Recently, my mom told me that I cannot bear to leave something un-understood if I, myself, understand that thing. Introspection never revealed to me this tendency so I dismissed her observation as a product of mother-bias.
Frustrated, frazzled and frantic, a student emailed me for help on his final project that he must present tomorrow. I agreed to help him; it is my job as TA after all. Back and forth we went for two and a half hours this afternoon, I not understanding his project any better than he. Invertebrate phototransduction cascades and Jack-shit were identical phenomena to my knowledge.
I persevered out of pride. Precious few math/physics problems have defeated me and this PoS I would not add to that list.
Using a basic enzyme-substrate reaction detailed in one of my textbooks, I deduced how differential equations can be derived from chemical ones so as to model reaction kinetics. We then used this recipe to write the specific set of diff. eqs. for the student’s transduction diagram/nightmare. The model was simplified–several nonessential intermediate reactions we ignored out of not-giving-a-shit–but all core players were included.
Vindicated we felt when the model generated expected phototransduction kinetics coarsely, but to reasonable accuracy. I spent 20 minutes thoroughly explaining the equations, and how they were derived, so the student could further explore and fine-tune the model tonight (and he had better).
He left happy and satisfied. So did I.
If my research gig doesn’t pan out, I guess I can make myself useful teaching.
