From Discovery to Display

A scientist recalls the untidy beards, tired eyes, and patient inquiry of earlier generations, contrasting it with today's polished labs, curated images, and public celebrations that often eclipse true discovery.

- Mohammad Ilyas Bhat

Some of my earliest memories of science come from faces rather than formulas.

In the corridors of my school and the classrooms of my college, portraits of Rutherford, Dalton, Archimedes, Faraday, Newton, Mendel, and Fleming seemed to watch us closely from the walls, and those faces stayed in my mind long after lessons ended.

As students, we first reacted with amusement, noticing their heavy beards, untidy hair, and eyes that always looked tired.

At that age, these features seemed odd, even funny. But over time, a different understanding took hold.

Those faces told the story of lives fully absorbed in thinking, observing, experimenting, and returning again and again to questions without answers.

They were people whose attention never strayed from nature, leaving almost no space for self-presentation.

Back then, science felt serious and demanding. It asked for long stretches of solitude, respect for evidence, and years of work that went mostly unseen.

It asked for dedication without celebration, effort without recognition, and offered meaning instead of attention.

That understanding feels distant now.

Alexander Fleming captured this distance with a single remark that continues to echo.

While inaugurating an advanced laboratory, he observed with dry irony that penicillin would never have been discovered in such a place.

His words carried no hostility toward modern tools. They spoke instead about the conditions that allow discovery to surface.

Penicillin came from a messy lab, a chance contamination, and a scientist alert enough to notice something others would have ignored. Discovery grew from careful observation and a free mind, rather than from polished floors or formal ceremonies.