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Science

Interview: Physicist Leon M. Lederman 498

Posted by Roblimo from the top-of-the-high-energy-physics-heap dept.
This week's star interview guest is Leon M. Lederman, who has received more science and physics-oriented awards than we have room to list here, up to and including a Nobel Prize. The opportunity to quiz a scientist of Prof. Lederman's stature doesn't come along every day. Please use it wisely! (Special thanks go to Slashdot reader Rich Wellner, who arranged this interview.)
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Interview: Physicist Leon M. Lederman More

Interview: Physicist Leon M. Lederman

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  • Re:Someone has to ask this: (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is silly. Would you ask a theologian about physics?

  • Mass (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To me, gravity is still the big question mark.

    What do you make of the apparent equality of inertial and gravitational mass?

  • Britain closed it's one nuclear accelerator, at the Nuclear Structure Facility, at SERC Daresbury Laboratory, just outside of Warrington. Why? Because it was "too expensive".

    Now, the British Government has to pay for all nuclear science done, because it can't honor it's side of the European science exchange agreement. Similar facilities cost the British Government a vast amount to hire, and they have to pay to ship or fly their scientists abroad, rather than cover the cost of a car ride just up the road.

    (I worked at the NSF, in it's final year, developing an online filesystem for the "Eurogam" project - an attempt to build an array of 50 gamma ray detectors around the end of a tandem accelerator. It was fun, but the budget cuts were dangerous, with more than a few leaks of SF6 gas. This is a gas used in this kind of accelerator. It's inert, non-toxic, and colourless. It's also heavier than air, and suffocates it's victims without them knowing it's even happening.)

    A second, linear accelerator was given to the Australian National University. Not sold, GIVEN. Several hundred million dollar's worth of completely brand-new, state-of-the-art, unused equiptment, worth something like quarter of a (US) billion US dollars, just handed over, in the name of saving costs.

    In America, the Supercollider was cancelled, after the executives were caught spending more on potted plants than potting protons. It was a farce, which set back nuclear science in America by decades. (If you don't move forwards, you WILL move backwards.) A potentially magnificent tool to forward science, utterly obliterated by personal greed, politics and corruption. And there's not a chance that a similar device will be built on American soil for decades to come. Nobody'd touch such a project with a 10' barge pole, now.

    Nuclear science will be relegated to ever-smaller handfuls of countries capable of maintaining the equiptment (I don't trust CERN), eventually becoming the province of one or two, or vanishing entirely.

    Politics and greed WILL kill nuclear science, unless there's a major shift in attitudes, but I don't believe that'll happen in my lifetime.

  • Do you believe that it would be theoretically possible to effectively violate the theory of Relativity and transmit information faster than light, even if by circumventing the limit, rather than actually breaking the light barrier?

    This would include non-local effects (other than entangled photons), quantum-scale wormholes, somehow exploiting superstrings, etc.

  • I must admit, I'm not particularly optimistic about you receiving this question, but I feel the question deserves at least the opportunity to be asked:

    Do you feel there is, at times, an inappropriate tendancy to assign properties to the universe for no other reason but that specific equations proven on a lower end of inputs will show "amazing results" on a higher range of inputs?

    Call it false linearization if you like--the best example I've heard of this came from Bill Gascoyne:


    A cautionary thought on the dangers of extrapolation.

    It is reported that in 1977 there were 37 Elvis impersonators in the world. In 1993 there were 48,000. At this rate, by the year 2010 one out of every three people in the world will be an Elvis impersonator.


    While I'm assuredly not qualified to mention specific examples of what I might feel qualifies as inappropriately applied mathematics, I'd be interested in hearing your perspective on the commonality of this type of error.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • ...SCIENTISTS ARE OFTEN ACCUSED of trying to play God. But obviously they can't really mimic the feats of the putative Creator of the Universe...

    • last year I read an
    • excellent edition [newscientist.com] of new scientist [newscientist.com] on this exact topic. Here's the link [newscientist.com] to the online article so you can read it.

    links:
    http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990828/contents.h tml
    http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990828/ablackhole .html
  • Seriously, if you understand GR, then you understand as non-intuitive as it may be, it is quite possible that there was no "before the Big Bang" to talk about. Time only makes sense within the space-time manifold, and we have reason to believe that the manifold has a boundary there.

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • Whether there does for your faith is another matter. But many deeply religious people who also understand science quite well have found what they consider acceptable reconcillations of science and religion, including Martin Gardner, Frank Tippler (though his reconciliation seems to be crazy to me), Larry Wall and many, many more.

    Additionally most of what you have to say about determinism etc is not necessarily true. For instance both Bohm's interpretation and the Everett interpretation of QM are complete deterministic (in extremely different ways) so determinism and QM can definitely co-exist. (Though Everett's view does make it hard to state what the future - or even the present - really is.)

    OTOH there is nothing produced in science that in the slightest will shake up an atheist's belief that religion is a series of made-up stories. By contrast there are many religious positions that science flatly contradicts. (Which is why people resist trying to understand Evolution.) So while some religious positions have no issues, others, well...

    Cheers,
    Ben

    PS In case it matters (it shouldn't) I personally am an atheist.
  • I think I can answer that for you myself. The main technology draw as regards a GUT is the possibility of manipulating gravity as easily as we do electricity.

    The achievability of this hinges on the value of the Grand Unification energy. This is the energy density at which the gravitational force becomes indistinguishable from the already-merged electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear forces. To be able to handle gravity like electricity we would need to be able to generate a similar energy density.

    Some more recent theories suggest a fairly low grand unification energy (still fscking hot by human standards, but possibly achievable in the lab on a small scale). However, most theories still predict a grand unification energy of truly enormous proportion, very near the temperature range prevailing in the initial instants of the big bang.

    If the latter is correct, then at least for the foreseeable future, we have very little hope of benefiting technologically from a GUT.

    It's too late and I'm too tired to dig out my sources now but if someone else wants to supply the figures for the energies involved, that would be, er, "Grand"...

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • actualy, you probably wouldn't be able to do that with a cold fusion reactor ether, since the mettals used are so exspensive

    Not necessarily so. Noble metals are used in catalytic converters (they clean up the exhaust) and some countries make these mandatory. And remember that also in ha-ha cold fusion they are only present as a catalyst so they don't get used up.

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Sure.

    "Mr. Roberts - may I call you Oral? Yes? Ok, Oral, do you believe in electrons?"
  • Here's a much more interesting version of this question.

    No offense intended, but I'm not really interested in your personal beliefs on the existence of deity/deities; there's 6E9 people out there with personal beliefs. I am however, interested in your professional appraisal of the following questions.

    1. Is it possible that an entity could exist and affect on events, yet be undetectable by scientific methods?

    2. What would it take to prove or disprove the existence of such an entity?

    3. How long before humanity achieves a godlike state (however you wish to define it)? How long before individual humans achieve such a state?
  • 1. The universe could be a vast cellular automata, too, run on a Beowulf cluster in an alien lab.

    2. Impossible to prove or disprove existence of ANYTHING in the real world. See #1.

    3. In 50 years (+/- a few), biotechnology will have advanced more than we can imagine today. We will create life. We will cure death, with the exception of severe head trauma or oxygen deprivation. Hunger will be a thing of the past, as the entire ecosystem is transformed into tasty treats for our consumption.

  • I've wondered about this (your last question) and done a few calculations - it seems a not unreasonably-sized ring or cylinder of superconductor might be able to produce a magnetic field sufficient to turn away particles with energies up to 100 MeV or so - maybe higher. Actually it wouldn't turn them away so much as make them loop around the field lines and drop in through the poles - but that leaves a much smaller area to protect, I think. Do you know if any research has been done on this kind of approach to radiation shielding?
  • Sounds like you need to read Stephen Hawking's "Brief History of Time"...

    Basically his argument was that the beginning and the end of the universe are quite different - specifically that the initial entropy was very small, and the final entropy will not be.

    Of course the latest observations indicate the universe will not collapse but go on expanding forever anyway.
  • Well, it's pretty much impossible to talk about the exact moment of infinite energy density, so you have to look at the states of the universe shortly before the final crunch, and the corresponding states just after the original bang. Hawking's argument is that in some way (perhaps the smoothness of the energy distribution?) the states shortly after the big bang were very orderly and structured and therefore of low entropy, whereas the corresponding states just before the final crunch would be highly disordered and of high entropy. At least that's how I remember it. I'm not sure this argument entirely makes sense - entropy by definition is either a property of ensembles - many copies of the same system, or else is a measure of the observer's lack of knowledge about a particular system, the two definitions being interrelated - I don't see how either definition strictly applies to our unique universe unless we have a particular observer in mind, and then isn't it a subjective argument?

    In fact there was a recent physics paper (check out http://focus.aps.org/ [aps.org] for a link to it) that suggested our universe could have two opposite arrows of entropic time in different regions of space. So I don't think this is exactly a settled issue.
  • Yes, a tube-shaped ship would go well with that sort of radiation protection scheme. If the magnetic field was just a dipole though (like Earth's field) the particles would come in equal numbers via the north and south poles - it wouldn't be any good for actual propulsion, unless you used RF fields of some sort in the central cavity. Maybe that could work like the ion-drive propulsion as used by the Deep Space 1 probe? It seems to me though you'll have to have some regular propulsion system and not rely on solar wind/cosmic ray particles; putting the propulsion system in a central cylinder with an outer cylinder for radiation-sensitive stuff (people and electronics) and this kind of magnetic field shielding might work well...
  • Thank you Doctor Strangelove.
  • I am interested in your predictions for the complexity of a Grand Unified Field Theory. For example, the mathematics of the Special and General Theories of Relativity are extremely complex, yet the basic principles can be explained to (almost) anyone. It seems that the theories that are becoming popular are very complex even in principle, much less in terms of mathematics.

    So, if a GUT is developed, will it be accessible to the average person?

    Thanks
    LL
  • Gravitational Tidal forces will crush your ship and rip apart your body long before you get to the singularity, probably even before you get to the event horizon.

    remember your body can't stretch out like a strand of spaghetti from a black hole anymore then it can from a pair of cars chained to your feet and hands. But then again, spaghetti dosn't strech anyway. Whew. Hope this doesn't get moderated too high.

    Me to.

    "Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",
  • Thank you for the link, it looks like an interesting read...

    LetterRip
  • I was at IIT in 92, and you taught my freshman physics course in mechanics. Are you still teaching at IIT or are you back managing a large particle physics lab?

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau


  • Do you think that science will ever discover the Grand Unified Field Theory, or that it even exists? Along the same line, do you think that it is worth the time and money to investigate, or could it be better spent elsewhere?
  • In the book the God Particle you talked all about a particle that was the basis for everything. Are we any closer to seeing this particle, or better yet understanding this particle. Also, this "particle" being what it is, does it require a new classification to be created for it? Atom, quark, these just dont seem to fit.
  • dear mr. lederman,

    thank you for your kind opportunity to accept questions
    from the slashdot community. i have two questions:


    1) what i would like to know is this: we have all been
    instructed in the theory of the conservation of matter
    and energy. yet, i was wondering if there is any
    evidence to confirm that the possibility exists that
    the conservation of matter is an illusion created by the
    continuous passing-away and re-appearance of matter
    on an atomic scale. only because the matter continuously
    passes away, and then comes back into existence, it
    gives the illusion of the imperishablity of matter.
    what are your thoughts on this?

    2) we know that physical systems are bounded by entropy,
    but seeing that we live in a world which not only contains
    physical systems, but also biological systems (which seem
    to defy entropy), do you have any idea of where is the
    bridge between the entropy of the physical systems, and
    the seemingly entropy-defying behaviour of the biological
    systems?

    thank you, and best regards,
    johnrpenner@earthlink.net


  • After the astonishing advances in physics over the last century or so, we now probably have more 'hard' questions than we started with. Only the irretrievably brave would say that another great breakthrough is 'just around the corner'.

    If you could choose which of the 'hard' questions you could know the answer to, which question would you ask, and why?
  • Actually, in a few game systems, including one that I created (and some others that I played in), I believe many simulators allowed more female space pilots to exist on the same life support requirements as male space pilots.

    The only real problem is the spatial visualization. If you take a group of 100 males, perhaps only 5 could be space pilots; if you have a group of 100 females, perhaps only 2 could be space pilots. However, if we're talking space scientists, the whole visualization thing is less necessary, whereas a better center of gravity system and flexibility works out as a plus for women.

    Sadly, in our culture, we put a bonus on TALL space pilots. Which is really inefficient, but culturally demanded.

    Perhaps a mixed crew approach works out pretty well, though.
  • I've been pondering this response for a few minutes now, and while I agree that information is revealed by measuring the spin of the particle (indeed, each particle has exactly one bit of entropy in such an experiment), I'm not sure I agree that it's correct to say the information was "transmitted" from New York to Moscow or vice versa. Moreover, there is still the problem that when you measure a spin, you don't know whether its partner's spin has already been measured (and thus your measurement was foreordained), or not (and thus your measurement collapses the quantum superposition state to an eigenstate). It seems funny to talk about information being "transmitted" when nobody involved can tell who is sending and who is receiving.


    Consider this. Suppose you tried the same experiment with particles found in cosmic rays. Now, it's conceivable that some of these particles were produced in a decay that conserves angular momentum, and hence that some of these particles have partners in a shared quantum state somewhere across the galaxy. When we measure the spin of such particles, does it make sense to say that we are receiving messages from the other side of the galaxy? Such usages reduces the concept of "transmitting messages" to triviality.


    Whether messages are "transmitted" or not, I strongly disagree with your statement that the effect is not "useful". In fact, the effect is immensely useful in that it allows us to rule out experimentally certain types of "hidden variable" theories of quantum mechanics. Surely an effect that tells us something fundamental about the way quantum mechanics works qualifies as "useful", don't you think?


    -r

  • The two, paired solutions to this problem would appear to be reduce the mass of the drive system (so that there is less mass to lift into space) and to reduce the costs of lifting mass into orbit (so that what mass you must lift into orbit costs less)

    I think it's obvious, with it costing about $10,000 to place a pound in orbit, we need to select skinnier astronauts.

    I think my weight is ideal, 145#, but I would be willing to lose a few pounds for my country. I think 140 pounds is definitely doable.

    Since females are generally smaller than males, more female astronauts might help, maybe a 2:1 ratio of female to male astronauts, for morale purposes.

    We could also lose a few pounds of mission mass by reducing clothing requirements. I think a lycra/spandex type speedo with velcro attachments should be sufficent for most shuttle missions.

    Thanks for the consideration,

    George
  • "religion is simply a placebo for the weak minded"

    While I believe organized religion has in the past and currently does act "as a crutch for the weak-minded" in many of its incarnations, and despite the raised hackles of religious zealots, I also think religion is an interesting philosophical thought experiment. I think it is very appropriate to ask physicists, who are perhaps closest to "the mind of god" what they think of religion. Many physicists, and scientists in general, are very mystical people, "religion" aside, and have very intriguing perspectives.

    If [a god-like entity] does exist, and is undetectable (does not interact with the universe), does it really "exist"? And if so, if it is undetectable, do we care? Can a near-infinate arrangement of matter with sufficient complexity emulate a god (as Tipler would have you believe)? Would it be benificent?

    Then again, physics has shown us, anecdotally, that "not only does God play dice...he cheats". ;)

    Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla [sourceforge.net]
  • Females also consume less food and oxygen than males, and give off less heat, if that is important.

    Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla [sourceforge.net]
  • Hm. You're saying we can't use this effect to communicate, which is true. However, information is still being transmitted -- we just have no control over what it is.
    Exactly... except that I would argue that "random information" is by definition not information. It's sort of the exception that proves the rule: you can "communicate" faster than the speed of light, but you cannot possibly "communicate" anything useful.
  • Do you feel that science in general is to critical of new ideas.

    Contrary to popular beleive science dose contain something like ``dogma.''

    Example 1: Biology only reacently (10 years) showed that DNA really is a double helix, but most biologists and the public believed this almost blindly long before it was really shown to be true. They concluded it was a double helix from scatering experiments which showed it had a ``shadow'' consistant with a double helix and a double helix seemed like a good idea for other inconclusive reasons. (Biologits even call this the central dogma)

    Example 2: The evidence we are all given as children for the big bang is that most of the stars are moving away from us.. which is compleat rubish.. just because objects are roughly moving away now dose not mean that there trajectories necissarily run back a single point! Now, I believe there is good evidence for the big bang in the scatering of elements and the make up of back ground radiation (I've never really looked).

    The thing that you need to understand about this ``dogma'' is that some amount of it is necissary for advancing the science.

    Example: There are large cardinal axioms in mathematics which people spend there whole livesworking on, but we can proove (via Goodle) that these axioms can not be proven consistent with ZFC (the basic axioms).

    I've noticed that anything that doesn't agree with mainstream thought is flamed

    Normally these non-mainstream ideas are crap (Examples: anything Mulder on the X-files would like, perpetual motion machines, anything with the words creation or christian, etc.). Scientists can not really be expected to spend there time debunking all of these myths and whatnot.. there are just too many of them. (I suggest you look at Caral Sagan's A Daemon Haunted World)

    Occasionally there is represion of a correct idea (Example: Cocain is physically to large to pass through the uterus wall, but reputable journals refused to publish this fact because it was not politically correct to challenge anything related to crack babies.. nevermind that knowing that the damage caused to these babies is all induced by changes to ther mother's normal system might actually help them). This dose not happen much, but it is soemthing we should be careful about.. which brings me to my question for the interview:


    What can we do to educate people about the REAL scientiic method.. maybe focusing on the historical development of science instead of the results? I'm in graduate school in mathematics, but I would not say I really understood the scientific method until I learned some of the basics and history of quantum mechanics.


    Jeff
  • This is the best post I have seen so far and it has only a fraction of the moderation that the obsurd aregument over who asked the "do you believe in god" question first.

    Now, I think we should adjust the slashdot interview policy to give the person we are interviewing more choice in the questions, i.e. take a higher percentage of upwardly moderated posts (killing repeats) and incurage them to only answer the questions they want to answer. I think we would see a lot more interesting responce to the interviews.. the person we are interviewing generally seems to know a lot more about why they are interesting then we do.

    Jeff

  • What advice would you offer to a person about to start work on a B.S. in physics?

    For a person to successfully obtain a degree in physics, would you say it is necessary to have a natural aptitude for science and mathematics, or is only a love of science and learning and a willingness to work hard required?

    Are all physicists geniuses, as the general public thinks? How common are the physicists who throroughly enjoy their work, but rarely (if ever) get recognition for this work outside of physics circles?

    Is physics a rewarding choice of career? Is it a competitive field? Do you, or have you felt, that your work or the work of others in physics has benefitted the general populace? (This is not to belittle your work in any way; I simply wonder how you feel, personally, about your impact on the world).

    What opportunities are there for physicists, other than employment in government (national laboratories) or academia?

    Thank you for the opportunity to ask these questions.

  • You mention exactly the type of field I envisioned. I don't know if it is practical, though I conjecture it is.

    As to the particles dropping through the poles, why sheild them ? It seems to me there may be solution that allows the particles to flow right through the flight axis, allowing the solution to the radiation problem to also serve in a propulsive capacity. Rather elegant.

    The ship would have to be a tube. You could even accelerate the particles as they flow through the vessel. Some of the waste heat from the generators could be used to warm the crew quarters.

    Of course with the energy of these particles, it might also prove to be a significant beam weapon that we have shooting out the back of our craft. I haven't done the math, but future astronauts may have to be as careful what they fly away from as they are with what they fly towards.

    (That was an awkward sentence.)

    In any case, I have no clue what Isp would be for such a propulsion system, it may prove to be a waste of effort. Sure sounds good though.

    I don't know of any experimental work in the area.

  • SSC (Score:2)

    by poincare ( 63294 )

    In the post-SSC cancellation era, do you think the American government is willing to fund multi-billion dollar high energy projects? Are physicists of late at all hampered by a low equipment to brain ratio?

    There has been extensive hype about super symmetry, strings and what haveyou, but most of this theory is as of yet untestable. Do you think that this sort of theory is BS or is it genuinely helping the exploration of the high energy realm?

  • On a related note, consider this article I wrote for my school newspaper when I was in college

    htt p://www.illinimedia.com/di/archives/1998/February/ 27/p07_matthewcol.txt.html [illinimedia.com]

    Essentially, the DOE provided my university's CS department with extravagant funding in return for "scientific" research that the administration knew perfectly well would be turned to purposes of war. Certainly I can understand why the pursuit of knowledge might diminish ethical considerations in the eyes of a researcher, but when research so plainly leads to death doesn't the scientist bear some culpability?


    -konstant
    Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
  • or what about Thor believing in God, or God in the hammer? or the hammer in /.? grow up folks, religion is simply a placebo for the weak minded. why would an all powerful diety (or group thereof) leave no sign for us to know their existance?


    Maybe you just don't know what you're looking for?
    But I believe it is interesting to get the perspective of a man who works daily with the fundamental aspects of the universe. He of all people should have some sort of opinion as he is closer to this that the rest of us.
    Oh, and last time I checked this guy wasn't claiming to be the Thunder God....

    Kintanon
  • This is a good post, moderators! Woppened?? IMPORTANT TOPIC. It ain't just physics, we as a nation are spending oodles on educating Ph.D.s in all academic fields who then go into a job market that makes temping for Microsoft look really good. The public investment in the students is then 'lost' (this is arguable) to other fields. This pattern may be bad in the long term for science and technology development which some say fuels the long-term economic success of the whole country. Worth some debate, and I'd greatly appreciate the perspective of Dr. Lederman and his generation.
    --
  • Your last line is a total non sequitur. What on earth could a grad student union do to cause more jobs to open for Physics PhDs?

    I'll answer that!

    As a grad student, I made about $1 over the poverty line for a family of four (which I had). And university regs kept grad student employment to 50% time (which meant no health benefits, they're all out of pocket). No savings, no 'buffer zone,' therefore no time to reorient my career, no choice but a post-doc. Which worked for me but for some of my peers it didn't. If I had been able to save some bucks, I would have had the option to stop and consider a career change. Having a union may result in the students getting paid better (or getting benefits). This will make the grad students cost more, limiting their number, which will help on most fronts (except science, of course, which does benefit from cheap student "labor"). I should point out that this labor is usually labor of love -- I wouldn't have changed anything I did, but it was pretty perilous there for a while (and still is). I envy my peers who dropped out early on to go into the high-tech industry and now earn about five times what I do ...
    --

  • Dr. Lederman,

    We live in an age of unparalled technological achievments and scientific knowledge, yet we seem to be moving further and further away from individual knowledge. Branches of science and engineering are now divided and redivided into such depths, that I question whether it is possible for a Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Dirac, or Feynman to emerge in our future. Certainly your field, experimental HEP, is the current extreme of loss of individuality when collaborations run into the hundreds.

    So I ask you: Have we, as individuals, become so over specialized we are doomed to suffer not being able to see the forest thru the trees?
  • in my excitement, I forgot to ask the professor what he thinks should be done about this situation...

    wow, feels good to get a 5 :).

  • If anything, the foremost question in our minds (when dealing with really big issues) should be one we have not yet answered. It may even be one that we have no idea how to answer... yet. It was looking for ways to find answers that built Fermilab.

    If the foremost question in your mind is "What should I have for dinner" for more than a few minutes at a time, you're not even in the ballpark.
    --

  • People make stuff like this up all the time. Ask any physicist at a university to see his Crank File. The people are never really trained enough in physics or math to get things right, or catch common mistakes, but they are often very clever. I have seen no evidence that any reliable laboratory has been able to reproduce Mr. Mills claims.
  • It's funny that you mention that review since Prof. Gerlach is right down the hall (here at OSU). He does Theoretical physics and kicks some serious ass at it, I might add. Gerlach isn't really pointing out math mistakes. He is showing how Mills draws ridiculuous conclusions like

    ...by merely changing the orientation with which one looks at the charge distribution, say, by tilting one's head, one can change the frequency with which the system vibrates

    and how Mills fundamentally misunderstands the equations he is so blithely pushing around, like

    The expressions for the charge distribution given below Eq.(I.5), as well as those given by Eqs.(I.7) and (I.8) do not satisfy the author's wave equation...

    Contradictory results = mistakes in theory.

  • Dear Mr. Other Coward,
    I know a lot of good physicists, and none of them know much of anything besides physics and a couple of little hobbies. You are accepting a cultural myth, that of the "enlightened and wise man of science," that simply isn't true. And what makes you think a theologian would give you good info on biology or geology? Are you going to ask why God gave men nipples?
  • You didn't really answer his question, you've just changed it into "Where'd that atom come from?" And your theory is about as likely to be true as those Asian myths about the world being carried on the back of a cosmic tortoise through eternity.
  • Asking only theologians about God would bring us back to the Dark Ages.

    What on earth are you talking about? The so-called dark ages saw much more interest in God and general discussion of him than the present. It was a widespread lack of literacy and record-keeping (outside of monasteries) that makes them "dark."

    While we're interviewing a famous person anyway, why keep from asking such a question? Kintanon says that "Someone has to ask this." I will add: Everyone should be asked this, and anyone may answer

    Well, maybe, but there is a tendency to think that because somebody knows a lot about one important subject, he will be wise about others. Experience is very much to the contrary. Most every good physicist I know (I am a dim one) is practically a moron when the subject changes to economics, or politics, or history, and yes, religion. The age of the polymath seems to have passed, and single-minded pursuit of a set of ideas like physics seems to have precluded serious study of anything else. There are (very very few) exceptions.

    Now, this woudn't be so bad, but people somehow miss this, and go around asking actors their ideas on politics and the economy, and physicists their ideas on the nature of God. And what comes forth is a mess of banality. Think of some good physics questions for Dr. Lederman.

  • Speaking of weak-minded, you don't show much depth yourself. The appearance of Christ and his death and resurrection literally split history in half. 2000 years later we are still inspired by a bunch of "weak-minded" men and their prophet, and some letters and histories they wrote. 2 billion people still follow him. This doesn't happen every day. You should look into it with an open mind.
  • Your last line is a total non sequitur. What on earth could a grad student union do to cause more jobs to open for Physics PhDs?
  • Physicists aren't mystical people at all, though they don't quite share the blind faith in science of some slashdot zealots. Many primitive dwellers of trees and caves were, "in general... very mystical people, 'religion' aside." but I don't give a rat's behind what their ideas were.

    And physicists certainly aren't "closest to the mind of God". You are cracking us all up here in the physics lab. The typical physicist spends years tacking on another decimal place to some well-known constant. We sit around taking data and writing computer programs. It's nothing as glamorous as you see in the sort movies that you probably favor. There is nothing mystical or holy at all about tensor analysis, or differential equations.

  • That's absurd. Congress has done no such thing. DOE grants are still plentiful. Show some numbers or proof of some sort.
  • Unless you mean the SSC. But lots of physicists thought that was a boondoggle. Wonder what's been done with that monstrous tunnel, anyway?
  • In situations like with Schroedinger's Cat, is the cat in one of the end states and we are merely unaware of which state it is in, or is the cat in fact in neither state until someone looks at it?

    If the cat isn't in a definte state until someone looks at it, what is special about a person looking at it? If another animal observed it, would this collapse the possibilities? If the janitor who is locked in the building until morning observes it, do the possibilites collapse when he sees it, or only when he can go outside and tell people? What if an intelligent computer observes it? In short, why the priveledged role of a single human observer?

    --Kevin
  • > If what we read on the web is true, and Dr.
    > Mills does indeed have remarkable materials
    > available for analysis and his work is
    > replicable, then critiques of his theory can
    > prove his theory wrong, but they cannot
    > make the material disappear.

    Well the real test of a theory is if it explains
    all currently known Data. _IF_ indeed Mills
    Machine does make more energy than it should,
    then it apears he has stumbled upon some
    phenomenon. Since he has no real physics
    background, we can't expect him to come up with
    a theory that explains anything more than HIS
    observations.

    In short, I agree with your asessment. He probably
    has not come up with a viable unified field
    theory. However...he might have a cool new toy :)

    I just have to wonder if his toy itself is a
    fraud or not.

  • The Peer Review Process (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10, 2000 @11:27AM (#1386358)
    Dr. Lederman,

    What is your opinion of the current peer review process in scientific journals and conferences? Specificaly, as a physicist just beginning my career, I have heard many stories of abuses (and seen a few first hand); from reviewers rejecting papers only to steal the ideas for their own, to conference chairs making sure their sessions were stacked with people of like mind, omitting any dissenting voices.

    Although I have had colleagues argue with me that the only solution is to abolish the peer review process altogether (for example, set up web sites for online publication without review), it seems to me this could only lead to anarchy and a signal to noise ratio little better than the online "scientific" newsgroups. On the other hand, nobody that I talk to seems happy with the current state of affairs. Do you feel it is the best that we can do, or do you have some opinion on how to make the process better?

  • Questions (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:59AM (#1386359)
    1) Dr. Hawkings have been very vocal about the impossibilities of Faster Than Light travel. However, it seems that with a few exceptions like Kaku, very vew physicists are willing to talk about the possibility of FTL travel using wormholes or Einstein-Rosen bridges or other loopholes in theory. What are your thoughts on these possibilities?

    2) It is interesting when reading predictions about the future, that many people and physicists alike talk about HSCT, manned Mars missions and other fantastic ideas. However to those of us in the industry, we know that although such technologies exist (sort of), it's only really a question of money: who has it, how much is spent (wisely), and so on. Many people come up with quick fixes such as "commercialization for more competition", thinking that it will fix the problems in the industry quickly.

    As a physicist, it probably isn't fair to ask about your political views of this problem. However, where DO you see aerospace propulsion technology going for the next 50 years? Are there physics principles being developed that can help with cheaper and better aerospace travel? Where would you LIKE for the aerospace industry to be in 50 years?

  • Physics Education (Score:3)

    by pridkett ( 2666 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:35AM (#1386360) Homepage Journal
    Dr. Lederman, Correct me if I am incorrect, but I've heard some talk amongst the various deans at Illinois Institute of Technology about you involvment with physics education. Where do you see physics education heading the future? How much physics should a person (not going into a phyiscs field, say an engineer or bilogy major) be taught and at what age should the concepts be taught to students? Thanks for your time, Patrick Wagstrom CpE student @ IIT
  • It is nice to see a Physicist getting his due besides Mr. "He's the next Newton" Prof. Hawking -- though Prof. Hawking seems more than a might bit nicer than Newton -- and would someone PLEASE install a speech pack with a British Accent for that man! :) But I digress.

    Anyway, with his background in mind (since Prof. Lederman probably hasn't much more ideas on the Cosmological Constant than the average reader of 'New Scientist'), here is the question I would pose in terms I hope even lay-people can understand:

    Prof. Lederman,

    One of the hottest theories in modern physics is the String or M Theory. One of the propositions of that theory is that our universe is actually composed of many "hidden" dimensions which are curled up onto a loop -- like the tassels of a fine-woven carpet along the "plane" or our entire universe, as you well know. Of course, there is much debate as to how small these dimensions (10 in most String Theories, 11 in M Theory, 26 in some older theories) may be in length. This is because the only dimensions we can directly perceive are the 3 of the spatial universe and our old, millennium-turning friend, Time. Of course we are pretty sure the spatial dimensions are looped back on the scale of 20 billion light-years or more. [That is, if you drew a straight line in any direction, give or take a few 100 sextillion (100 trilliard or 100 thousand trillion for our British friends out there) miles in length, it should eventually meet up with itself, the same way longitudinal lines meet up on the Earth. It is unclear if time has this property.] But what of these other dimensions. Originally it was though they were on the order of the Plank Length -- a length a few septillionths [quadrillionths] of the diameter of an atom, which is far beyond any atom smasher we have to even conceive today in producing an explosion with such energy [7.6723(57)e+15 TeV] that some of the particle thrown off in the explosion might make a dimensional shift noticeably into one of our curled-up dimensions. Now, some recent theories believe that maybe not all of these concealed dimensions are of the order of a Plank Length. Some even believe they may be on the order of as much as a millionth the width of an atom or just beyond the energies of current particle physics, or even longer!

    That's the background, now the question: What do you think the probability of discovering extra dimensions curved in upon themselves at measurable lengths and energies in our lifetime is? What implications do you predict, if any, for our view of the universe if multiple dimensions are shown to be correctly predicted by hypothesis? Or do you feel they will forever be outside our range, well beyond our detection due to their high-energy conditions?

    Thanks much for taking the time to answer and good luck with all your future research!

    Be Seeing You,

    Jeffrey C. Jacobs.


  • An explanation for you (Score:3)

    by tilly ( 7530 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @09:15AM (#1386362)
    You have 2 questions really.

    First the twinned photons. This is the infamous EPR effect, where two photons "remain connected and aware of each other" even though they are separated. However it cannot be used to transmit information. Huh? Well there is a simple demonstration of that, and here is a layman's outline.

    First of all, have you heard of different interpretations of QM? The truth is that we don't really understand QM, but there are various "interpretations" of it, any of which fits with the world we see. They all say that we will see the same things, so we cannot run an experiment and say which is right. However the flip side of that is that whatever is true in one, is also true in any other.

    Well the Everett Interpretation is one interpretation. In this interpretation when we observe an event and think that we observe a collapse of a quantum mechanical state, there is no collapse. Instead we have merely become entangled with the event, and there are now several of us, who don't interact with each other.

    Thinking in terms of that cat, the cat is both dead and alive before you open the box, and is STILL both dead and alive after you open it. However there are now two of you, one of which saw the dead cat, one of which saw the live one. And since the two of you cannot interact, you both think that the alive/dead state of the cat collapsed!

    OK, got that? Good, now we are going to use it. :-)

    In the EPR effect there are two photons which two people observe in two places. When they come back together they realize that what one observed affected what the other observed, even though that would take communication faster than light. At least that is what it looks like.

    But wait! In the Everett interpretation if person A observes photon 1 and person B observes photon 2, then A and B both split when they observe the photons. All that the quantum says is which copy of A will meet which copy of B. But that is a prediction about a future event that takes place below the speed of light (person A walks over to B and asks how it is going). In A's region there is in fact no extra information gained about B's region at all. So no information was transferred!

    The other question you had was tunnelling. Well that is similar. With tunnelling you set things up and can show after the fact that some of the electrons went across faster than light. Cool. Some of them might even have gone backwards in time. Ultra-cool.

    However the receiver cannot figure out which ones did this until after the fact, and amazing as it sounds, no action on the sender's side will affect what the receiver is seeing until after light could have travelled from the sender to the receiver.

    Cheers,
    Ben

  • Future of high energy physics? (Score:3)

    by tilly ( 7530 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:22AM (#1386363)
    When the Superonducting Supercollider project died a few years ago, I remember people in other areas (eg fluid mechanics) saying that it was good because big colliders cost so much, only matter to a small portion of the scientific community, and even a small fraction of the money would do a lot more good in other areas of science.

    Being a prominent member of the high energy physics community you must have had to deal with these people. How do you answer their argument?

    Thanks,
    Ben

  • Who would you nominate for an IgNobel prize? (Score:3)

    by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @12:21PM (#1386364)
    Are there any particular projects or people who you would like to see nominated for an IgNobel prize?

    (My apologies if Marc A of AIR has already asked this :-)

    --

  • Consciousness? (Score:3)

    by Aleatoric ( 10021 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:33AM (#1386365)
    Although this may lean a bit more toward the cognitive sciences, do you have any thoughts about the physics related to consciousness?

    I am curious about this issue for a few reasons:

    Since the role of the conscious observer is a cornerstone of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics, what possible mechanism for consciousness do you think could provide some explanation for this role?

    Also, as we approach the point where computers could have at least the physical complexity of the human brain, do you think that level of complexity alone is sufficient to create awareness?

  • Space Exploration (Score:3)

    by Skeezix ( 14602 ) <jamin@pubcrawler.org> on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:24AM (#1386366) Homepage
    Dr. Lederman,

    What predictions might you make for the 21st century in the area of space exploration? Do you think we'll see a manned mission to Mars within the first couple decades?
    ----

  • Physics (Score:3)

    by scheme ( 19778 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:50AM (#1386367)

    There seems to be a trend in high energy physics towards larger and larger collabrations due to the increasinly high costs to conduct experiments. Do you believe that the physics community should focus on these increasingly expensive experimenmts or should the focus shift to other areas such as nonlinear dynamics, fluid mechanics and interdisciplinary fields such as biophysics?

    Also, I worked with a group that was collabrating on the Superkamiokande experiment which found evidence that neutrinos oscillate and thus have mass. How would these results affect the current standard model and the various attempts to formulate an unified theory.

  • Penrose's Quantum Theory of Mind (Score:3)

    by LetterRip ( 30937 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @11:28AM (#1386368)
    What is your opinion of Roger Penrose's "Quantum Theory of Mind"? (His popular treatment of the subject can be found in "Shadow's of the Mind" and earlier in "The Emperor's New Clothes"). The only relevant criticisms I've seen have been by logisticians, and the criticisms seemed to be adequately resolved.

    The logistical discussion and related information is here: http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/psyche-index-v2.htm l

    LetterRip

  • Quantum Realities (Score:3)

    by perkindiafrawl ( 33807 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:29AM (#1386369)
    Dr.,

    Many theories exist that attempt to explain the reality underlying Quantum Theory. A few of the most popular are:

    1. The Copenhagen Interpretation
    2. Observer Created Reality
    3. Consciousness Created Reality
    4. Many Worlds Interpretation
    5. Einstein's Ordinary-Object Reality

    I would like to know exactly how you surmise the reality beneath Quantum Theory manifests itself. Do you have a hypothesis for the Quantum Measurement Problem or the Quantum Interpretation Problem?

    thank you,

    kevin

  • Bell's inequality and the EPR paradox (Score:3)

    by Robert Link ( 42853 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @09:10AM (#1386370) Homepage
    The question was:

    You can use a crystal to create a twin of a photon which will always have the same properties (for example spin or polarisation) as the original photon no matter the distance between them (quantum theory predicts this effect and it has been proven that it exists. The photon teleportation uses it, for example). Now the idea is like this: You create these twins in Paris and send them via fiber to New York and Moskau. In Moskau, I use a filter to polarise my photon and in New York, the polarisation is measured. This doesn't work but why not ?

    The experiment works as you describe, and the effect has even been confirmed in the laboratory, but suppose you are the observer in New York. Now, suppose you measure the spin of your particle; let's say you look at the z-component, for the sake of argument. Now, it is true that this does tell you the z component of the particle in Moscow, but ask yourself, what "information" has been transmitted, and to whom? You don't know whether your colleague in Moscow has measured her particle's spin or not, so you can't say whether you are sending or receiving a "message". What's more, you don't have any control over which value for the spin you measure, meaning that you can't even control which message you are sending, even supposing you know for certain that your colleague hasn't looked at her particle yet. So, even though their appear to be curious nonlocal effects, no actual information is being exchanged.


    You can find more information about the EPR paradox and Bell's inequality in the physics FAQ [ucr.edu], or by doing a search on the keywords "Bell's Inequality" and "EPR paradox".


    -r

  • Time Travel (Score:3)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:24AM (#1386371)
    What do you think of Kip Thorne's and John Wheeler's ideas about worm holes and time travel, and what do you think about Matt Visser's and Steve Lamoreaux's experiments in detecting negative energy?

    For Slashdot readers, the transcript of the relevant Nova episode is at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2612time. html.

    Please take a look at it if you are interested...I originally wanted to take quotes from it, but they were too large and hard to format, and also probably copyrighted.

    Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla [sourceforge.net]

  • Mathematics and Physics (Score:3)

    by jflynn ( 61543 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @09:29AM (#1386372)
    Many time it's been the case that fields of mathematics once thought "pure", i.e. with no conceivable application have turned out to be critical to new formulations of physical theory. Einstein's use of tensor calculus and the applications for symmetry groups in subatomic physics come to mind.

    The question is twofold. What do you see as the most interesting fields of mathematics that are currently entering application in physics, and what directions in modern mathematics do you find most interesting in terms of possible future physical theories?

  • Nanotechnology (Score:3)

    by jonwiley ( 79981 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:44AM (#1386373) Homepage
    If our current understanding of physical laws is accurate then it seems that the extrapolations being made on the possibilities afforded us by molecular nanotechnology point to achieving a world that is orders of magnitude more advanced in every conceivable field sometime in the next century. Do you think such a "phase shift" is likely to occur and, if so, when? What are the obstacles to such dramatic changes? How do we prepare ourselves?

  • Do you believe time is irreversable? (Score:3)

    by wfrp01 ( 82831 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:04AM (#1386374) Journal
    Do you believe in an arrow of time? How does the notion of time relate to determinism?

    I understand there's some debate in this area, but the deep thinking behind the debate has always eluded me.

  • How to teach the love for physics ? (Score:3)

    by jquiroga ( 94119 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:08AM (#1386375)
    Thank you, Dr. Lederman.

    I would like to ask what, in your opinion, could be done to better teach the love for physics (and math, also). In other words, what would be the best way to avoid boredom and teach physics and math like the fascinating subjects they really are?

  • String theory (Score:3)

    by jormurgandr ( 128408 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:41AM (#1386376)
    Considering your background in high-energy physics and such, what is your opinon of String theory? It does provide an interesting answer to the TOE, but it also leaves alot left to be explained. For example, why strings? atoms (and their composite particles) seem so much simpler (to me at least), and strings require so much more effort on the part of nature, and in my experience nature tends to follow the path of least resistance.
    =======
    There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

  • Creation, Time, Reality, Consciousness (Score:3)

    by Jim Hammond ( 128807 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @09:03AM (#1386377)
    Dr. Lederman,

    Creation

    How is it possible to see light that originated at about the time of the big bang when we are moving through space at less than the speed of light? Wouldn't any light from the time of the big bang long since have passed us by?

    Time

    I have read that according to relativity a moving object ages more slowly the faster it is moving. If it were moving away, wouldn't this just be the Doppler effect like a redshift? Wouldn't an object moving towards us seem to age faster?

    Reality

    What evidence is there that our reality is or is not a computer simulation? For example, the speed of light limitation on velocity and the discrete (particle) nature of matter?

    Consciousness

    It occurs to me that an argument against simulated reality is that computers are ruled based; whereas, humans have free will. However, if the brain is a physical device, it can be simulated by a computer. It seems more plausible that the molecular causes and effects resulting in thought are so complex that it merely seems like free will, and it IS free will in that no other entity is guiding it as far as we know.

    Thanks,

    Jim Hammond

  • Treasures in old accelerator data? (Score:4)

    by Christopher Thomas ( 11717 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @10:26AM (#1386378)
    Some time ago, I came across a Scientific American article discussing the results obtained from quantum chromodynamics simulations performed on a recently-built supercomputer. The simulations predicted the mass of several hadrons quite accurately, and also predicted the mass of the hypothesized "glueball" particle.

    Subsequent examination of recorded particle accelerator events looking for a particle with the glueball's properties found several glueball events.

    My question is: How likely is it that other particles lie undiscovered in accelerator events that have already been observed? Would an event that produced a particle with unexpected mass or other properties be flagged by present event-filtering algorithms?

  • Open source science? (Score:4)

    by ForteBravo ( 15741 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:28AM (#1386379) Homepage
    Dr. Lederman:

    My question: With basic research budgets in disarray, do you see any opportunity for amateur scientists to pursue distributed research projects?

    I believe that amateur astronomers have done a great deal to assist the "professionals", due to the ease of distributing a great amount of work among many volunteers, but I am not aware of the same phenomenon occuring in any other field.

    It has been suggested that the only experimental physics left to do is that which requires billions of dollars and/or 50 acre+ installations. I do not know whether to believe this view -- perhaps with a bit of creativity, experiments could be designed such that they could be farmed out to an array of amateur scientists willing to commit time and money towards the effort (similar to how open source software is pursued now). I have heard of a few such possibilities, eg amateur neutrino detectors, but none that I know of that are endorsed or initiated by institutional science.

    To restate my question, is such an approach possible, and/or desirable?

    Thank you for your time.

    Forte Bravo

  • Question... GUT (Score:4)

    by Rombuu ( 22914 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:49AM (#1386380)
    Every pop book on Physics I've read for the past 20 years (sorry, I studied accounting in College) states that we are on the virge of a breakthrough that will allow an understanding of the Grand Unified Theory of Everything. Must like rocket cars or thinking computers, this is perpertually 10 to 20 years in the future. What are your opinions on this?

  • Oh, one more question... (Score:4)

    by Rombuu ( 22914 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:49AM (#1386381)
    Is the damn cat alive or dead?

  • Cold Fusion (Score:4)

    by delmoi ( 26744 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @09:19AM (#1386382) Homepage
    I've been wondering about this for a while, there seem to be a lot of people who believe its real, and can show "some" results. I have a hard time believing that so many people would claim success if there was really nothing there.

    What do you think of this whole situation? Thought I don't know myself, I've heard it said that this would violate the laws of physics. (I would like to know, though). Of course Relativity violated the laws of physics to before it became the laws of physics, to right?

    What My main question is, is do you think enough actually laboratory work has been done to discredit Cold Fusion for good, or is it possible that there's something to it?

    "Suble Mind control? why do html buttons say submit?",

  • The Use of Accelerators (Score:4)

    by superid ( 46543 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:57AM (#1386383) Homepage
    I believe it was Richard Feynman that said something like "trying to figure out how the universe works by smashing particles into each other is like trying to figure out how a swiss watch works by hurling it against a brick wall and watching the pieces whizz by your head..."

    I keep hearing about accelerators with higher and higher energies being proposed for "breakthrough" research. I realise that theory must be confirmed with experimentation, but are there more elegant solutions this problem?

    (I recall that the proposed SSC could not be built in Rhode Island because it was too big :))

    Thanks!

  • Computers in Education (Score:4)

    by zorgon ( 66258 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:51AM (#1386384) Homepage Journal
    Dr. Lederman, As someone who is very interested in science education, I'm sure you have some strong opinions on the utility of computers (and other high technology) in elementary education, which as you know is a hot topic now. Would you share your feelings on the topic and perhaps some forecasts for the future?
    --

  • Using twin-photons to transmit information (Score:4)

    by digulla ( 72259 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:14AM (#1386385)
    There has been quite a lot of noise about transmitting information faster than at light speed (with twin photons, tunnelling or whatever means). All (serious ?) scientists say that this is not possible, no matter if experiments show something else (or are these all faulty ?).

    Some background: You can use a crystal to create a twin of a photon which will always have the same properties (for example spin or plarisation) as the original photon no matter the distance between them (quantum theory predicts this effect and it has been proven that it exists. The photon teleportation uses it, for example). Now the idea is like this: You create these twins in Paris and send them via fiber to New York and Moskau. In Moskau, I use a filter to polarise my photon and in New York, the polarisation is measured. This doesn't work but why not ?

    Also, why do physicians claim that faster than light information transport by tunneling does not transport the information faster than light ? If an electron tunnels, it will appear on the other side in a shorter amount of time than when it had passed the distance at light speed. While we cannot force the electron to tunnel (we can just increase the probability that it eventually happens) the electron still did travel faster than light, right ? And it did not travel back in time because it appeared on the other side after it disappeared. And also its mass did not change (as Einsteins formula would predict). So what is wrong with the model that the electron travels faster than light ? Or better: Even if the model is completely wrong and we cannot understand or explain the effect, isn't there a technical use for it (for example a memory in which the data is stored in a quantum point and released by a tunnel effect ensuring save data storage plus FTL access) ?

    Any pointers to more information about these topics would also be most welcome :-)

    Thanks a lot,

    --
    Dipl. Inf. (FH) Aaron "Optimizer" Digulla
    "(to) optimize: Make a program faster by improving the algorithms rather than by buying a faster machine."

  • The root of science and technology (Score:4)

    by Tau Zero ( 75868 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @10:07AM (#1386386) Journal
    Dear Dr. Lederman,

    I noticed that you turned your attention to education after you left the top post at Fermilab. As I'm sure you're aware, American students consistently test near the bottom in math and science among industrialized countries and even nations like South Korea. Do you think that America can continue to be a leader in these fields if the schools (especially public schools) do so poorly in giving children the basis from which to go on to undertake the complex and difficult jobs?

    On a related note, do you think that the influence of religion on science education is currently positive or negative?

    Finally, do you think that our society can make intelligent judgements about such subjects as gentically engineered foods, pesticides, appropriate use of antibiotics, global warming and preserving the ozone layer if the voters do not have any grasp of the science behind the issues?
    --

  • Biggest theory that might be debunked? (Score:4)

    by Pfhreakaz0id ( 82141 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:53AM (#1386387)
    While I am not a scientist, I've read popular physics texts, etc. It seems like our understanding of the physical world is once again due for a radical change as we begin to comprehend the mysteries of the very small and the very large. Of all the major physics theories/breakthroughs so far, which do you think has the greatest chance of being debunked and/or seriously undermined in the coming century? Why?

  • patents (Score:4)

    by BadERA ( 107121 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:18AM (#1386388) Homepage
    Dr. Lederman, What are your thoughts on patents? Particularly, what do you think of the practice of patenting genetic discoveries? Is this not analagous to, and just as ridiculous as, patenting a newly found particle? Thank you.

  • IMSA +13 years (Score:4)

    by [Xorian] ( 112258 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:48AM (#1386389)

    While perhaps not everyone here is aware of it, I remember your involvement with the early history of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy [imsa.edu].

    [For those who don't know, IMSA is a state-wide, residential magnet school for grades 10-12, with less than 1000 total students. It requires an application, recommendations, and the SAT to gain admittance. While math and science take a prominent place in its name, it also has excellent humanities and social studies programs. The idea was to provide a better educational environment for gifted high school students.]

    IMSA, which first opened in 1986, is now halfway through it's thirteenth year. It was an experiment when it was first created. Over the years, it has changed and adapted on a number of levels. Now it's more a fixture of the Illinois educational system.

    Certainly, improving the education of future generations is as important and controversial a topic today as it was then. Do you feel that the IMSA experiment was a success? Would you now advocate starting more programs like it in other states? Would you say that, over its 13 year history, the institution has maintained the correct focus, or have they perhaps lost sight of their original goals in order to ensure their own survival and continued funding?

    In any case, thanks. I felt it helped me.

    --K. Schalk, IMSA calss of 1990

  • Ph. D. Overproduction (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:00AM (#1386390)
    I am a Ph. D. student in physics at the current time. It appears that only a minority of physics Ph. D.s get a permanent job in physics after graduation. Do you think this indicates that too many Ph. D.s are being produced? If so, what are the reasons for this overproduction?

  • What will happen to journals? (Score:5)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:57AM (#1386391) Journal
    As a biologist, I've been interested to see how rapidly the physics community has embraced new methods of publication. (The WWW being one example.) In the next 20-30 years, do you think that paper journals with online archives will persist as the standard in most sciences or will online-only journals reach the same level of prominence?


    The opportunity to quiz a scientist of Prof. Lederman's stature doesn't come along every day.

    Actually, some of us work at MIT...

  • So...now that Congress has more or less gutted funding for pure science, how can we change the way we do Physics to make up the difference? Could the next Physics breakthrough be done in someone's garage, for example? If this is the case, what advice do you have to offer those who want to conduct (experimental) physics research on a shoestring budget?

    (Oh yeah, one last question: Cubs fan or Sox fan?)

  • Lack of skepticism in American society. (Score:5)

    by Dast ( 10275 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @09:07AM (#1386393)
    While having an open mind is one of the most important personality qualities of a scientist, what has happened to skepticism in American society? These days it seems that, for most Americans, anything shrouded in scientific sounding jargon is probably true, even when absolutely no supporting evidence is given. We believe such unsupported claims as aliens abducting and sexually molesting people, where evidence is replaced by the sheer emotional power of the stories. Why has scientific sounding jargon and emotional testimony become a replacement for hard data?

    And more importantly, what can we do about it? How can we teach people to be skeptical and to demand hard evidence for claims?

  • What's around the corner (Score:5)

    by Bucko ( 15043 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:47AM (#1386394)
    Dr. Lederman
    Thank you for this opportunity.
    A century ago it was noted that, "...except for just a few little problems with the hydrogen spectrum, all of physics had been solved."
    In your opinion, what are the outstanding problems that are likely to be solved in the forseeable future?

    Joe

  • Big $ Projects (Score:5)

    by t-money ( 32075 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:57AM (#1386395) Homepage
    Prof. Lederman, I am Ph.D. student in plasma physics, a subfield of physics that has many large scale (both in physical and budgetary size) experimental projects. High Energy experiments tend to be even bigger and require more man power. I see this having two negative effects: (1) More money means more politics, and (2) experimental physics seems much harder to do in a university campus setting. My question(s) -- what is your forecast of the political status of scientific research and where do you think government research money will go in the future.

  • Physics and social responsibility (Score:5)

    by pq ( 42856 ) <rfc2324&yahoo,com> on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:24AM (#1386396) Homepage
    Sir: Every physicist seems to have their own personal stance on social responsibility, ranging from "We have none or very little" (a shallow reading of Feynman) to "It is our duty to educate the (possibly uninterested) layperson about our discoveries, and their potential for good and evil".

    Where do you place yourself on this continuum? Do you feel that science is inherently agnostic, and we should go ahead and use it in any way we can, since if we don't, someone else will? Or do you believe that scientists have a moral and ethical responsibility to think through the consequences of their research? What do you feel about the collision between public funding of science, the increasing apathy and ignorance of the general public, and the expectation of a return on investment in basic sciences?

    Apologies if this is needlessly complicated, but it is just one question...

  • Follow up to GUT (Score:5)

    by speek ( 53416 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:30AM (#1386397)
    As a follow-up, I want to ask what would happen as a result of a GUT being found/proven?

    To be more specific, say a GUT is found and verified (as much as possible). What technological breakthroughs would come in the 20 years following such a discovery, that were directly attributable to it? In other words, for everyday people, what are we likely to see as a benefit down the road from a successful GUT?
  • I am a member of the contributor network for NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program. The objective of the program is to create new propulsion and energy technologies that would allow mankind to reasonably travel within the solar system and to nearby stars.

    Given the staggering problems, what sources of propulsion and energy do you envision that might realistically allow humanity to travel within the solar system with relative ease ?

    What solutions do you see for radioactive sheilding on such trips ? Do you think we will always be bound to using massive sheilds, or will we become able to use some sort of electromagnetic barrier ?

    Thank you.

    Alexander Ibrahim
    aibrahim@zenera.com

  • Is science a rational career choice? (Score:5)

    by Hydrophobe ( 63847 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:39AM (#1386399)

    Physics once meant everything to me, but now I'm doing the "greed is good" thing on the Internet.

    Many others followed the same path. There's a vast physics diaspora out there. Among many others, consider Dr. Stephen Schutz, MIT graduate and Princeton physics Ph.D. [bluemountain.com] who recently sold his online greeting card company to Excite for nearly a billion dollars.

    On the other hand, I know a couple of folks who foolishly persisted in their dreams of a science career well past the age of employability (late 30s), and now they're shipwrecked and facing reality. It seems they have a lot in common with failed actors, musicians, and athletes who didn't make the big leagues. When did scientists become "starving artists"?

    Is there any hope of reversing the tremendous attrition rate of potential scientists? In good conscience, should we even be encouraging young people to pursue science careers given their dim career prospects?

    Do you share this pessimism, and what changes do you see in the decades to come, for better or for worse?

  • teaching professors to teach?!?! (Score:5)

    by levl289 ( 72277 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:53AM (#1386400) Homepage
    Prof. Lederman, I have recently graduated from UCLA with a BS in physics. I came into the program with a gleam in my eye when it came to physics, and left with a ho-hum attitude towards the organized teaching of the subject (I still love learning how the universe works however). The reason? Professors incapable of teaching at an undergraduate level, or at all.

    Don't get me wrong, it is without a doubt in my mind, that I was taught by some of the most brilliant minds at my college, who understood topics that would make my head spin. At the same time however, they were unable to grasp the simple fact that their methods of teaching weren't understandable by most of the students.

    UCLA is not alone in this trend, speaking with a PhD from the UK, the situation is the same there. It seems that no research university understands the need for teaching professors how to teach.

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