Chapter 12: Waiting for Results [2]
It turned out that my timing was spot on. As I exited the lecture hall, I watched as on the opposite side a stream of students began to pour in.
At first, I couldn't spot Olivia among the crowd. But that's when she suddenly popped out on my left, and together, we made our way into the hall.
We got ourselves situated somewhere in the middle rows, blending into the buzz of the students.
The professor, who was set to deliver our lecture, entered the room. He had a slightly receding hairline and a small stature. The students hushed their voices down and began to listen to the professor.
"Welcome to MIT students, we're gonna get started today with Calculus, I will show you how math will be taught here... Well, at least in the first couple of weeks."
"So let me tell you briefly what's in store, the first topic is a Derivative, we are gonna look at it from many different points of view, the geometric interpretation, is one that we are gonna focus on today and then we are gonna talk about why Calculus is so fundamental, that is, I'm gonna mention the importance of derivatives to all measurements, be it science, engineering, economics, political science, etc. and I'm telling you if someone is gonna teach you well it's gonna be at MIT" - "Well unless Aliens can get you on a better Math course. Do you know any aliens?"
"They just discovered life on another planet yesterday." A guy in the front row exclaimed, he had striking blond hair and an athletic physique. He spoke with such enthusiasm that it seemed as if he couldn't wait to share the news. However, he must have mistaken the professor's joke with an actual question.
I gotta admit, I knew what he was talking about, but it didn't feel like the right time to talk about this.
I kind of remembered reading something about it, or at least skimming the headlines. So, here's the deal: they just cracked the case with the Kepler Telescope yesterday, and it's all about the K2-18b planet. This bad boy does a full lap around its star in just 33 days, and it's right in that sweet spot they call the "habitable zone."
That's not all. It's been common knowledge that this planet's got a liquid ocean under a dense layer of hydrogen, it's a Hycean Planet, but yesterday, they stumbled upon Dimethyl Sulfide. And here's the thing – on Earth, it's only produced naturally, thanks to the bacteria and plankton in the ocean. Basically, we're talking about some serious marine life vibes happening out there!
The professor casually brushed off the comment and started to explain how you can find a derivative of a function through its geometrical interpretation. Finding a function's tangent line at a specific point and calculating its slope.