On Tuesday evening, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., there was a science exhibit night at Whitewater’s high school, at which hundreds of people watched dozens of science experiments and demonstrations. For the student volunteers, and the teachers who staffed the event, the story of the evening might have been the wide number of exhibits. Anyone walking though the area found stations for optical illusions, rocket launching, insect collections, a Rube Goldberg contraption, animal tracks, hydrodynamics, electrical circuits, hovercraft, and the ever-fascinating combination of pop and Mentos. There were other stations beyond these; my list is a partial one. Those who created and demonstrated these exhibits have every reason to be proud of their work.
These many exhibits did not sit unremarked; hundreds came to see them. The attendance, I think, is an equally important story of the evening. Walking from room to room, among so many people, one saw Whitewater as she is, at her very best. No small number of insiders, beyond the few chattering magpies of the city: Whitewater’s many, a better group than all of our governing officials combined.
The attendees were of all ages, and representative of the city’s population, I’d guess. Their interest in science, in discovery of the natural world, was characteristic of an American community. We are an inquisitive people, given to experimentation and hands-on examination of the world around us. We’re not a place for Cambridge Platonists, a clique of dons speculating on the meaning of it all. We’re fortunate that we’re not; we fall short, and fail ourselves, whenever we undertake the mannered, airy musings of less productive elites.
Our science and achievements — the envy of all the world — have not come from a few fancy people (or those who’d like to think that they’re fancy, and like you to think so, too).
Our achievements come from the hands of ordinary and common people, who do extraordinary things, free of pretension. From among the crowd Tuesday evening, Whitewater, and America, will find what they need for our future. They’ll need no guiding hand of supposed dignitaries; no self-important vanguard will direct them. Talent and accomplishment will spring from the crowd, simply and humbly discovering great things.
Science Night was both an interesting and pleasant evening, and a match for any other.