Kids really are the best scientists. Their sense of unflappable curiosity hasn’t been eroded away by the expectations of being an adult in an increasingly rat race-like world. They often ask the most cutting-edge, pertinent questions – and, as demonstrated by a young wunderkind, they often tell the most memorable stories.
An 18-year-old from the
Philippines by the name of Hillary Diane Andales just recently explained some parts
of Einstein’s theories of relativity in a relatively short video clip. For her amazing
efforts, she’s won the highly-coveted 2017 Breakthrough Junior Challenge;
consequently bagging $400,000 in education-related prize money, including
$250,000 in several scholarship funds.
The Breakthrough Prize, also
sometimes dubbed the Oscars of Science, mainly aims to award those working in
the fields of physics, life sciences, and mathematics. The initiative was actually
founded back in 2012, and was co-founded and sponsored by a range of
entrepreneurs and science aficionados across the globe, including Mark
Zuckerberg.
The Breakthrough Junior
Challenge asks young people across the planet to conjure up creative,
science-themed videos aimed at stoking the fact-based fires of people’s
imaginations.
As noted in an emailed press
release, Andales also entered the 2016 competition and won the popular public
vote. Although she didn’t take the top accolade home back then, this year,
Andales rose head and shoulders above the 11,000 other competitors.
Rather touchingly, her
victory will also award $50,000 to the science teacher who originally inspired
her. The remaining funds will go toward a bespoke, state-of-the-art research
laboratory.Her video focuses on a famously difficult scientific topic, one
that even the best science communicators out there struggle to explain to
non-scientists.
She explains, using a
particularly eloquent narrative and some funky animations, that time isn't
uniform for everyone; instead, it depends on your frame of reference, which
denotes how you perceive the universe depending on where you are observing it
from.
Starting off with sound
waves, she quickly and effortlessly leaps into how time is perceived depending
on where the observer is. Ultimately, this explains how moving clocks run
slower than stationary ones – but to find out exactly how this works, we’d
suggest watching the genuinely inspirational master herself do her thing.
Andales is capable of
telling a very complex story in a very succinct way, so it’s no surprise that
she won this year’s prize. We’d always argue that science tells the very best
stories, but unless you have incredible storytellers, it’ll always fall on deaf
ears.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter
what you do in life, as long as you remain curious, see the world, and write
whatever story of your choosing. If – as exemplified by Andales – that story
happens to be one of science, though, then let us just say thank you, and good
luck. It’ll be one hell of an adventure.
Via IFLScience