Jim Gates updates his theorist’s bucket list and surveys the damage being done to US science and society

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Hello

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and welcome to the Physics World
Weekly podcast.

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I'm Hamish Johnston.

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This episode features an interview

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with the American 
theoretical physicist Jim Gates.

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In it,
he updates his theorists bucket list,

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which he first shared with Physics
World back in 2014.

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Gates also reflects
on how the current political upheaval

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in the United States
is affecting science and society,

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and what scientists can do to ensure

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that the public has faith in science.

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The interview was done in London
by my Physics World colleague

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Margaret Harris,
who joins me for a quick introduction

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and preview to the interview.

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Hi, Margaret, welcome to the podcast.

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Hi, Hamish.

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So, Margaret,
can you tell us a bit more about Jim Gates

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as well as being a famous
and esteemed researcher?

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He also has a very public persona
in the US.

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So who is gates?

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So Jim Gates is a theoretical physicist
at the University of Maryland,

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and he has a list of honors
as long as my arm.

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His many awards
include the US National Medal of Science,

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which was given by President Obama.

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And he's
a fellow of the American Physical Society

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and the American Association
for the Advancement of Science,

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as well as the Institute of Physics
here in the UK.

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He's also a past president of the US
National Society of Black Physicists.

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And as you mentioned, he's appeared
in several science documentaries

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aimed at the general public.

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He's been kind of a friend
of the magazine since, well,

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I think about 2012 or thereabouts,
when he wrote for us

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the first time about, a topic
that he was very close to his heart,

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which was a dangerous
which I'll get on to a little bit later.

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Okay. And and he was in London.

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That's where you you met up with him?

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Why was he over on this
side of the Atlantic?

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Well, he came to wanted to give a series
of talks, including, departmental

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colloquium at Imperial College London
in a public talk at the Royal Institution.

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But I kind of up with him at a talk
he gave at the Royal College of Art.

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And one of the interesting things
about Jim's work

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as a theoretical physicist
is that a lot of it is highly visual.

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He invented this mathematical object
that referred to called an Adinkra,

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and it's a geometric representation
of equations in an area of physics

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called supersymmetry theory.

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And these geometric representations look
like a set of colored lines and modes.

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And the more complex ones
are visually beautiful, as well as being

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sort of quote unquote
beautiful in the physics sense.

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And he wrote a feature for Physics World
about these objects called the cross.

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You can find it on our website.

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And you first spoke with Jim
Gates about his

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theorists bucket list back in 2014.

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I mean, what is this bucket list?

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I'm guessing it's, it's
things that a theoretical physicist

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would like to do or like to see happen
before they kick the bucket.

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Is that the the general idea?

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Yeah, that's the idea.

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These are things that that,

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Jim, as a theorist would like to see
experimental evidence for.

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And his bucket list
in 2014 had four items on it.

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The first was the Higgs boson,

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which had actually already been observed
at that point back in 2012.

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And the second was gravitational waves.

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The third was evidence for supersymmetry,
and the fourth was evidence

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for superstring theory.
Now natural next question

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what is supersymmetry 
and what is superstring theory?

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I think we've probably talked a lot
about Higgs bosons

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and gravitational waves,
but the other two might be

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a little less familiar
to listeners of this podcast.

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So supersymmetry is a theory
that each the fundamental particles

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we know about in the Standard Model
of particle physics has at least one

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very similar twin that differs from it
only in its mass and its quantum spin.

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For example, the known force
carrying bosons, which are the photon

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and gluons and the W and Z particles, 
they all have quantum spins equal to one.

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So there are super partner particles
or particles as they're known for short

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must be fermions,
which have spins equal to one half.

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Similarly, the matter particles,
you know, electrons,

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neutrinos, quarks, 
so on are all spin one half fermions.

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So they're twins.

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They're particles.

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Must be bosons with spin equal to zero.

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So that's supersymmetry theory.

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Now superstring theory

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takes us one level deeper
and says that all these particles,

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super super particles or otherwise,
are in fact tiny vibrating strings.

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And the different vibrational modes
of these strings

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is what gives rise to the very various
particles with the properties we observe.

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There's no observational evidence
for this theory,

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but it does provide a solution,
or maybe a possible path to a solution

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for some of the problems
or inconsistencies in the standard Model,

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like the fact

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that gravity seems to behave differently 
from the other forces we know about,

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which are the electromagnetic force
and the strong and weak nuclear forces.

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So that's a brief introduction,
a very brief introduction to

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supersymmetry and superstring theory.

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Well that's great.
Thanks, Margaret. Thanks.

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Thanks for the introduction to Jim Gates
and also to the those two rather esoteric,

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bits of physics and,
I suppose without further delay,

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here is that conversation between Jim
Gates and Physics World's Margaret Harris.

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I'm here.

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So a decade ago, Jim, we

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spoke about the things on your theorist
bucket list. Yes.

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You have a list of the things
you'd like to see discovered

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or proven or explored
or understood before you.

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As you said,
that's the bucket. Yeah. Well, exactly.

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The first thing on your list
you mentioned was the discovery,

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the Higgs boson that has happened.

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Yes. That's been ticked off.

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The next thing on your list, again
ten years ago was gravitational waves.

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Yes. So that's also,
I think, being successful.

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The initial success
in the detection of gravity waves

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was a spectacular day for, a lot of us.

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In fact, I was with Washington, D.C.,
at a conference

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giving a talk, and, the, 
National Science

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Foundation had organized a press event
around the announcement.

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And so I was,
I was asked by some people,

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if I would, make a contribution to BBC
America

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talking about, 
the discovery of, gravitational waves.

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And I must admit, some friends
watching the interview said, Jim,

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you know,
you were giddy, and I said, yes, I was.

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Why were you so get it?

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Well, first of all,
because I had been following

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the development of that detector
almost from its birth.

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So the first time I heard about detecting
gravity waves was around 1985.

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I was a new, maybe 85, 87.

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I was a new, associate professor
at University of Maryland

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and, of a gentleman
by the name of Rick Isaacson,

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who was a program officer
at the National Science Foundation.

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One day he called me in of our office
to say, Jim, I want to show you something.

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It was the proposal from,
the Caltech and MIT collaboration

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to be funded
to begin to build the detector.

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And I read it 
and I said, this will never work.

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Fortunately, Rick, Rick Isaacson,
to those of of the community

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who know the story, is, in fact,
the superhero that made this happen

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because for decades he was the person

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in the National Science Foundation
with a faith that this could happen.

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And when it happened,
it was just an amazing day.

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So those works knew
the whole story were giddy.

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Why is it that the discovery
of these gravitational waves,

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why is it so exciting?

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So there are a couple of reasons that,
I know personally, I'm excited.

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And I think, most, theoretical physicists
would agree with this assessment.

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The first thing is that 
this was probably Einstein's

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final big prediction that there would be

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observable waves of gravity,
gravitational waves in the universe.

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It's very funny.

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If you go back into the literature,
he first says, yes,

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this is possible,
but at some point he changes

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his mind, says it's not possible
that maybe these things don't exist.

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And so there's
another round of discussions

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where some error was found
that he reverses that. Yes.

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It's possible.

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So first of all, it's very interesting
if you know the whole story, to think

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about how human
this is, the bounce back and forth

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and this idea about whether,
his intuition was correct

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and then to have Mother Nature said, look,
you got it right the first time, kid.

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I mean, it's just so lovely story.

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So that's

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the one thing, is the confirmation
of the theory of general relativity.

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The a sharp current, a confirmation
that is unlike anything that I

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unlike anything I could imagine
happening in my lifetime, quite frankly,

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even though it was on my bucket list.

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The other thing is because is because

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our species knows about the heavens.

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Mostly because

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there have been entities in physics
that are like mercury.

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You know, Mercury was a guy,

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carried

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messages from Mount Olympus to humans

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in our version of the story,

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the character of Mercury is replaced
by photons,

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its light that has been telling us 
for hundreds of thousands of years,

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maybe a million years,
that there's something out there.

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And we look up in the night sky
and those are photons

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bringing the message of whatever it is.

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It's out there.

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Now, of course, this drove

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the development of science
for several hundred years,

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and certainly is part of the
I would call it the science

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Big bang that happened in Europe around
Newton and Galileo.

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So with the detection of gravitational
waves, a new kids on the block

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to do the messaging, 
the new kid on the block is the graviton.

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That is, just as light

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has an aspect as a particle,
we call it a photon.

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If you're a science fiction fan for Star
Trek, you'll probably remember

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these things called gravitas.

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And so once we have detected
gravitational waves,

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the next big thing 
is to be able to detect gravitons.

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Now 
there are a couple of steps in that.

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And, LIGO is
starting to take one of them, I believe,

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now, because one of the things about

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photons is what we call polarization.

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They basically, if,

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a photon is coming straight at you,
you could spin

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and they could spin either, in what
we physicists call a right hand sense,

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that's like closing your right hand
and looking at your thumb.

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Or it could spend in a left hand sense,
in which case it's

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the spin vectors pointing away from you.

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Those are the only things that are allowed
for light.

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For the graviton.

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It's also true.

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And so the next thing you want to do 
is measure

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polarization to confirm that prediction
of the mathematics.

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Like gravitons
come in left handed polarized states.

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And right here the polarized states.

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Then the next really big step is
you want to actually see gravitons.

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Now for photons.

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That was the work,
that Einstein, gave, in 1905.

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There were four just beautiful papers
written that year.

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One of them 
was on the photoelectric effect.

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And the result of that observation
is that the energy

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in light comes in packets.

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It's quantized.

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And the particles that carry
that quantized energy are photons.

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So we want to verify that 
for gravitational waves

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and see the graviton
as a quantum mechanical particle.

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It's not clear, how that 
technology is going to work out.

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Once we get all that knowledge, 
then we're going to be able to do

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something that we've never been able
to do as a species in this universe.

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So everybody

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knows what the Big Bang,
what came after the Big Bang.

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Well, the first big thing that happens
is what we call inflation.

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When the universe went from being
something smaller than the atom to

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this huge
structure that we inhabit now,

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there was also a period of darkness.

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It's the first night,
and that first night

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lasted approximately 380,000 years.

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Now, what was going on in that period?

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Well, in some sense,
the average temperature

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of the universe was so great and the

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particles were in such chaotic motion
that light could not travel through it.

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Light was frozen in this universe, 
for the from the time of the big Bang,

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up until 380,000 years,

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and at 380,000 years, 
the universe had grown so much,

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the average temperature

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and density of particles had dropped
so much that finally light could travel.

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Now, what's really interesting is
if you look at the universe with photons,

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the only thing that you can see 
is the first time light is able to travel

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00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:44,920
through the universe.
Sometimes this is called the first dog.

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00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:49,360
And so we have been seeing this
first dog since the 60s.

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It's called
the cosmic Microwave background.

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00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:57,520
And so if you want to peer behind
that, think of it as a curtain.

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00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:01,960
You can't use light,
but with gravitational waves

244
00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:07,760
you can image the universe before 
the house with microwave background.

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00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:08,200
This up there.

246
00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,040
So we will be able, as a species
eventually to look

247
00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:15,400
maybe all the way back to the Big Bang.

248
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:17,160
And that's remarkable.

249
00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:19,720
And then there's one other thing.

250
00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:21,880
And that's the Star Trek League,

251
00:14:21,880 --> 00:14:24,200
which has been the science fiction
of Star Trek.

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00:14:24,200 --> 00:14:25,360
They use graviton.

253
00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:28,360
And so maybe just as we have been

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00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:31,760
using photons

255
00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:35,600
for our high technology coming out of the
revolution

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00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:41,040
that really started here in England
with Faraday and Maxwell, maybe

257
00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:45,960
at some point in the future those steps
will be repeated for gravitons.

258
00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:50,160
And so maybe there's
some gravitational base technology

259
00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:53,440
out there that who knows what
we'll do with at the time.

260
00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:57,600
Hopefully it won't be just creating
graviton balls or beams

261
00:14:57,600 --> 00:14:59,240
like they do in Star Trek.

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00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:03,440
What's the of the path
to see the graviton experimentally.

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00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:08,720
So so LIGO and its sisters,
you know, Lord Ligo's,

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00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:11,920
at the time of detection,
it was three different detectors, two

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00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:16,360
in the United States and one on the
border of France and Italy, called Virgo.

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There is an a new LIGO site
coming online in India now.

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00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:24,040
And so what's going to happen is that

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00:15:25,040 --> 00:15:28,120
if the
world remains dedicated to doing science,

269
00:15:28,120 --> 00:15:30,440
which is a good question
that we could talk about,

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00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:33,400
but if there's a global consensus
on, you know, continuing

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00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:36,640
to do the science, more sites like this
are going to come online.

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00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:41,080
And so we're going
to have higher fidelity pictures.

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00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:42,680
And then when I say pictures now,

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00:15:42,680 --> 00:15:46,640
I mean the images that are brought to us
by the graviton is not by photon.

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00:15:46,640 --> 00:15:48,720
So it would be able to developed 
well there.

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So this way

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00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:52,840
it's going to be the difference between
going from black and white TV to color TV,

278
00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:55,360
because there will be more information
coming out of the gravitons.

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00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:58,000
And so we'll be able
to see more things of the universe.

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00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:01,600
Now, the pathway 
to detecting gravitons.

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00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:02,960
Like I said, there are two steps.

282
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:06,640
First of all, you
probably want to measure the polarization.

283
00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:10,600
And these fabri Perot parameter
interferometers,

284
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:14,800
which is what the Ligo's sites are based
on, have that capacity.

285
00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:16,400
And one can imagine doing that measure.

286
00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:20,920
In fact, ligo's, the way to think about
ligo's is two pipes at right

287
00:16:20,920 --> 00:16:24,200
angles to each other and light goes is the
this is those pipes.

288
00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:27,160
So the pipes are evacuated,
the circular.

289
00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:31,600
And so there's this,
computer animation that I found

290
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:33,440
which is beautiful, which shows

291
00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:35,360
what would happen
to the shape of that pipe

292
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:37,520
if there's a gravity
wave coming from the back of the pipe

293
00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:41,560
towards your eye, 
the pipe deforms in a very particular way.

294
00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:47,080
And,
if it's a polarized, like graviton wave,

295
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:50,720
the bending has a certain signature,
whether it's left or right handed.

296
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:54,600
And I've actually used this video
many times as I've been talking

297
00:16:54,600 --> 00:16:55,840
for the last decade about this.

298
00:16:55,840 --> 00:17:00,520
So if we are lucky enough 
we can actually see polarization.

299
00:17:00,520 --> 00:17:03,280
I would guess within the next ten years,

300
00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:06,480
I guess gravitons were number
two on a bucket list.

301
00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:09,960
So that's like two A we've now covered two
A let's get a two week two,

302
00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:13,960
because a quantization
quantization is going to be a challenge.

303
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:17,160
And back in the 60s,

304
00:17:17,160 --> 00:17:21,160
physicist at the University of Maryland,
Joseph Weber, developed it.

305
00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:24,480
But now Weber bars are big metal bars.

306
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:25,880
And the idea was

307
00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:28,280
you will call them down.

308
00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:32,240
And then if a graviton
impinges on these bars,

309
00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:36,920
it would induce, lattice vibrations
in the metal and you would detect those.

310
00:17:36,920 --> 00:17:39,840
And so that's the principle behind
so-called Weber bars.

311
00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:43,000
So people and Weber bars,

312
00:17:43,720 --> 00:17:48,280
Joe, actually, claim
to have detected gravitons in the 60s.

313
00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:51,840
But this is a claim that has never been
verified independently.

314
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,400
So, one of the things
I tell people about science

315
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:59,160
is that science can it probably doesn't
have the capacity to see miracles,

316
00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:02,880
because if it's something that happens
one time, how do you verify it?

317
00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:03,320
Right.

318
00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:06,240
So there's going to be a big push,

319
00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:09,400
I suspect, in going back
and upgrading that technology.

320
00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:14,080
But one of the most exciting things
about that is, I mean, they might be

321
00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:17,240
quantum Weber bars, not classical Weber

322
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:20,240
bars, where you take not these huge.

323
00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:23,280
I mean, if you see pictures of Weber
bars, they're big.

324
00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:26,920
But you can imagine a tabletop
quantum experiment

325
00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:30,440
where the same principle

326
00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:34,920
that Joe Weber was talking about,
which is that a graviton, impinges on a

327
00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:39,400
solid state system which causes it
to which it takes photons.

328
00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:40,960
And then you detect the phonons.

329
00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:46,240
You can imagine now doing this with 
using quantum mechanical, Weber bars.

330
00:18:46,240 --> 00:18:48,600
And so that's the road that I could see

331
00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:52,160
to actually nailing
down the existence of the graviton.

332
00:18:52,360 --> 00:18:56,400
So that's gravitational waves
and gravitons today.

333
00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:57,440
And to be

334
00:18:57,440 --> 00:19:02,280
number three on your bucket list
ten years ago was super partners. Yes.

335
00:19:02,320 --> 00:19:03,800
Supersymmetry. Yes.

336
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:09,440
How have the prospects for supersymmetry
developed in the past ten years when,

337
00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:11,120
there was a

338
00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:16,120
Second World War on our planet 
and it lasted

339
00:19:16,120 --> 00:19:19,120
longer in the Pacific version
than the European version.

340
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:22,320
And when

341
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:24,840
the Emperor spoke to

342
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:28,480
the Japanese people, 
the phrase was repeated.

343
00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:32,800
The situation has not developed
to our advantage.

344
00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:36,600
And so we could apply that
to supersymmetry.

345
00:19:36,600 --> 00:19:38,520
I believe, very accurately,

346
00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:42,040
that the situation
has not developed to our advantage.

347
00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:45,040
Now, not all of us,

348
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:49,360
were at the same place
in terms of expectations.

349
00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:51,800
In 2006.

350
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:55,360
I actually published a paper 
in this in physics today.

351
00:19:55,360 --> 00:19:58,680
And I said explicitly, I did not expect

352
00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:02,120
the LHC to detect supersymmetry.

353
00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:03,680
Why not?

354
00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:06,320
Well, 
it was back of the envelope calculation.

355
00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:08,640
I was looking at the issue of,

356
00:20:10,120 --> 00:20:11,880
anomalous magnetic moments

357
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:12,880
because the numbers,

358
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:18,160
magnetic moments, if you look at the math
and the how it works, it they can't

359
00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,560
the magnetic models can be sensitive
to particles you can't actually detect.

360
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:25,440
And so by looking at the
anomalous magnetic moment

361
00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:30,560
and then comparing the measured value 
to what is predicted by all the particles

362
00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:34,240
that, you know, you can put lower bounds
on the particles that you don't know.

363
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:38,880
And that's what I did to come up with
this number that it looked to me like

364
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:43,960
the lightest super partner was probably
going to be in the range of 30 TeV, okay.

365
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:47,800
Which is well beyond what the LHC,
the LHC initial operation of seven.

366
00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:53,520
It's currently at 14, so 
I'm feeling comfortable about this issue.

367
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:57,160
I'm not like the the people who said,
oh my God, we got it wrong.

368
00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:58,720
Well, no, I didn't get it wrong.

369
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:00,280
I think I got it right.

370
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:04,000
But like Cassandra in Greek mythology,

371
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:07,200
the seer, people don't listen to a seer.

372
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:07,520
Awful.

373
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:09,880
So now remember our theory.

374
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:11,720
So it might be 66 years.

375
00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:14,920
It was 30, but to me,
it's someplace that would seem reasonable.

376
00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:18,880
If it's not found by 100 TeV,
which I'm going to.

377
00:21:19,120 --> 00:21:20,840
I'm going to kick the bucket by me.

378
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:22,400
By the time we get that technology,

379
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:25,360
if it's not found by then,
I would get very worried.

380
00:21:25,360 --> 00:21:28,440
It would,
but I am confident that it's out there.

381
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:31,520
So that's one thing, is that

382
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:35,680
there has been a pushback on the hysteria
around supersymmetry,

383
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:36,640
because that's what it was for me,

384
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:40,360
was a hyperbolic hysteria
that many people bought into

385
00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:43,480
one of the physics
I most admire, Michael Peskin.

386
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:46,520
He's at slack, and Mike Michael wrote a

387
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:50,000
very highly regarded book
with one of his students, Peskin.

388
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:51,520
Schroeder is a textbook

389
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:55,200
on, quantum field theory
in elementary particle physics.

390
00:21:55,440 --> 00:22:00,400
And Michael was totally committed to
the idea that supersymmetry was at hand.

391
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:05,800
So he and I have had some discussions
over the last year or so about,

392
00:22:06,120 --> 00:22:12,000
you know, why he was so convinced and,
this, this thing called naturalness,

393
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:16,240
which it's a it's a pretty argument,
but I never found it convincing,

394
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:17,080
which is part of it.

395
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:19,000
Partly why I did not get on the

396
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:21,840
supersymmetry is going to be found
that the LHC bandwagon.

397
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:23,200
So that's one thing.

398
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:26,960
On the other hand, in this article,

399
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:32,200
in the article that I did with you
folks, in physics world

400
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:36,880
before the second scientific run
at the LHC,

401
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:40,840
I pointed out that particle physics
and observations

402
00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:45,080
of particle physics,
typically high precision,

403
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,640
observations, magnetic moments,

404
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:51,720
branching ratios, decay rates,
all sorts of things

405
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:57,400
were not the only way to think
about finding supersymmetry in particular.

406
00:22:57,400 --> 00:23:02,920
One could imagine that, particularly

407
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:06,240
with string theory, that there might be
cosmological implications.

408
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:11,200
Now, for most people, that was
limited to the question of dark matter.

409
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:16,040
You know, in, in astrophysics
and cosmology,

410
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:20,200
as far as we can tell, our technology
has only allowed us to measure

411
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:23,320
something like 5% of the matter
that's in the universe.

412
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:25,640
So there's a crisis there.

413
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:29,200
And one of the solutions was to imagine

414
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,320
that the other 95%

415
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:36,040
is made up of one component
of dark energy and dark matter,

416
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:40,360
and with the greater,
proportion going to dark energy.

417
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:41,880
But the

418
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,960
dark matter contribution, if you look
at the mathematics of supersymmetry,

419
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:49,800
you can easily find that there are
particles that we haven't observed,

420
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,320
and they might be the lightest
supersymmetric particle

421
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:56,640
has characteristics 
that would be consistent

422
00:23:57,120 --> 00:24:00,200
with what I think of as observable
dark matter.

423
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:01,600
A very dark matter.

424
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:03,400
There are two kinds of dark matter,
actually,

425
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:07,440
and I'm not sure how widely
this is recognized.

426
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,880
There is dark matter

427
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:17,360
that still possesses either
quantum chromodynamics

428
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:21,880
or quantum flavor, dynamic
or electromagnetic interactions.

429
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:23,080
In addition to being dark.

430
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:26,960
On the other hand,
there's another kind of dark matter,

431
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:31,000
which some people call profoundly
dark matter, which would only interact

432
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,480
gravitationally and in fact,
if you look at string theory,

433
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,760
it suggests that 
a profoundly dark matter

434
00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:40,720
is probably a huge component
to the structure of the universe.

435
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,560
But again,
I I'm not a phenomenal largest,

436
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,280
and I don't really know 
any serious studies of this issue.

437
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:51,880
But as someone who believes
a string theory basically is right,

438
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,640
I wish someone would begin
to answer that question.

439
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:56,240
Now, why do why did I come back to this?

440
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:57,760
Well,

441
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:01,880
maybe a decade or so ago,
Nima Arcanae, Hammett,

442
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:06,760
and Juan Maldacena
at the Institute for Advanced Studies,

443
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,880
the place that was isat home
when it came to us,

444
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:14,640
wrote me a very interesting paper
in which they argued that

445
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:19,200
the heights of string theory predicts
particles of spin greater than two.

446
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:21,400
And so they

447
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,240
looked at the issue of high spin
particles,

448
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:29,560
therefore very massive,
having glancing collisions

449
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:33,080
and, you know, not head on,
but just grazing collisions.

450
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:38,520
And what might the signatures that be
on the cosmic microwave background?

451
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:42,800
And so when they wrote that papers, 
I said, well, the next thing

452
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:46,480
they're obviously going to do is look at
what happens if you add supersymmetry.

453
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:48,640
But they never wrote that paper.

454
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:52,120
So the first year
I was at Brown University,

455
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,640
I had an opportunity to work
with a young, astrophysicist there

456
00:25:56,800 --> 00:26:00,880
by the name of, Stefan Alexander
and some graduate students

457
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,000
and my postdoc, Konstantinos Lucas.

458
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:07,480
And we looked at the issue 
of what kind of signature

459
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:11,560
you would get for high
spin, supersymmetric dark matter.

460
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,680
And so it has a
it has a characteristic signature,

461
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,040
whether it's detect
was a different question,

462
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,320
but the form of the signal
you can calculate.

463
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:21,960
And that's what we did in this paper,

464
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:26,200
which is one of the few times I've ever
left mathematics to do some something.

465
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:28,200
It looks like real physics.

466
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,960
So, those are the challenges that I see

467
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:36,160
for dark matters when we look up 
and begin to see signatures.

468
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,040
And the final thing
on your bucket list,

469
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,360
which we've already touched
on, was superstring theory.

470
00:26:41,360 --> 00:26:43,720
And you said at the time
you did not expect to see

471
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:44,760
either this or some of this

472
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:49,400
unless I, unless I'm, blessed with a life
as long as Methuselah in the Bible.

473
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:51,520
I don't expect to see that.

474
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,720
But, for me,

475
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:58,880
for superstring to when

476
00:26:59,120 --> 00:27:03,880
observational acceptance, 
it will likely come about

477
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:07,920
not from a single experiment,
but from a confluence of observations.

478
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:12,960
So a confluence of the observations
of the cosmology astrophysics types

479
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:13,720
I describe.

480
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:18,440
And, maybe, perhaps the lightest
supersymmetric particle is found.

481
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,760
By the way, I don't expect
extra dimensions ever to be found,

482
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:23,160
but that's puts me.

483
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:27,320
I'd like to say I'm a high
dimensional refusenik, and probably so.

484
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:33,440
So those are the kinds of things that I
if I lived several hundred years,

485
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,600
those would be the kinds
of likely expectations I would have.

486
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:40,840
And have you added anything new to your
bucket list over the past ten years?

487
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,480
You know, you're not sort of fixed to
to stick with just one bucket list.

488
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:47,360
That's true, yes,
but I don't quite know how to verbalize.

489
00:27:47,360 --> 00:27:51,760
It has to do with a confluence of things
around quantum mechanics and information,

490
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:57,920
because in my own research,
one of the striking things

491
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,400
about these graphs that we developed to, 
we call them a decrease

492
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:05,440
to understand the representation
theory of supersymmetry

493
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:07,360
is that error

494
00:28:07,360 --> 00:28:11,200
correcting codes are part
of these construction.

495
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:15,360
In fact, let me say that for me,
this is the proudest

496
00:28:15,360 --> 00:28:19,120
piece of research
I've ever accomplished to discover

497
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,600
a kind of physics law,

498
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,600
at least the possibility of physics law

499
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:27,400
that includes error correcting codes.

500
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:31,760
I know of no previous example in history
where law physics

501
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:35,680
includes error correcting codes,
but we can clearly see it

502
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,680
in the mathematics around these graphs.

503
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,160
So that, first of all,

504
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:46,120
had a profound impact on the way
I think about information theory.

505
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:52,240
So John Wheeler, in the 60s
or so came up with this

506
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:58,880
very interesting way
to think about quantum mechanics.

507
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:03,720
And 
one of the shorthand phrases of it

508
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,960
is it from bit, namely,
that the information

509
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,600
that we see in the universe 
is somehow connected to bits.

510
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:12,320
And

511
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,760
I remember as a young person thinking,
that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.

512
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:19,280
But when I, in my own research,

513
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,520
saw that it is possible for the

514
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:28,360
the laws of physics to contain bits 
in the form of error correcting codes,

515
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:33,360
I had to then rethink my rejection
of what I thought was a wild idea.

516
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:34,480
In fact, now that I've.

517
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:35,680
Oh, I've concluded that

518
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,800
if you do theoretical physics long enough,
you too can become crazy.

519
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,320
Because that's
what sort of happened to me.

520
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,800
So the fact that there at least

521
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:47,320
in the

522
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:50,760
mathematics of supersymmetry, 
there is no way to avoid

523
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,080
the presence of error corrected codes
and therefore bits.

524
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:59,320
And because of that,
my new sort of item

525
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,320
for the bucket list is

526
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:07,000
an actual observational demonstration

527
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,640
that the laws of quantum mechanics

528
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,640
entail the use of information in bits.

529
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:15,120
That's the new idea.

530
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:18,440
Well, any predictions
for when we might find that out?

531
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:22,040
Long after I've gone, though,
that's all I could feel that.

532
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,840
Would you know if I had another hundred
and 50 years of life?

533
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:28,280
That's where intellectually
I would be going right now, because

534
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:33,320
the hints are so stark
that it suggests something's going on.

535
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,560
And in some sense,
often Richard Feynman is identified

536
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:39,480
as the father of quantum computing.

537
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:43,880
But if you actually go back and read,
because I've read the actual writings

538
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:44,280
area,

539
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,240
it's not so much in my mind, 
not so much

540
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,480
that he's the father of quantum computing.

541
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:51,680
He basically says

542
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:55,360
that there's a whole lot of computation
somehow going on in nature.

543
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,040
And that's a really exciting idea

544
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,840
because I've seen
a national year of quantum.

545
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:06,160
We are asking a lot of people, we speak to
this sort of quite nebulous and

546
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:10,040
philosophical question, what does quantum
mean to you as a scientist?

547
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:12,400
I think it was, Feynman said.

548
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,400
Nobody really understands
part of a context, maybe of some,

549
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,160
but some mainstream physics
and this kind of right.

550
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,760
Except I think there may be a hold
in the formulation.

551
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:26,080
So let me give you, as a physicist,
a model to think about quantum mechanics

552
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,880
that I've been sort of I haven't written
anything but I've been thinking about it.

553
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:32,200
Let's start with the bare okay,

554
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:35,640
bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.

555
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:36,000
Right.

556
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,320
The three which is around the
the cauldron.

557
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:44,600
So let's imagine that those three
witches were actually physicists.

558
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:49,720
They might decide not to start the fire

559
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,680
just to observe what happens
to the liquid in the cauldron.

560
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:57,840
It would calm down, 
and maybe one of them would put a

561
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:01,240
small twig or something on this
calm surface,

562
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:04,320
give it a twitch,

563
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,600
and the twig would begin
to move along the surface.

564
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,400
And if there were no friction,
it would continue

565
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,360
to move in a straight line
without any loss of speed.

566
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:17,320
That's what Newton teaches us.

567
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:22,240
Now
let's start the fire in the cauldron.

568
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:24,720
The liquid heats up,

569
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,800
the surface
of the liquid begins to bubble.

570
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,880
And then let's imagine
doing the same thing with the twig.

571
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:33,160
What happens now?

572
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:37,320
It no longer moves in a straight line

573
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,920
because of the 
the bubbles coming up out of the liquid.

574
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:44,640
And so

575
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,440
since they're witches,
they can live forever.

576
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,440
They can move form an infinite number
of experiments like this.

577
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:55,720
And in particular, 
you might want to perform one experiment

578
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:59,600
where you say, even though the twig
is not moving a straight line.

579
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:04,120
Suppose sometimes it gets to the place
where it would have been

580
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:05,360
if it moved a straight line.

581
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:08,600
It probably happens
an infinite number of times.

582
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:12,240
So you could watch those

583
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:16,320
experiments, 
but there might be some times

584
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:20,200
when it just gets a little a push,
a little bit off of the straight line.

585
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,640
But then as it nears the other side,
it gets a push back in the straight line

586
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:29,520
by these bubbles probably happens
less than the actual straight line.

587
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,360
And the point is that if you go to this
thought experiment,

588
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:39,520
you can begin to see
why a fluctuating

589
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:42,800
substructure

590
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:46,280
moves away from Newton's laws.

591
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,120
And we know in relativity quantum
field theory,

592
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:56,080
we know the masses that the vacuum
is a fluctuating substructure.

593
00:33:56,280 --> 00:34:00,760
And so all one thing
I began to wonder about is,

594
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:03,640
is it just the quantum vacuum

595
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:06,640
that actually makes us depart
from Newton's second law?

596
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:11,400
I posed this as an interesting thought
experiment for anyone to go through.

597
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:14,840
So these are

598
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:18,480
the kinds of things
that, as you said, year of the quantum.

599
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,480
I would like to see this
kind of a question

600
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:25,040
address in a fully

601
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:28,360
rigorous way to ask,

602
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:32,560
are there classical models
that demonstrate quantum behavior?

603
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,840
And that's what my cauldron
in which is, is all about.

604
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:38,480
So we've talked a little bit
about how science has changed

605
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:39,400
over the past ten years.

606
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:41,000
Of course, science is not

607
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:45,280
unconnected with the rest of the world,
and there have been some changes in

608
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:49,760
other things that impinge on science,
especially recently developing the US

609
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:52,800
with threats to science
funding generally

610
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,920
and to support for diversity initiatives
in science, specifically.

611
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:58,840
What's your take on that?

612
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:00,120
Where is that going to go?

613
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:04,680
So unfortunately, it's
been very predictable.

614
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:07,320
I think it was two years ago.

615
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:09,960
I wrote an essay
called Pushed Off the Mountaintop.

616
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,840
And in that essay, I was talking about
the fact that people like me, I'm

617
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:17,000
a man of color,
an African-American scientist,

618
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:21,320
that it looked to me like the United
States was moving in a direction

619
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,680
where it would be less likely
that people like me

620
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:26,640
would continue to have access

621
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:30,320
to the kind of educational training
that it takes to do this.

622
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,640
And I took that title from a statement

623
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,640
by Martin Luther King,
or he says, I've reached the mountaintop,

624
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:41,680
and the pushing off is closing down
the opportunities for people of color.

625
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:47,080
And, I'm still of the opinion
that that decision

626
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:51,000
that my country's Supreme Court
made doesn't make sense.

627
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,520
And it doesn't make sense
in a very peculiar way.

628
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:56,160
This is a decision
about affirmative action. Yes.

629
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:00,920
It doesn't make sense, because 
if you want to your stockbroker

630
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:04,440
and you said, I don't believe in
diversity, you would run out of the door.

631
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:09,320
And that's kind of what this decision is
like, saying is that

632
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:14,560
that diversity has no role in providing
and driving innovation.

633
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,560
And there's lots of 
there's lots of evidence that's not right.

634
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,320
The simplest evidence I can present to
someone is to say, well, how do you think

635
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:22,880
cities came into existence?

636
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,600
They're places where innovation occurs.

637
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:27,400
And why do they occur in cities?

638
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,600
Because you have diverse people
coming to cities, as you know.

639
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,400
That's so that's the one to me,
one of the saddest things of

640
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:37,800
what my country is likely to go through
for at least 50 years.

641
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,920
It's not many people think it's a short
term development.

642
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:43,320
I don't think so at all.

643
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,760
I think it's
at least a 50 year development.

644
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,760
I'm also some of an amateur historian

645
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:52,560
because I, I like history,
I have my entire adult life.

646
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:55,280
And last time
that these kind of conditions

647
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:57,160
arose in the country
there, it's very funny.

648
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:00,600
In my country, there are two precursors
to the current, conditions.

649
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:04,520
One
was the period where the Civil War,

650
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,560
from 1865 to 1876,

651
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:12,760
and the other precursor
that sort of like this

652
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:18,240
was what was called the, Red
scare in the 1950s in the United States.

653
00:37:18,240 --> 00:37:22,120
And so if you look at my country's
history, that sort of

654
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,960
makes some predictions about politically
where the country is going to be,

655
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:28,360
not for a short while,
but for a considerable while.

656
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,600
You add to that the

657
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:35,360
presence of a new medium,

658
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:38,040
the internet

659
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:42,040
and the fact that

660
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,400
with this new medium.

661
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:49,960
Anyone can reach many millions of people.

662
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:54,920
Why is this a little bit frightening?

663
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:59,680
Well, fake news, misinformation.

664
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:03,560
I ran into,

665
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:06,800
a philosopher, about a year ago.

666
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:09,160
Less last summer, I guess it was.

667
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:13,040
I had the joyful occasion
of getting my 10th honorary

668
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:14,440
degree from Harvard University.

669
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,640
And I was in a conversation
with this philosopher,

670
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:21,520
and he made a statement to me 
which I found very profound.

671
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:23,560
I've been turning it over in my mind.

672
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:26,800
So I would this
and trying to think, well, he said,

673
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,840
if you stop
and think of the, printing press,

674
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:34,840
it allowed books to disseminate

675
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:39,800
to Western European society
in a way that had never happened before.

676
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:44,400
And therefore it drove literacy, 
which is obviously true.

677
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:49,720
And he said, so think about
the comparison to what the internet is.

678
00:38:49,720 --> 00:38:53,800
So if we go back to the early example,
how long does it take

679
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:58,360
for literacy levels
to increase 50 to 100 years?

680
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,960
So then he says,
now let's think about the internet.

681
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:03,440
What's different about it?

682
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:10,160
And the difference is that anyone can
say anything and reach millions of people.

683
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,480
And so the challenge is

684
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:19,440
how long it will take for our species
to learn to write the internet.

685
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:20,440
That is right.

686
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,400
And what he meant is write it
without misinformation, a fake news.

687
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:27,960
And if he's right, that's a 150 year
long period.

688
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:32,720
And so that's part of the challenge
that, the US is facing.

689
00:39:32,720 --> 00:39:36,160
But, I mean, it's
not just a challenge for my country,

690
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:39,560
but somehow it seems to be
particularly critical in the country.

691
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:41,880
So what does this do about science?

692
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:49,760
Well, in 2005,
the outside world, your science,

693
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:53,960
I was invited to deliver a plenary
address

694
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:59,520
to the American Association for the Advancement of Science large annual meeting.

695
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:03,480
And in that address,

696
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:08,120
which was entitled Einstein's Lessons
with the Third Millennium,

697
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:14,040
I made statements about science
being turned off

698
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:18,640
because it was clear to me,
even back then in my country,

699
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,640
that there were elements in our society

700
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:25,280
that would be perfectly happy to

701
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:29,440
deny evidence
as brought forth by scientists.

702
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:34,880
And it was also clear to me that 
these elements were becoming more strong.

703
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:37,200
They're not weakening.

704
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:41,080
So you put this all together,
and it's going to be an extraordinarily

705
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:45,840
important and importantly, challenging
time for the continuation of science,

706
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:50,400
because certainly at the level
of fundamental science, this is something

707
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:54,520
that the public generally has to say, yes,
we want to invest in this.

708
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:58,720
And if you have agencies
and agents in the society

709
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:04,120
denying vaccines, for example,
or denying

710
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,680
the scientific evidence
throughout evolution,

711
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,480
or denying the scientific evidence
about climate change,

712
00:41:11,720 --> 00:41:13,320
if this is going to be

713
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:17,800
something that the public buys into,
then science is so

714
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:20,240
potentially can be turned off.

715
00:41:20,240 --> 00:41:22,720
And that's the thing
I was warning about in 2 or 5.

716
00:41:22,720 --> 00:41:26,800
What are some practical things
that members of scientific community

717
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,680
who don't want that to happen,
can do to help prevent it from happening?

718
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,240
First of all, 
to come down from the ivory tower.

719
00:41:34,240 --> 00:41:37,240
I've been parts of

720
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:40,680
some activities in the United States,

721
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:45,000
and they normally are,
under the rubric of

722
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:48,760
restoring trust, 
the public's trust in science.

723
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:51,960
And I think that's the wrong
framing me, quite frankly,

724
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:54,880
it's the public faith in science
as a under attack.

725
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,000
And so from my perspective, I

726
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:01,280
that's what I'd much rather
have people really thinking about.

727
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:04,720
What is it that is the issue
I don't think is just a matter of trust.

728
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:08,160
What would you say the differences
between having trust the science

729
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:09,400
and having faith in science?

730
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,440
So what's
the difference between faith and trust?

731
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,640
Well, in my mind, if I

732
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:22,920
trust some guy, I will listen.

733
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:27,880
If I have faith in something,
I will listen and I will act.

734
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:31,120
And to me, this is a 
this is a sharp distinction.

735
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:34,960
Personally, even though I expect

736
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:39,440
that it's going to be really hard
going for I am hopeful

737
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:43,040
and I would urge
young people never to lose that.

738
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:44,520
We've got it.

739
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,920
It's funny 
if you lose hope, there is no hope.

740
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,480
It's just that simple.

741
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,280
And so I am hopeful.

742
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:57,240
Even though people may take my comments
as, oh, he's just depressed.

743
00:42:57,240 --> 00:43:03,160
No, no, I'm not I because I'm
a scientist and, it's the only thing

744
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:06,480
I've ever wanted to be in life
as a scientist starting at four years old.

745
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,720
But because I'm a scientist,
I believe that one must,

746
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:12,920
in a clear eyed,

747
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:16,720
hard hearted manner,
look at the evidence that's in front of

748
00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:21,640
us and not sentimentally
try to dodge what you see.

749
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:25,120
And that's who I am. So I am hopeful,

750
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,120
in spite of all the things
that I've just said to you,

751
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,040
I tell people, I've often said,

752
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,840
Albert Einstein is my hero,
Max of us in science, and he is.

753
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:40,000
And one of the things,
if you read enough about Uncle Albert,

754
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,000
as I refer to him often,
if you read about his

755
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,080
life, 
you come to understand a couple of things.

756
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:49,080
He was very religious up until age 12.

757
00:43:49,240 --> 00:43:52,040
What changed?

758
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:53,560
Geometry.

759
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:58,600
He says it exposes
near the end of his life, however,

760
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,560
you can find him
talking about an illimitable spirit.

761
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:04,960
What does that mean?

762
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:06,640
He doesn't explain it.

763
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:09,480
He just uses the phrase
but admits something to him.

764
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:11,560
And so

765
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:16,600
the way I interpret what he had to say

766
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,240
through the prism of my own life

767
00:44:20,720 --> 00:44:24,240
is that there's something very mysterious
about this universe

768
00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:28,520
and that this great mystery,
whatever it is, is something that

769
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:32,200
comes as close to a miracle
as anything I've ever seen.

770
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,240
And that's what for.

771
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:35,920
What gives you hope?

772
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:36,840
Yes.

773
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,640
Then I'll probably leave it there.

774
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:42,000
Jim Gates,
thank you very much for speaking to us.

775
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:42,560
Thank you.

776
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,560
Margaret,
it's great to have the opportunity again

777
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:46,760
here.

778
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:54,280
If you want to time

779
00:44:54,280 --> 00:45:00,000
travel back to 2014 and listen to Margaret
and Jim's first conversation,

780
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:03,760
you can find that interview
on the Physics World website.

781
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:08,000
Just look for the headline,
Terrorists Bucket List.

782
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,760
That interview
was a very early episode

783
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:16,480
of the Physics World Stories podcast,
which we produce every month.

784
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:19,920
The February 2025 edition

785
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:23,680
looks at the delicate, glassy formations

786
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,560
known as Pele's hair and Pele's tears.

787
00:45:27,720 --> 00:45:31,400
These are volcanic materials 
that are named after

788
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:35,360
the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes
and fire.

789
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:40,560
As the volcanologists
Ken Rubin and Tamsin Mather

790
00:45:40,720 --> 00:45:43,680
explain in to host Andrew Gloster

791
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:47,960
that episode is called
Threads of Fire,

792
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:54,640
uncovering volcanic secrets with Pele's
hair and tears, and you can find it

793
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:59,920
on the Physics World website 
or at your favorite podcast provider.

794
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:05,640
I'm afraid that's all the time we have
for this week's podcast.

795
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:10,560
Thanks to Jim Gates and Margaret Harris
for a fascinating conversation,

796
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:14,200
and a special
thanks to our producer, Fred Isles.

797
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:16,240
We'll be back again next week.