THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Though Artificial Intelligence eases life in many households and industries, it cannot be a seen as a solution for everything, Nobel laureate Morten P Meldal has said.
In an interactive session at the onging the Global Science Festival Kerala (GSFK) at Thonnakal near here on Wednesday, Meldal stressed on the need to exercise caution in learning AI. “There is no way we can give AI empathy or irregular thoughts,” Meldal said while speaking on the limitations of the modern technology.
According to him, discoveries are not planned, but they happen because we keep our eyes open. “You should contest your knowledge constantly, you can’t do research thinking of the Nobel prize and if that is your plan you are not going to get it,” he said.
Meldal pointed out that scientific thinking in a society can be developed through students. Parents have a big role in instigating the interest in children, he said.
The Nobel laureate also shared his learning experiences with the audience, comprising mostly students. He said every individual has a different way of thinking and storing memory, and his, fortunately, was by seeing images.
“The memory of pictures is very important in chemistry. It is a visual memory, not a word memory. You can’t learn chemistry through a word memory. I am strong at chemistry because I have a visual memory,” he admitted.
Meldal said children have the amazing ability to store images, the things they see they remember for the rest of their lives. “Hence, childhood training in chemistry is extremely important,” he said.
About his fondness for music he said, “In the visuals, you have to imagine In music you have let go off logic, which is in contrast to Science, I used music as a relaxation tool for my brain.” he said.
Meldal said that the problems of the world today lie in the conflict of understanding; “The understanding of nature is important and everybody around the globe has to see things in the same way.”
He lauded science education in India and said it holds a lot of potential given the quantum of research being carried out.
Meldal had discovered what is popularly called a click reaction in 2001, which has allowed rapid progress in the synthesis of diverse array of molecules applicable in areas such as pharmaceuticals, materials chemistry, drug discovery and biology.
For this, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022, jointly with Prof. Barry Sharpless and Prof Carolyn Bertozzi.
Meldal delivers Erudite Lecture at KU
Prof Morten P Meldal, the 2022 Nobel Laureate in chemistry, delivered an Erudite Lecture on the University of Kerala-Kariavattom campus on Wednesday. Prof Meldal described his recent research results regarding new click reactions and combinatorial synthesis in the lecture. Public speaker Phaedria Marie St Hilaire, wife of Meldal, also delivered an invited lecture about gender equality in science and technology.