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I'm going to give
you some closing comments.

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I started this semester
off in the first lecture,

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and I asked you all a question.

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And the question was,
why are you here?

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And I said really, really,
really, why are you here.

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Why did you come to MIT?

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And I asked you,
did you come here

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so you can just phone it in,
get a stamp in four years,

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and go out?

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Did you come here so
you can walk around

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some place in privilege and
look down on other people?

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That is not why you're here.

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That is not why you came to MIT.

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You came to MIT because
you know that this

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is where we will make
the transition from being

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able to answer any question to
knowing which question to ask.

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That's the transition
from student to scholar.

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And you know that you came here
because you have a passion,

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and you want to come to a place
where you can take that passion

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and you can try to solve
really hard problems together

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to make the world
a better place.

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Those are reasons
why you came here.

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You came here because you
know that progress does not

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happen because of success.

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It doesn't.

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It happens entirely
because of what

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you choose to do with failure.

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That's MIT, that's the MIT way,
and that's why you're here,

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and I asked you to think about
that on the first lecture.

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And then I gave you a
whole lot of examples

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throughout the class.

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I tried to connect our
learning and solid state

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chemistry to global challenges,
to global challenges

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that we face.

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And I tried to do that.

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So I had 36 opportunities.

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There's many more, so I
had to pick and choose

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carefully to try to give you a
sense of some of these things.

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And the thing is about
these challenges, one I just

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talked about in many others,
it's not that these are things

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that we need to do soon.

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There is an urgency of
now about these things.

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There is an urgency of now.

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There's no more time
to talk about it.

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And so these challenges, it's
not like something happens over

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here, happens over there.

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These are planetary challenges.

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These cover the whole thing.

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So it's all on the table.

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It's all on the line.

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And by the way, if it's
a planetary challenge,

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it means the
challenge doesn't care

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if you're in a blue
State or a red State

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or if you live in Europe
or Africa or here.

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It doesn't care.

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So we better figure out how to
get our act together and work

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together to solve these
very hard problems.

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And that's why you're here.

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That's why you're here.

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And so on the first
lecture, I asked

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you to think about
why you're here,

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and on this very
last lecture, I'm

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asking you to think about what
you want to do about that.

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What do you want
to do about that?

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And there's a lot of
things you can do.

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I don't mean that you have to
work on one of these things

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we've talked about
in this class.

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That's not what I mean.

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I mean, think about what it
is that you really want to do

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and how you want to do
it, and then go for it.

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You might have figured that
out before you came here.

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You may know-- gesundheit--

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already way before you got here.

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You may be figuring
it out right now.

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You may have no clue what you
want to do when you graduate.

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All of those are fine.

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But what I want
to leave you with

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is a framework and some
thinking that what can I

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leave you with as a
suggestion, as a framework.

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And it really comes down
to three ingredients,

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three ingredients
that I'm asking

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you to think about
when you go off

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and do, when you leave here,
when you go off and do.

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What are you going to do?

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How are you going to frame this?

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And so the first
ingredient is kindness.

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Now OK.

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Bear with me.

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Because you're all thinking,
what is he talking about?

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This is a chemistry class, and
you're talking about kindness.

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But you see, the
thing is, I'm trying

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to think about what is a
framework that if you follow it

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you will do good.

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You will help change this
world for the better, which

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is what we do at MIT.

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It's how we think.

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And the thing is I don't
care if you define kindness

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as love or as helping
someone or as community or as

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on one of those dates when
the candle was in the room

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and you did the calculation
and you saved the day

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because you knew oxygen
was going to run out.

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That's all kindness.

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All of that is kindness.

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But the thing is that if you
have kindness in what you do,

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it's really hard to do bad.

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Is that under the hood?

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Is there an element of kindness?

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You can't have too much of it.

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We need that vector.

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We need that vector
in this world.

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So that's one ingredient,
and the second ingredient

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is knowledge.

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Now, what I mean by this is
acquisition of knowledge.

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And we have done a lot of
that here in this class,

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and you do a lot of
that at MIT, and we

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celebrate these acquisitions.

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What I'm asking you to
do is think about this

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as you go forward.

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How are you acquiring knowledge?

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How are you learning?

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That sounds cliche.

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Always learn.

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You guys have to
keep doing that.

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You have to keep doing
that because, for you, it's

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nourishment, and it's
another one of these vectors.

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You can't do any
harm by learning.

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You can only do good for
yourself and for everyone

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that you care about.

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So keep doing it.

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The rate might change
of learning acquisition

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as a reaction, the rate
constant might be lower.

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We know places where
that's already the case.

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And that's OK.

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Maybe the order is
lower too down there,

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but I think they probably
are learning something.

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Keep that going.

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And the last thing is passion.

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And this involves your talents.

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You all have talents already.

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You all have them because
that's part of who you are

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and why you're here.

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Those are things that
you bring a passion to.

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What are those talents?

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Maybe some of them are
hidden, but work on them

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and pursue them.

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Do things that you
literally are so

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excited about you
can't sleep sometimes

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because of the excitement.

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That's what I'm talking about.

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Follow that.

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Feed it.

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And while you do, lose the fear.

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Avoid greed, and
embrace challenge.

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That's what MT is.

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That's why we're here.

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So I feel like these
three ingredients,

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I've thought about this, and
I thought about these three

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ingredients, and
I've thought about--

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we have these already.

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You all have these ingredients
because that is also MIT,

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and you are here,
and you are MIT.

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And so what I'm asking you
to do is to hold onto them

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and keep thinking about them.

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There's a lot of reasons
why I love to teach,

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but one of the big ones is when
I think about the challenges

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that I share with
you guys and I have

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36 chances to look
up in the room

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and I think about
those challenges

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and I think about
these ingredients

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and I think about all
of you, I actually

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feel like we have a shot.

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I actually feel that.