Dear Mr. Rector, Honorable Mr. Ambassador, Dear lecturers,
Dear students!
I want to congratulate you all on the occasion of the Knowledge Day and the beginning
of the new academic year. I am sure that each of you appreciates this day with particular enthusiasm because the science and knowledge have a special place in our lives.
Dear students,
I agree with the idea that science is a form of thinking rather than a collection of facts.
Moreover, we have added the 6th sense- science to our five senses, and we reveal the world around us through these six senses. The prime example of this is that a human eye sees only the seven colors of the rainbow. Meanwhile, the science-created tools give the opportunity to discover the entire spectrum and color palette of the light beam.
Science is also a high culture that claims to give meaning to our lives. More precisely, it provides a new sense and new colors to our lives. Science, like a good movie or a novel, a good painting or music, gives us the opportunity to look at life with a new look and, most importantly, re-evaluate our place in the society, in the world, and in the Universe.
So, when we spend the hours of our lives studying, we do it to get involved in the high culture of science.
Science is also captivating as it does not recognize absolute truths or dogmas. That is why when we encounter the field of science, we periodically question our perceptions.
The search for new knowledge and new perceptions leads us to a new world, helps us to understand others’ perceptions and communicate with others’ world.
Not coincidentally, that we, as a nation, build our ties with our friends through science centers, and we also strengthen our intercultural relationship via the very high culture called science. The Armenian-Russian (Slavonic) University, the American University of Armenia, the French University of Armenia and other educational institutions vividly prove that fact.
So long as the world and the Universe around us are sometimes even more surprising than we can imagine with our boundless imagination, the science helps us to reveal the most diverse and incredible manifestations of nature continually.
The time-tested well-known idea- the scientia potentia est (the knowledge is power) is a centuries-proven truth. Wisdom will give you strength and skills to find solutions in every situation of your life. Sometimes people mistakenly try to present science as an isolated phenomenon far from our lives. In reality, however, science is a part of our everyday life.
The vast majority of our present-day welfare tools are based on scientific discoveries.
Also, the future belongs to those countries that properly evaluate science and make investments in the field of science.
Knowledge is a vaccine withstanding challenges of the world around us. So if you are equipped with knowledge, then you can consider yourself protected. The more and diverse expertise our citizens have in their “arsenal,” the stronger our security will be and the more protected we will be as a society, as a state, and as a nation.
Further, the more knowledge you get, the closer you contact with the culture of science, the more colorful and brighter the life around will be. Dear students, when entering this university, set a task for yourself to surpass your professors and scientists whose examples you follow. To achieve that goal, you will need two essential properties. The first is diligence. No matter how sharp your mind is, no matter what brilliant memory and glowing imagination you have, the pledge of success in this field is diligence. The next essential requirement is freedom. By saying freedom, I mean, first of all, the freedom of thought.
Freedom of mind is a vital necessity. If the pillars of the freedom of speech are the press, then the components of freedom of thought are universities that are the primary guarantors of liberty. Feel free inside the walls of this building and develop your mind.
As students, you are also guarantors and developers of open mind.
I believe that you will love freedom like Alexander Pushkin and through your lifestyle, you will pass a new, beautiful tune to freedom. When you feel like Mikayel Nalbandyan thinking that this world is too narrow for “the freedom lovers”, raise your heads to see that the world is not only the horizontal borders that are drawn on the map and around us but also the vertical infinity that stretches to the sky, to the stars, to the fathomless Universe. There you will find the freedom that does not recognize physical and mental boundaries and restrictions.
When you will need to find inspirational precedents on the path to the new abyss of the science universe, open Alenoush Teryan’s biography and see how you can win the “worlds” with the “help of sun” , study Zapel Yesayan’s life, who with the ambitious freedom-loving won the rights to express her inner freedom via breaking the social clichés.
The other crucial factor that has fundamental importance for the development of science is the art of asking questions. You should try hard to gain the skills of formulating questions and finding answers to those questions. The art of expressing questions will increase your opportunity to learn something new, besides it will also improve your ability to appreciate the life truly. You should strive to reach the level of formulating difficult questions, and the search for answers to which will give you an opportunity to reevaluate your place in society, in the world, and in the Universe.
Asking questions helps to discover the reality, and accepting the fact gives us freedom.
Thus, freedom is observing and accepting the truth.
Dear students, I believe you will become bright personalities of the society and will give a new tune to our world that is illuminated by the sounds, colors, inventions and works of Marie Curie, Diana Abgar, Arno Babajanyan, Andrey Sakharov, John Lennon, Gayane Khachaturyan, Alexander Mikayelyan, Daron Acemoglu.
At the end, let me end my speech with the words of famous chemist Humphrey Davy:
“Nothing is so dangerous to the progress of the human mind than to assume that our views of science are ultimate, that there are no mysteries in nature, that our triumphs are complete and there are no new worlds to conquer”.
Onwards to new achievements, discoveries and further victories!