Good Scientists Invoke a hunger to learn.
The Ocean Beneath the Waves Eleven years ago, I messaged a NASA scientist with a question that wouldn't let go: what if everything in the universe orbits something larger? Atoms orbit nuclei. Planets orbit stars. Stars orbit galactic centres. Galaxies flow toward the Great Attractor. The pattern's too consistent to just stop. Dr Philip Metzger was kind. Patient, even. "We don't see anything bigger than galaxies for them to orbit. They're swirling around each other." I thanked him. Apologised for bothering him. Told him I'd wanted to be an astrophysicist but dropped out. Bad at maths, you see. Three years later, I came back with the Fibonacci spiral. "What if the universe follows φ? What if 1:1.618 governs it all the way up?" He didn't reply that time. Maybe he missed it. Maybe he didn't have an answer that fit a tweet. But he'd already done something more important. He'd treated my curiosity with respect. --- That's what struc...