Questioning+and+Posing+Problems

Questioning and Posing Problems
"The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances....." Albert Einstein

My third grade teacher once told my class that no question was ever stupid, and made us promise that if we had a question—no matter how superficial (like “ to something)—we would ask. She urged us to focus on the learning from a more “questioning” perspective, and the academic journey.

Thus, questioning and posing questions is a key personality trait to have in life, because it reminds us that while we’re on the quest for knowledge (or simply finding the solution), we may not necessarily find the Holy Grail or the Answers To All The Questions In The World, but may discover more problems to contemplate. That’s what people mean by academic curiosity, I suppose: the desire to find answers to things, but along the way, end up finding more questions than answers. Though all these habits of truly “intelligent” people are interrelated, this particular habit seems to be closer to “learning continuously.” How can we learn continuously if we do not constantly find questions so that we can seek the answers to them?

One primary example is the most recent chemistry project. When we were first asked to find a research question, I was randomly surfing around the web when I caught one line that piqued my curiosity: primary standards should have high molecular mass. Immediately, I looked at that, and asked myself what a “primary standard” was. Based on the context, I assumed it was the known solution in a titration, and when I quickly Googled it, it seemed that the search results corroborated my idea. And so, because I was interested, I decided to use it as my research question, which was “How does the molecular mass of the primary standard affect the accuracy of a titration?” Of course, another reason why I used this question was because I just assumed the answer was fairly straightforward (I could not be any more wrong). However, I encountered many problems in the experimental section (which I will discuss in another habit of mind), destroying my expectations.

The main problems (or potential for more “questions,” if you wish to put it optimistically) started after I finished the experiment. I had data that although was fairly precise (it was amazing that I did not become more and more careless after 45 titrations—perhaps a sign that I am “striving for accuracy and precision” :D), it completely did not match up with my expectations or the little research I had done before the experiment. Certainly (I won’t bore you by repeating whatever I said on the presentation), the accepted primary standard sodium carbonate was the least precise and accurate! That alone meant ERROR (I don’t think the findings of some random high schooler can overturn a theory/fact that is even recorded in the //European Pharmacopoeia//). Not just random error. The worst kind of error—the systematic error (which I found out later, was my failure to standardize the bases I used)!

Doing hours of more in-depth research later, I discovered what primary standards //really// meant. What I had thought about primary standard would better be described by the word “standard solution.” Primary standards were just simply really awesome standard solutions. But then, I wondered to myself. If primary standards were so awesome with their abilities to be stable and have high molecular weight, low hygroscopicity and efflorescence, why don’t we use them more often instead of sodium hydroxide, a commonly used base in titration? Question spawned question, until my sleepy, muddled brain couldn’t handle the overload of questions. I eventually did get them cleared up (by simply asking the teacher). But, only after I began to question my findings did I actually learn something. I finished my project with more questions and answers in my head, rather than feeling like I had found the “solution” to my initial question.

I suppose this is one habit that I won't have to work on as much!

Figure 1: Screenshot of the website that first corrected my misconception, that primary standards are now what I thought they were.