Stem Student - Blog Posts
National Technology Day - 11th May 2025 Tech Tok: The Short Attention Span
Instagram: ABC just sent you a reel. Instagram: XYZ just made a post. Snapchat: DSH sent a snap. Do you also see similar notifications pop up on your screen right after you keep your phone aside after hours of doom scrolling? And what do you do? Subconsciously pick up that phone again, reply and get lost in the world of videos and content again! If you think I spied on you, nah. Most of us are on the same boat, credits to the new favourite on the internet, the short-form content. What probably began as TikTok went ahead with Instagram Reels and Youtube shorts, and now, this short-form content greets us good morning before the people around us do. Constant notifications throughout the day disturb our focus and multitasking while watching these videos ruins the concentration of an individual. Though these videos cover more information in less time and are efficient, they affect the human brain and can be dangerous in the longer run. This micro habit develops overtime and subconsciously, we tend to check our phone in void times, as our brain is addicted that it unknowingly switches from one app to another where you spend hours endlessly scrolling videos and double tapping them to like. The human brain is tricked by features like infinite scroll and auto play, making the user spend more and more time on videos. These videos are smartly shot and scripted to grab the attention of the user in the least amount of time and keep them engaged with hooks or infinite loops, smooth transitions etc. Your social media feeds are tailored according to your interests with the help of cookies, and exploring videos on social media platforms is so easy that all you need to do is scroll to move to the next video. Does short form content have a bright side? Oh, yes. Educational videos have been able to perform well, with the aim to share maximum information in the least amount of time. But, not this doesn’t serve as the most efficient method. There is a difference between learning the information and consuming it. Educational reels do not serve their purpose unless the students are able to learn something rather than just watching it for fun. Though we’re advancing in the field of technology and finding new ways to reduce human work, somewhere in the background, these technological advancements are decreasing human efficiency. Our attention span has decreased over time and the ones who once watched a movie for 3 hours or had study sessions for long hours are now easily distracted within an hour. Learning through short form content is superficial and often lacks the core concepts and understanding, as perfection takes time and is not something that can be covered in less than a couple of minutes. Hours and hours of aimless scrolling through social media increases our mental fatigue and decreases our capacity to think critically. Though technology is a historical invention, it is our responsibility that we don’t get lost in the sea of reels and shorts!
Green Synthesis
Green is a word we have always associated with sustainability, and Synthesis, in chemistry, is the process of forming a product by initiating a chemical reaction. Green synthesis is an eco-friendly approach to making chemical compounds using natural, non-toxic materials like plant extracts, water, or enzymes. It avoids harmful chemicals and harsh conditions, making the process safer for both humans and the environment. This method is widely used in fields like medicine, agriculture, and materials science, promoting sustainability and reducing pollution.
So, here's a simple metaphor. We're all familiar with the ways of gardening. Green synthesis is like gardening with compost instead of chemical fertilisers. Just as we use kitchen scraps and leaves to enrich the soil naturally, green synthesis uses plant-based materials or safe, natural methods to create chemicals without harming the environment. It nurtures progress while respecting nature, growing useful compounds the way a plant grows—with patience, balance, and care. This method avoids toxic shortcuts and instead works in harmony with the Earth, proving that chemistry, like gardening, can flourish sustainably when we choose to work with nature instead of against it.
Entropy and Monday Mornings
It’s a Monday morning. You reach work to find 25 unread emails, a messy house, 5 essays due, a broken coffee machine, and you’re not sure if you locked your door on the way here. And it doesn’t end there. There’s more work piling up! When there’s chaos all around us, it is only natural to feel overwhelmed. What if I tell you, every object (yes, the non-living ones) experiences this too!
Only at a very atomic level. Each task in our mind is a microstate, a unique arrangement of thoughts at that point of time. The greater the microstates, the greater the number of tasks, the greater the chaos. Chemistry defines a microstate as an instantaneous arrangement of atoms or molecules in a system. And just as our task list increases, the chaos increases. Similarly, for a system, as the number of microstates increases, the entropy increases. Entropy is the measure of disorder or randomness or the possible number of microstates a system can have. It’s just chaos, where lower entropy means greater order and less chaos(Friday Nights), and higher entropy means more disorder and more microstates(Monday mornings).
Entropy tends to rise with time in an isolated system, such as an overloaded brain on a Monday. This implies that things naturally transition from order to disorder in the absence of outside input. Now, imagine some Lo-fi music playing in your headset as you work through the e-mails, sipping on the perfect coffee that you ordered, powering through your day. Maybe you even wrote a to-do list, helping you stay organised. Doesn’t seem so bad when an external effort is made. Similarly, in isolated systems, entropy usually tends to increase over time, meaning things usually go from a state of orderliness to disorderliness unless an external energy is put in to maintain structure.
S = k. ln(W)
Mathematically, the Entropy (S) of any isolated system can be measured by multiplying the Boltzmann constant (k) by the natural logarithm of the number of microstates it possesses (lnW). Entropy isn’t a bad thing—it’s just a natural tendency of systems to become more disordered over time, unless energy is added to maintain order. In your case, a little bit of organisation (external energy) can help you manage the entropy in your Monday morning.
To Science is to innovate.
To Science is to inspire.
To Science is to develop.
While science seeks the truth, leadership converts that truth into action. The role of a leader in science would be that of a catalyst, accelerating the process of bringing together theoretical ideas and practical reality.
Science cultivates essential skills like analytical thinking, problem solving and creativity - traits that shape individuals and the world around them.
But what is leadership in science?
At its roots, it begins with teachers — the school faculty who ignite curiosity and instil scientific thinking in young minds. They lay the foundation for all future innovation.
At a community level, leadership is manifested in colleges, innovation hubs, policy making bodies that work relentlessly on bridging the gap between talent and opportunity. They work on empowering the students to share, refine and realise their ideas.
At the national and international levels, we see leaders like Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Benjamin Franklin — figures who have left their mark in both science and governance. They not only lead by example but also uplift and inspire the public, proving that science and leadership together have the power to shape history.
So, no. Leadership in science is not merely about holding a powerful position while carrying a science degree. It is about innovating - and using that innovation for the greater good. For the self. For society.
Being a stem person who's best friends with an art person is great because you'll tell them "oh I have to mix these chemicals and analyze data for tomorrow" and they'll think it's the worst thing ever. Meanwhile they have to draw 8 portraits and master frottage and collage by tomorrow and you think that's the worst thing ever
I SWEAR IT WAS WORKING FIVE SECONDS AGO AAA
in my academic weapon era ✍️
physics feels so inaccessible.
like what do you mean the only information on this topic is a power point presentation from ten years ago with only half of the information on it?
or you tell me there's three ways to download the software i need for the calculations, but only one of the ways actually works and you don't even tell me how to do it!!!
never mind the sheer amount of prerequisites. i never struggled with math too much, but i also never took the opportunity to skip a level in math. when i was starting out, you can't do anything without trig. so then i went and learned trig on my own, but then i needed matrices. so i went and i learned matrices and vectors on my own, but now i need calculus. and holy shit is there a lot of stuff within calculus.
half the important papers are hidden behind paywalls and the diagrams are so confusing they take me forever to figure out. maybe i'm just inexperienced, but isn't the whole point of diagrams for the information to be more accessible?????
i might be wrong since i'm young and inexperienced, but it seems as if there's this tone of exclusivity in physics. why is it so hard to find mentors, and when i do, they have such trouble believing in me? i might be young, but i can still understand and help with something. why would you ignore all my emails and just tell me to take the easy way out? i'm in it for the long run.
Thor's Helmet taken by Chris DeCosta and Martin Pugh on February 28 2019
NGC 2359, also referred to as Thor's Helmet, is an emission nebula in the constellation Canis Major. At the heart of this nebula is a Wolf-Rayet star WR7, which is in this phase briefly before a supernova occurs.
The bubble appearance of this nebula is due to the strong stellar winds coming from WR7. These winds contribute to forming a complex structure, with a huge mass of ionized material. The high energy radiation coming from the star ionizes hydrogen to produce red light and doubly ionizes oxygen to produce blue light.
The gas absorbs and then reemits this light, leading to the name of "emission nebula".
tonight’s setup 😊 hopefully I go to bed at a reasonable time. I still have TWO lab reports to finish though.
I thought my math homework was going to be chill because it was just two problems but tell me why I open it and it’s part a-p 😭
Star Trails taken by Rob on February 24 2024
Star trails are photographs taken over long exposures, where the rotation of the Earth causes the stars to appear as arcs in the sky instead of points. The Earth rotates around its axis every 23 hours and 56 minutes.
Typically, star trails are focused on Polaris in the northern hemisphere, but I found this photo unique because it opted for a different composition. It also really highlights how dense the sky is with stars.
It begs the question, why isn't the sky infinitely bright with infinite stars? This is actually the observation that helped cosmologists find theories for the age of the universe. For a young universe, not enough time has passed for the light from incredibly distant stars to reach us, leading to the dark sky we see when we look up at night.
Dolphin Head Nebula taken by Ben Brown on February 23 2024
The Dolphin Head Nebula, Sh 2-308, is an emission nebula caused by the Wolf-Rayet star EZ Canis Majoris. WR stars have completed fusion of hydrogen and are now fusing heavier elements such as helium and carbon. They have unique emission spectrums for this reason, with no hydrogen emission lines.
The temperature of WR stars is much higher than typical stars, reaching 20,000 K to 210,000 K. WR stars are some of the most luminous stars due to their high temperatures, but most of their output is in the ultraviolet spectrum, meaning we can't see it with the naked eye.
This UV radiation ionizes the gas around it, leading to the emission nebula you can see in the photograph.
#3. Keeping momentum
You are tired. You are lazy. You can't do anything. Those are the voices I hear, and you might hear, after a long day at school. All I want to do is lay down on the couch and take a nap or get lost scrolling on my phone. But I know if I do, I'm going to spend the next two hours doing absolutely nothing.
Try not to stop doing stuff when you have a break. And I don't mean you should be constantly working. Make yourself a cup of tea. Journal. Call your friend. Something that keeps your momentum. It's harder to stop when you're stationary compared to when you're already moving.
"Anything that is easy for me must be worthless." — Impostor syndrome in a nutshell
my new favorite poem ✨
The Large Magellanic Cloud taken by Rory Broesder on Februrary 18 2023
The LMC is a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, set to collide in 2.4 billion years. It is an easily observable object from the southern hemisphere and is the fourth brightest galaxy in the local group. Within this galaxy is the Tarantula Nebula, a very active star forming region.
It was once a barred spiral galaxy before it was disrupted through tidal interactions with the Milky Way galaxy and Small Magellanic Cloud. In fact, there is a bridge of hot gas showing the connection between the LMC and SMC which is also an active star forming region.
The LMC is one of around sixty other satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way.
#2. Red light, Green light
More study tips! Separate your to-do list into three buckets: red light tasks, yellow light, and green light.
Red light tasks are the hardest things you have to do. Typically, there is some planning involved, different components, and it will take you multiple days to work on it. Think essay, presentation, big project.
This might come as a surprise but studying for hard tests I put in the yellow light category. (If you’re cramming put this in the red category, but pls don’t.) You are going to want to split up hefty homework assignments and big tests into smaller actionable pieces. The idea is to study a bit every day. The idea is that there is more flexibility and resources while you study, and each problem generally has a clear solution.
Green light is something like emails, routine Khan Academy practice, reading a chapter of a book, or small homework assignments. The point of my system is to be flexible and put things into categories based on how I’m feeling and how much time there is as well.
What this does is it reduces your to do list into three sections, makes a plan, and helps you quantify how urgent tasks are.
Here is my typical schedule for these tasks:
After school:
Break for 1hr
Green as a warmup
Yellow for one hour for 1-1.5hrs
Red after dinner for 2~hrs
Green until tired .5hrs
Weekends:
Finish ALL Green in the morning Sat
Red for 5~ hrs (or however much you need) Sat
Breaks interwoven between
Dinner and relaxing Sat evening
Yellow for 2-3~ hr Sun
Red for 1-1.5hr Sun evening
Day off where I wasted the entire morning:
Red for 2hrs
Yellow for 2hrs
After dinner do Green until tired
i went to the local library to pick up some books today :) i'm literally so dumb because i was in the wrong row for the nonfiction section (looking for spacefarers) and i did not even stop to question why all the books around me were on the culinary arts.
i heard the master of djinn is a really good book and would be good for people that liked arcane. IF I MAKE IT THROUGH THE BOOK, maybe i'll write a review. hopefully i can because it looks really interesting...
i have a lot of random stuff to do these next two days since i wasn't productive for the first three days of break :(
study for computer science midterm
calculus unit 4 problem sets
magnetostatics FRQ
read literature for research project
update astrophysics notes
work on cosmology simulation
f=ma exam…. either i cooked or completely flunked lol
AAAAAAHHHH I HAVE A MATH TEST TMRW
Normally, I’m not so stressed, but I missed class this week (I was skipping shame on me 😭) and I have no clue what’s going on… Me and the math teacher are besties because he’s the coach of the golf team, so I’m scared of disappointing him with my bad test scores.
I also had a long lab in chem this week. It’s really sad because we got bad results even though we ran our trial for over and hour lol. I think it’s my lab partner’s fault because he keeps on putting his crusty fingers all over the cuvettes which is messing up the spectrophotometer. Hopefully he actually writes his part so it’s not another repeat of last year.
- Practice midterms for matrices
- Grade practice midterms
- Write lab report
- Debug binary system simulation
- Work on astro research paper
- Work on program applications
- Finish new deal research
- Finish college assessment
- Email people back 😬
Don’t ask me why we have a midterm in January… I have no clue.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) taken by Auvo Korpi on January 27 2023.
During the formation of the sun, there was a protoplanetary disk (cloud of debris and gas) that orbited around it. The farthest parts of this disk were far from the heat emitted, and cooled down. The cold material clumped with frozen gasses and water, creating icy rocks.
These rocks orbit far away from the sun in huge elliptical orbits, in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. At one point, the icy rocks get closer to the sun. The ice is heated and releases dust, known as the comet’s trail.
Comet ZTF was first discovered in March 2022, but came closest to Earth in a long time in January of 2023. At first, the comet was believed to be an asteroid, but when it got closer to the sun, it was observed to have its signature green glow.
The green comes from the diatomic carbon, which is part of the comet’s atmosphere. As it got closer to the sun, the molecules became excited and radiate green light. This is also why the green color doesn’t extend to the tail, instead it is happening in the comet’s nucleus.
I remember going out with my telescope around this time to view the comet. At that point I think it was just above the Taurus constellation, and I had a lot of trouble angling the lens to point that high up.
I don’t remember being able to see the tail, but just with the naked eye, I could see the comet’s light. I can’t believe it’s already been two years since then. Time really flies.
Why I hate the pomodoro method.
You’ve probably seen someone suggest the Pomodoro method before— you do short sprints (typically 25 mins) followed up by a quick break (typically 5 mins).
I don’t like it, and I will never go back to using it. Don’t get me wrong, it can work really well! My sibling only gets anything done if they use this method, so there is something good about it. However, I’m going to talk about the downsides and what else to do instead of this method.
1. It focuses on time spent rather than results.
Many tasks are quite flexible in how long we take to complete them. Take walking home for example. When I am in a rush to school, it takes about 20 mins uphill, but my legs cramp really bad. When I’m just listening to my music and vibing, it takes about 30 mins downhill.
It's a similar idea for studying. Apply pressure on your learning and assignments, and they get completed faster. Too much pressure, you get exhausted or can’t think straight. (HINT: Procrastination). Too little pressure, and it takes forever to get anything done.
Different results require different amounts of time and pressure.
Trying to strive for a specific time frame undermines what your true goal is: to get some something done. The repetitive cycle assumes a “one size fits all” but that is rarely ever the case. Saying “I studied for two hours today” means nothing compared to “I wrote my essay, read a research paper, and annotated my notes from yesterday.”
2. It discourages focus and flow.
When I was trying out the method, I kept trying to find the ideal time for work and for breaks. The problem is it's never the same. Some days, you are more mentally exhausted and need longer and more breaks, otherwise you are just going to be miserable.
As it is, the five-minute break isn’t long enough to go on a short walk, take a dedicated snack, or fully disconnect. It’s a waste of time that taunts you with distractions that aren’t conducive to a good work environment.
The opposite is also true. Good days can be rare, so when you get into the zone, there’s no reason to come out of it for anything other than a natural transition. A ticking timer to your productivity doesn’t help, and breaking up that “flow state” isn’t maximizing your time or your efforts.
I also haven’t heard many people mention stamina. If you are in school and taking tests, you realize they are typically around the same length (90 - 120 mins where I am). The pomodoro method contradicts this. For a lot of people, focusing and doing your best on a test for such a long period of time can be difficult.
Oh, but that’s just life.
Maybe a part of it is, but you can take steps to improve your stamina during test taking. Spending upwards of two hours studying or taking practice tests, especially leading up to huge exams, can make the test fly by. Simulating test conditions is also a great way to study or increase pressure, which is what long term study periods achieve. Taking longer study periods also relates back to breaks. With the same amount of break time, you consolidate it into a greater block. You can grab a snack, watch an episode of your favorite show, take a walk outside, or do your hair. All fun stuff you can’t do with pomodoro.
3. It brings technology back into the equation.
If you’re using pomodoro method, most likely, its on your computer or your phone. Which means you have to have a device in reach and visible (for work on paper) or be constantly switching tabs (for work online).
Distractions are a huge part of this modern age, which means that you could inadvertently be teasing your mind with a computer game or social media or whatever you enjoy. Even if you don’t give in, you *are* losing focus.
Forget the clocks, forget the devices, forget the notifications. It’s so much easier to be productive if you have nothing else to do and no distractions to take you away from something that, at the heart of it, you enjoy. Because if you hate studying, why are you still reading this??????
This is really long so I’ll make another post about different study methods next week.
my first 24 hour hackathon!
NEVER AGAIN in my life am I building a website from scratch 😭 it’s torture. if only my dumb self knew that frameworks existed…
NGC 1316 taken by Hubble Space Telescope on January 26 2021
NGC 1316 is an elliptical galaxy formed by the collisions of multiple galaxies near the constellation Forax in the southern hemisphere. What makes this galaxy unique is the dark lanes of dust visible around the galaxy. These are indicative that they galaxies NGC 1316 was formed by were spiral galaxies.
What helped scientists determine that this galaxy was created due to a "recent" collision where different types of images taken of NGC 1316. Hubble's images helped to reveal huge collisional shells and a small number of globular clusters. Collisional shells are formed from debris of the parent galaxy, which under the effects of gravity and tidal forces. These tails last for a long time, before eventually being reabsorbed into the progenitor (object of origin). Globular clusters are a group of stars bound by gravity.
These two events were indicative of a merger that occurred within the past couple billion years.
Pretty winter sunset but I’m stuck inside 🌅 Just cleaned my room though so I don’t mind that much.
3rd picture is my desk— should I put something on the wall? I don’t want to drill anything in.
Today was pretty frustrating for a variety of reasons, so I didn’t think I would get much done today but then I hopped on to Tumblr and saw a bunch of people’s study posts so I guess I’m trying this again.
- Study for math test
- Work on research program applications
- Upload a new software onto my computer
Good luck 👍
“Since it is now past 2 AM, perhaps it’s time to get some sleep and tackle this tomorrow?”
Especially as a student, it seems necessary to sacrifice sleep in order to study for a test more or get that last homework assignment done, and I get it.
It’s a never-ending cycle— stay up late to study, too tired the next day, procrastinate because you’re tired…
I used to sleep around 8 hours, which is generally the norm, when I found that I was still procrastinating and still tired. I thought that this was due to stress and therefore needed to study more to reduce my stress about upcoming tests. This led to me sleeping 6-7 hours instead.
These past couple of weeks, I’ve decided to listen to my body a lot more, often sleeping 9-10 hours.
I’ve become more productive: being able to work towards my goals without losing out on my health, being more energized, and also having more free time.
It seems counterintuitive, right? Sleeping three hours more should reduce how much I get done in a day, but no. I realized I spend a lot of time while I study being off track or doomscrolling on my phone. This actually is a logical result of being tired— not having enough energy to focus on a task and needing the dopamine in a fast release.
So what do I do if I enjoy working late at night? Especially in high school, there’s strict schedules and timings for when you have to be up so that you can be on time. Unless you can get a prep period, you have to wake up at 7:00 am.
I started taking naps as soon as I get home. If I’m not feeling as if I’ll get anything done, I try to get off my phone and just listen to music or daydream as I try to get a little bit of sleep.
If I keep this up, hopefully Copilot will stop criticizing my sleep habits 😁
chemistry has been kicking my butt lately. so i’m staying after school to study. yay 😀
on the bright side, i somehow managed to secure more than 100% in my comp sci class with a huge fail rate… not really going to question it in case it was a mistake tho. take the wins when they arise
finally finished my online class!
and now i go back to regular school tomorrow…