Today I had a 6-month dental appointment early in the morning before work. The dentist hygienist was very happy with my teeth. At the end, she applied a poultice of pumice on my teeth, and I learned that pumice is used as a micro-abrasive that effectively removes plaque. I shared with her my research on the role of pumice as aggregate in acoustic tiles. I showed her some photomicrographs of pumice rock as thin sections under the microscope, explaining the geology of pumice, its mineralogical closeness to obsidian, and how the flow of lava was visible in the direction of the vesicles. She could see how the angularity and the overall morphology of pumice grains made it an effective material in cleaning teeth. I talked to her all these curiosities about pumice, and she seemed impressed about the depth of knowledge I had about a seemingly boring rock. She wondered if I studied elsewhere besides Penn. It seemed to have brightened her day.
I came to realize that you can develop a depth of knowledge in any subject if you just keep feeding your curiosity, regardless of what people may think. That curiosity cannot be manufactured –it can only come from within, and one must nourish it as it presents itself.