product was akin to a great epiphany for me. I had been worried that I’d get here, discover everything was too hard, and quit. Everything was too hard—for me to do alone, at least. But four brains are better than one. And I never, ever quit.
Today, my team finished our last PSET, a day early. We were sitting together in the wide-open lecture hall and we high-fived when we finished. It was a far cry from how I started, hunching over in the cramped corner of the computer lab and trying to write while holding my hands over my ears.
Team Arches has finished our final PSet!
See, SSP is like drinking from a fire hose. We wade around in the ankle deep waters, squinting our eyes against the blasting jets as we attempt to piece together an understanding of astrophysics. We can’t get everything, not in five and a half weeks. But that doesn’t mean that we have to fail—not when there are two, no three, no thirty-four other people right there, willing to catch us when we slip and placing their trust in us to do the same. No firefighter, no student, no scientist ever has to go it alone.
Thus far, I have solved two of my three SSP mysteries. I’m not sure I’m going to ever figure out the third, but I have another week to try and understand as much as I can.
Color vision demonstration — in the filtered yellow light, everything looks black and white
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Bio: Hi! My name is Lilah and I’m a rising Senior at Miller Place High School in New York. I love computer science, neuroscience, astronomy, computer science, writing, music, computer science—sorry, I’m a bit sleep deprived, have I been repeating myself? I really enjoy learning about a wide variety of subjects and will hide codes in anything (there are even two secret codes in this blog post). I’ve been really enjoying SSP’s opportunity to learn new skills and concepts in a collaborative environment.
