America's Next Top Nobel

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or a pile of p-sets in the corner of Lamont), you’ve probably heard that chemistry professor emeritus Martin Karplus just won a Nobel Prize. This, according to The Crimson, was for his innovations in “computer simulations using classical physics and quantum mechanics that could improve scientists’ understanding of complex reactions and the development of new drugs." If you’re anything like us, you’re very impressed, and also have no idea what this actually means. For your benefit, we’ve broken down this scientific jargon into language even Folklore and Mythology concentrators can understand.

WARNING: The following definitions have been provided by a sarcastic humanities concentrator who has only ever stepped foot in the Science Center to buy chai tea lattés from the Greenhouse Café.

“Computer simulations”

As anyone who took the verbal portion of the SAT in high school knows, “to simulate” means to excite or arouse, and often has a sexual connotation. Wait, nope, our mistake, that’s “stimulate.” Simulate means to take on the appearance of, so we can infer that that the Nobel Prize committee selected Karplus on account of his excellent computer costume last Halloween. We have yet to confirm the exact nature of this costume, but we’d like to imagine that Karplus wore a giant cardboard box painted to resemble a PC and spent the night making beeping noises.

“Classical physics”

Physics is that mysterious field being explored somewhere deep in the bowels of the Science Center. We can’t say for sure, but it probably has something to do with really big numbers. Also magnets. There’s definitely something going on with magnets. Anyway, we figure that classical physics is probably basically the same thing as regular physics, except you have to make all of your calculations while wearing a powdered wig and shout “Eureka!” every few minutes.

“Quantum mechanics”

The word “quantum” comes from the Latin root “quantus,” meaning “complicated mathy stuff that we don’t understand because we fulfilled our empirical reasoning requirement with Anthropology 1010.”

“Scientists’ Understanding of Complex Reactions”

Karplus’s research must have been dedicated to helping hopelessly socially awkward chemists understand the complex emotional reactions of the significant others in their lives. For instance, when your girlfriend asks you whether her dress makes her look fat and you say, “Well, you might look better in something else,” why does she burst into tears and smash the Nobel Prize you just won on the coffee table? Scientists have been grappling with this problem for thousands of Friday nights.

“The development of new drugs”

We imagine that the new drugs inspired by Karplus’s work could include those really tiny round pills that always fall in your drain, the drugs that come in childproof boxes that are so difficult to open you’d rather just stay sick anyway, and Red Bull. We feel obligated to note that we predict that side effects include leprosy, the plague, and that tiny speck in the corner of your eye that just won’t go away no matter how many times you rub it.