Do Our Words Really Matter?

How many of the words we use get absorbed? Do our thoughts really matter?

This is something that I've been thinking about since sitting in one of my large lecture classes ago a couple weeks ago. I was a little tired and trying to pay attention when I lost the battle and started looking around the classroom. Half of the students were on their computers and the other half was sleeping. So it made me wonder, how much of what the professor is saying is remembered? If it’s not remembered, then technically it never existed.

This may seem random, but as a scientist and with my new exploration into words it made me think of an experiment. I want to set up a lecture. There will be 100 students in the classroom and the professor will do an hour long lecture that I will record. It will be like any other lecture. The students can take notes and the professor will speak and use a PowerPoint. The difference will be what happens after the lecture. The students will then be asked to rewrite the entire lecture verbatim. Every word they can remember. They may collaborate and discuss it. At the end, I will count all the words that the students correctly wrote down and how many words were lost forever except for the recording. I want to know how many words are lost.

I promise not all my posts will be focused solely on words. The world is so big and made up of the smallest of the small. There are thousands of things to explore and discuss.