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QuantumChemist
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19 Oct 2014, 11:46 am

As my member name suggests, I am a scientist by trade. I am in my early 40s and self-diagnosed my AS condition a few months ago. After reading up on AS, so many things that I experienced in my youth finally made sense. When I was in third grade, I was tested and put into the highly/extremely "gifted" category when it came to critical thinking skills. My reading comprehension skills were at college level by that stage. Some of my teachers were challenged by my abilities, as I often got board during certain classes and would let my imagination go in creating things on my papers, something that they just could not understand. I loved my gifted classes, as I was free to solve problems my way without restrictions by that teacher. There were two others that were gifted like me there, who understood the world differently as I could. (I wish that they would have caught my AS at that time, it would likely have changed a few things about my life.) My immediate family knew that I was odd in my behaviors/interests but tried their best not to express that to others.

Unfortunately, my life took a major turn when we moved out of state when I started sixth grade. I was placed in a regular class and constantly bullied as the "new" fat nerd kid. I had no real friends there to help me. The bullying quickly got more than just name calling or poking. They made me hate myself. That got my mind going in the wrong direction towards revenge, using science as the tool. I started studying everything I thought might become useful if I needed to defend myself, which I did do on occasion. This is something that I am not proud of, as it was a product of my anger towards others. My parents did their best in trying to stop the bullying, but it was an endless fight at all levels. We finally moved to another town and started anew my junior year of high school.

At the new school, I did not want to be "friends" with anyone. I simply stated that I just wanted to finish my time, graduate and move on from there without much trouble. I did have a few people who were nice to me, but I would not call them friends. Some of the kids did verbally pick on me there, but the level was not intolerable to me, so I just let it slide. Needless to say, college life was somewhat better for me. I still had no social skills, but at least I could study what I liked and had a path upwards. I spent most of my time working on my coursework, graduated, and then moved on to grad school. There I had a different bully to contend with: my research adviser. He tormented me daily with verbal abuse and started becoming more physical with his threats. I tolerated his actions until he crossed the line (he broke grad school rules) and I had him removed from my research project (that I alone developed). I eventually graduated with my doctorate and moved on to a job teaching/researching at a university. My life is poured into my work, as that is normal for me to do. Teaching others is relatively easy for me. I go into a "teaching mode" part of my personality that just takes over. I still have basically no social life outside of work, I spend my down time working on my various projects/inventions involving science whenever I can. Guess you can call me a "typical" scientist at heart/mind.

Sorry for having the introduction so long, but I wanted you to know a bit about me. I can be a bit long winded at times...



RoadRatt
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19 Oct 2014, 12:40 pm

Hey QuantumChemist welcome. :sunny:


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2cat007
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19 Oct 2014, 1:57 pm

Welcome to the forum! :D



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19 Oct 2014, 11:48 pm

well thank you for sharing with us your story, it is great to get things like that off your chest i've noticed.
i'm right about to leave high school in june, i can empathize with you simply wanting to move on from high school, with my reticence, i did not make as many connections as i think i could have and i ended up with disappointment, how did you feel when you graduated? it will be a great relief leaving that pressure filled, crammed environment and i am looking forward to college, i hope i will find it better like you have, i too enjoy the greater freedom.
sorry to hear about your awful research advisor, the really "high" offices in life tend to attract their fair share of manipulative, abusive jerks, these are the real bullies in life.


welcome to WP. 8)


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20 Oct 2014, 3:32 pm

Welcome to Wrong Planet!


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QuantumChemist
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20 Oct 2014, 6:59 pm

Thank you for welcoming me on here. I unfortunately have to keep my diagnosis to myself around my coworkers, as they simply would not be able to understand...

As for graduating high school, I wanted to move on with my life, but was apprehensive about the change. What bothered me most is not being around my parents as much to help them out whenever I could. That took some time getting used to. The main thing that I concentrated on was that I knew what I wanted to be and what I needed to do to get there. Many students struggle with this concept, even to the point of college graduation day. I was never a strait A student (just to lazy for that), so I was mostly an A/B student (with the occasional C, if I hated the topic). You will find that some college students memorize the material to get their A and then magically it is gone the next day if you tested them. When I learn something, I have almost complete retention of the material if I am interested in it. It takes me longer to study the material, but then I can use it whenever I need it. I spent most of my college career working on improving skills that I needed later on in grad school. This got me a lot of flack from fellow students who did not understand studying on Friday/Saturday nights. To them, that was party time only. Occasionally, I would take a break and go observe their actions at gatherings just as a point of reference on what not to do. This was something that I did automatically as I did not understand human social settings, especially around alcohol consumption (that I did not partake in).

Grad school was different than undergrad, as most of the fellow students were foreign. Out of 30 people in my incoming class, only five were American and I was the only American from that bunch that made it to the PhD. I found that I could communicate well with certain foreign students, but others tended to cluster together in "clicks" and ignore everyone else (kinda like the cool kids in high school). My closest "friends" there were from eastern Europe, Lebanon and India. American graduate students are often looked down on by certain professors. I just worked hard on my projects and tried to do my job as best I could. My research adviser was a real piece of work. He openly broke many confidentiality laws, thinking he was above them. I personally witnessed him discussing cume exam results of other grad students with a particular grad student in a common research room. (Cume exams are a series of exams given each month that are in a particular subject area of study. Various professors write and grade each exam. They are not restricted on what they can ask you on the exam. The exams themselves are essay type with a two hour maximum time for the questions. At the time I was in grad school, you had to pass 5 out of 10 or you were dropped down to the masters program automatically.) My adviser wanted to express how he thought certain students were "worthless" there and needed to be pushed out. He told me to my face that I should never take a cume exam from him because he would automatically fail me as he hated me. He loved to torment me during group meetings and often called me into his office just to verbally abuse me. I tolerated his actions for five years because I wanted to earn my PhD from that school. He eventually crossed the line with someone and was let go from the department. I had to work on three projects with him and one without him (on the side). I earned my PhD from the research project that I designed myself, with my own funds, on my own spare time. That was my revenge on him, to prove that I was worthy of my degree status, regardless of what he thought. That is not something an average grad student can do, nor can I recommend trying to do. If I can give you one piece of advice about grad school, make sure you carefully pick the right research adviser or your life will become hell in more ways than one.

The main thing that I can tell you is: Part of the trip of life is the path you take on the road to your future. Make sure you do stop and smell the roses along the way....



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22 Oct 2014, 2:43 pm

What a story, Quantum Chemist. I am glad you were really focused on getting that PhD! It's encouraging.
Welcome to this place where you can be yourself.



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23 Oct 2014, 1:56 pm

Hello and welcome to wrong planet.
For me, usually people don't notice right away I have the syndrome, it usually take a while, a couple of hours in the same room, or working with the same people over and over again. And when they suspect something and ask me, I don't answer, but once I had a meltdown and was force to explain the reasons.


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QuantumChemist
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23 Oct 2014, 7:27 pm

When I am in a social environment, I am the ultimate "wall flower". I will go out of my way to avoid conversations with strangers if I can. I really do not know what to say to them without going into areas that they will likely not understand (deep science topics are a favorite of mine). Many people are only interested in how much they earn, so they think less on me when they realize that I am not that way. To me, the main goal in life is not what you earn but what you can learn and teach someone else. Some people think that I am being a "showoff" with my knowledge, but that is not what I am trying to do. I am just trying to relate to them with my experiences in my line of work. Often they will ask or tell me about personal relationships, which is a complete blank part of my life that I simply cannot relate to. It then becomes very uncomfortable for me, so I find the nearest way out of the conversation. That is part of my curse....



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24 Oct 2014, 11:40 am

QuantumChemist wrote:
When I am in a social environment, I am the ultimate "wall flower". I will go out of my way to avoid conversations with strangers if I can. I really do not know what to say to them without going into areas that they will likely not understand (deep science topics are a favorite of mine). Many people are only interested in how much they earn, so they think less on me when they realize that I am not that way. To me, the main goal in life is not what you earn but what you can learn and teach someone else. Some people think that I am being a "showoff" with my knowledge, but that is not what I am trying to do. I am just trying to relate to them with my experiences in my line of work. Often they will ask or tell me about personal relationships, which is a complete blank part of my life that I simply cannot relate to. It then becomes very uncomfortable for me, so I find the nearest way out of the conversation. That is part of my curse....

You are not the only one, when I'm force to go out to social events (I usually avoid them has much has possible) I run into the same situations. Most people are only interested about how much your earn or where your last vacation took place, Maldives or Bali. Same often goes with my own family. While I'm a filmmaker and I love films and I can talk hours and hours about films, I'm also interested in history, geography and I like planes, but people are often bored about these subjects and don't care about my knowledge also. And when I'm over at friends it's the same, they are often talking about life stuff, like children, mortgage, relationships and many more subjects I don't care about. How many time, mostly at family houses when these subject come out I end up splitting and going into another room on the computer or go into a younger cousin or nephews bedroom to play games or watch TV. So often some say I act like a kids instead of an adult. So welcome to the club.


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24 Oct 2014, 6:03 pm

I am not fond of the shallow conversations either, but science, history, geography? I like! I've noticed they aren't very proper subjects for my usual social contacts either. Unfortunately, if I really get into discussing my favorite science interest here it's been proven too easy to figure out who I am/was. Those warnings about disclosing too much personal info are there for a reason, and it happens. So have fun but please do be careful.

Quantum chemistry sounds a lot like vitriols and mordants and pions making magic in ancient solutions to enable communication of thought over long distances and vast gaps of time.



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24 Oct 2014, 8:07 pm

I can definitely relate to not liking small talk. I mean, it's right there in the name! Why talk small when there are so many other more interesting things to think and talk about?

Quantum chemistry does sound very intriguing, and also evokes images of ancient alchemy for me. Also, it does seem like it might be theoretically possible to synthesize and entangle certain substances and use them to exchange complex information. Even if you could only communicate an "on/off" state, you could hypothetically use that to construct a quantum computer. I need to look into quantum computing more deeply, even if only as research fodder for my sci-fi novel... *scampers off to mine the bowels of the internet*


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QuantumChemist
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24 Oct 2014, 9:43 pm

The quantum in my user name has to do with one of my special interests: quantum physics of subatomic particles. While I cannot say what I currently do research on, I can give you one of the projects that I worked on in grad school,(but not the one I graduated with). I was attempting to develop molecular switches as a means to store digital data on individual molecules. This was a step towards linking quantum computing (calculating using atoms) to its data storage capabilities. Think about taking a 1 terabyte drive times itself for the amount of increase potential. Unfortunately, the materials I was researching with would not separate the charges for a long enough time to make the switch "work" well enough. (IBM got one to work with 17 metal atoms last year and it was smaller than the ones I was originally researching on.) However, not every research failure is a complete failure, as it gave me information to develop a different type of data switch. The new idea I have is potentially much more powerful than even IBM's one. It has the added gift of being able to survive an EMP blast (either from man or nature), something that would wipe out all conventional data storage devices currently. That project is on a back-burner in my mind right now for a reason (no funding yet). But maybe someday...



QuantumChemist
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24 Oct 2014, 9:49 pm

SpirosD wrote:
QuantumChemist wrote:
When I am in a social environment, I am the ultimate "wall flower". I will go out of my way to avoid conversations with strangers if I can. I really do not know what to say to them without going into areas that they will likely not understand (deep science topics are a favorite of mine). Many people are only interested in how much they earn, so they think less on me when they realize that I am not that way. To me, the main goal in life is not what you earn but what you can learn and teach someone else. Some people think that I am being a "showoff" with my knowledge, but that is not what I am trying to do. I am just trying to relate to them with my experiences in my line of work. Often they will ask or tell me about personal relationships, which is a complete blank part of my life that I simply cannot relate to. It then becomes very uncomfortable for me, so I find the nearest way out of the conversation. That is part of my curse....

You are not the only one, when I'm force to go out to social events (I usually avoid them has much has possible) I run into the same situations. Most people are only interested about how much your earn or where your last vacation took place, Maldives or Bali. Same often goes with my own family. While I'm a filmmaker and I love films and I can talk hours and hours about films, I'm also interested in history, geography and I like planes, but people are often bored about these subjects and don't care about my knowledge also. And when I'm over at friends it's the same, they are often talking about life stuff, like children, mortgage, relationships and many more subjects I don't care about. How many time, mostly at family houses when these subject come out I end up splitting and going into another room on the computer or go into a younger cousin or nephews bedroom to play games or watch TV. So often some say I act like a kids instead of an adult. So welcome to the club.


Thank you, I can relate to that. I have always been told that I act much younger than I am physically. But, in a way it keeps me from aging like everyone else does....



MysterMe
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25 Oct 2014, 12:08 am

QuantumChemist wrote:
The quantum in my user name has to do with one of my special interests: quantum physics of subatomic particles. While I cannot say what I currently do research on, I can give you one of the projects that I worked on in grad school,(but not the one I graduated with). I was attempting to develop molecular switches as a means to store digital data on individual molecules. This was a step towards linking quantum computing (calculating using atoms) to its data storage capabilities. Think about taking a 1 terabyte drive times itself for the amount of increase potential. Unfortunately, the materials I was researching with would not separate the charges for a long enough time to make the switch "work" well enough. (IBM got one to work with 17 metal atoms last year and it was smaller than the ones I was originally researching on.) However, not every research failure is a complete failure, as it gave me information to develop a different type of data switch. The new idea I have is potentially much more powerful than even IBM's one. It has the added gift of being able to survive an EMP blast (either from man or nature), something that would wipe out all conventional data storage devices currently. That project is on a back-burner in my mind right now for a reason (no funding yet). But maybe someday...


I am also very interested in quantum physics and the potential of quantum computing, though I am sure you are far more knowledgeable about it than I. May I ask whether you believe that the properties of quantum entanglement might hypothetically be used to transfer complex information instantaneously? I'd also be interested to know why your new switch could survive an EMP... does it not use electrical current?


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QuantumChemist
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25 Oct 2014, 9:19 am

MysterMe wrote:
QuantumChemist wrote:
The quantum in my user name has to do with one of my special interests: quantum physics of subatomic particles. While I cannot say what I currently do research on, I can give you one of the projects that I worked on in grad school,(but not the one I graduated with). I was attempting to develop molecular switches as a means to store digital data on individual molecules. This was a step towards linking quantum computing (calculating using atoms) to its data storage capabilities. Think about taking a 1 terabyte drive times itself for the amount of increase potential. Unfortunately, the materials I was researching with would not separate the charges for a long enough time to make the switch "work" well enough. (IBM got one to work with 17 metal atoms last year and it was smaller than the ones I was originally researching on.) However, not every research failure is a complete failure, as it gave me information to develop a different type of data switch. The new idea I have is potentially much more powerful than even IBM's one. It has the added gift of being able to survive an EMP blast (either from man or nature), something that would wipe out all conventional data storage devices currently. That project is on a back-burner in my mind right now for a reason (no funding yet). But maybe someday...


I am also very interested in quantum physics and the potential of quantum computing, though I am sure you are far more knowledgeable about it than I. May I ask whether you believe that the properties of quantum entanglement might hypothetically be used to transfer complex information instantaneously? I'd also be interested to know why your new switch could survive an EMP... does it not use electrical current?


Yes, it is theoretically possible to shift digital data this way across the universe. But, there are some issues that need to be addressed first before we can ever actually use it. Among them is the problem that quantum coupling with matter can happen across vast distances without us actually knowing which particular piece of matter is coupled to which. We would have to find this experimentally, which will take a long time to do. To complicated it more, there exists the probability that matter may become coupled with anti-matter or dark matter also (both which we have a limited understanding about to begin with). This concept is complicated even more by the possibility that it could be shifted either up or down in dimensionality during the transfer process. (The data would be highly unlikely to be accessed by our dimensionality.) Since we do not know the end point (or maybe even end points over the vast space of the universe), we would have to be careful on what is ever sent this way.

As for my idea for the EMP proof data storage device, it does use electrical current to "write" the data, but not to "read" the data. That way, if all the electronics are destroyed during an EMP, the data can still be accessed. The electrical current alone will not create the data itself, it is a part of multiple things that work together to make the data unit form. It is a rewritable process under certain normal conditions. I wish I could say more about it....