Third age careers for physicists: writing and the arts beckon

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Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly

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podcast.

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I'm Hamish Johnston.

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In this episode, I'm in conversation

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with the particle physicist and author,

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Michael Albro.

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Originally from The UK,

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Michael has held academic positions at the University

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of Birmingham,

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the University of Stockholm, and at Fermilab in

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The US, where he's currently

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scientist

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emeritus.

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Michael has been involved in collaborations

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that made two of the most important discoveries

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in particle physics.

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The top quark at Fermilab

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in 1995

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and the Higgs boson at CERN

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seventeen years later.

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Since his retirement, Michael has devoted much of

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his time to the public understanding of science

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through writing and collaborating with visual and musical

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artists.

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We sat down here in Bristol to talk

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about this third age of his career in

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physics.

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We began by chatting about Michael's book, Space

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Times

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Matter,

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100 short stories about the universe,

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which is now out.

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It's a collection of brief essays on a

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wide range of scientific

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topics.

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Many were published in Michael's

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local paper,

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Positively

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Naperville.

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And I began by asking him about the

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book.

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Hi, Mike. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you

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for having me. So, Mike, your book is

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subtitled 100

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short stories about the universe.

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And each story is short. I mean, no

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more than two pages long, I think. And

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I think there's even a couple that are

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just one page long. So why did you

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choose this format?

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It wasn't really a choice. You see, when

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I retired officially from Fermilab

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about eight years ago,

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I'm still doing things there, but I wanted

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to spend more time doing things like writing.

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And I contacted a local paper, a monthly

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freebie, and they had they had columns from

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your local dentist and fashion and so I

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said, we'd like a science column, because I

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happen to meet the editor. I said, sure.

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If you don't want paying for it, we

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could try that.

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And but keep it to 400 words. That's

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the column length. So so I did that,

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and I had a monthly deadline to do

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that. So every month, oh, I've got to

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do that by tomorrow, and I did one.

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And then after five years, I had about

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60 in there. And,

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they stopped it then. They need more advertising

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space.

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But I'd also written about 24 pieces

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of science to go with an art exhibition

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that we could talk about later.

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So then I had 60 plus 24, and

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I made it up to around 100. And

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I thought, these pieces, people have read them

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and put them in the trash maybe, but

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I'd like to get them together and make

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100 short stories.

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I call them stories. It's it's like

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flash fiction, which is limited about four or

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500 words, but it's flash nonfiction. You see,

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so people can just browse browse the pieces

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in no particular order. And

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so that's how how that happened. And I

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was thinking,

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you know, about a year and a half

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ago, it'd be nice to have them in

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a book. And,

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I was going to meetings with the Chicago

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Writers Association, and they met a publisher who

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said they were interested in doing that. So

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so that's how that happened. And,

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and,

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yes. So I think I

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would I wanted to write a popular science

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book, but I wouldn't have had the patience

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to sit down and write a whole book,

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you know, like that. And also, I think

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it's a format that people like because they're

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interested in science,

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but they don't necessarily want to read through

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a whole book.

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But to browse

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lots of short pieces is something that that

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they they like, you know, it gives them

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enough information to get started.

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That's right. Yeah. And I I mean, I

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do. I I immediately

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saw you know, see what you mean by

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stories because they are,

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you know, sort of self contained, and, you

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know, there's an interesting nub in there. And,

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you know, often you're relating it to current

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events or or a historical event that, you

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know, happened on this day Right. Way back.

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So, yeah. I I I I think I

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see what you mean. You can

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you can get through the book Yeah. Very

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quickly, or at least feel like you're going

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through quickly.

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And,

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it doesn't feel like you're sort of slogging

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through Right. A lecture on on sites. It's,

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you know, very breezy and,

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yeah. Yeah. So every month when the deadline

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came up,

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for that month's

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column, they called it column,

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I thought it's a special month or some

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celebration or something or something new in the

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new in the news that's interesting to talk

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about.

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And,

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often there was, and sometimes the pieces are

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specifically dated, and I put the date there

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when it's relevant. But sometimes there was nothing

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seemed to be

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special, and I just wrote about, you know,

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something more general. And I put those in

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a special section at the beginning of the

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book that they weren't specifically about particles or

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space or cosmology or something like that. So

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I call those values, but, an introduction.

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So there's pieces like,

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you know, encouraging girls to to do science,

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or

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distinguishing between science and nonsense or science and

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nonscience and nonsense. And and I think those

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are I I like those pieces because so

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many people don't distinguish between science and nonsense,

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you know, or truth and truth and false

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truth or whatever. Fake news is done.

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And, I wanted to ask you specifically about

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values. You do I mean, you just mentioned

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values there, and, you know, I think the

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word appears

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in your book. What,

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I mean, what what do you mean by

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values and and sort of communicating the values

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of science to to the public? What what

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do you mean by that, and why is

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it important?

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Well, the word values, I wasn't quite sure

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about what what word to use for these

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general things, but, but the values that scientists

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should should have, I mean,

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that those are things like, you know, curiosity

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and and truth, and

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and being ready and able to

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put aside something which is clearly not it

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may be a beautiful idea, but if it

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disagrees with nature, then you have to put

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it aside.

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And an example of that is Fred Hoyle's

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steady state theory of the universe, you know,

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and he said the universe should look the

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same at all times and all places

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to call the perfect cosmological principle.

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And then the big and then they found

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the you know, it's expanding. It's not static.

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Well, he said, well, maybe a new hydrogen

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atom is produced every cubic meter every every

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year or something like that.

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But, so he was reluctant to give up

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his big his his steady state theory.

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And,

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but, you know, one has to give up

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ideas even if they're beautiful if they can

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be demonstrated before.

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So those values and other values are, you

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know,

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really are

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honesty, you have to be honest in science.

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You can't pull over people's eyes. You can

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try sometimes, but you'll be found out. You

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know? And that was, for example, the cold

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fusion fiasco,

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where it could

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be demonstrated

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that, and

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a lot of people jumped on that idea

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to see if they could there was anything

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to it,

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but there's nothing to it in the end.

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You know? And

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so the sort of values

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businesses have to have are things things like

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honesty,

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distinguishing truth from non truth, or things like

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that. And is that you know, as our

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society becomes

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increasingly reliant

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on science and technology,

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and

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I suppose science and technology

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becomes more complicated and difficult to understand,

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Is it

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is it becoming more and more important to

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try to help society

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deal with

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those sort of values in the sense that,

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it's even more imperative that people understand the

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scientific method. And,

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you know, for example during the pandemic, understand

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why

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the advice from scientists

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changed,

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simply because the scientists were doing their best

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to understand, and their understanding

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changed.

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I mean, is that I I think some

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of you you were writing in that period.

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Am I right in thinking? Well, true. Because

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I started about '8. So you're absolutely right.

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And there's an increase, at least in The

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USA,

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probably here too. But especially in The USA,

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there's a movement away from science and people

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not

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you know,

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when they see that a scientist changes their

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mind about something, they think, oh, you're flip

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flopping or whatever. You don't know what you're

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talking about. But we have to change our

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minds when when when we're going down the

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wrong path.

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And,

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but there's this very worrying tendency in America

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for people to mistrust science, including

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including at the highest levels, you know. And,

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things like, you know,

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the the pandemic came and everybody was so

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worried about it spraying. We're wearing masks. We're

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getting vaccinated finally. Thanks to science developing the

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vaccine. And if that hadn't happened, then who

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knows what could have happened? I mean, exponential

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growth in in this pandemic.

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And one piece in my book is about

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pandemics and the big bang

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and both exponential growth.

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The population as well. The population is is

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growing exponentially. We can't it can't keep happening.

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Nothing can keep growing exponentially, I think, except

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in mathematics, but I believe also in the

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in the universe itself

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that the expansion of the universe

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is now sort of exponential growth, but it

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can't happen forever.

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And that's another part of the story,

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because

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exponential growth,

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is is got to be limited. And so

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the population of the Earth, which at the

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moment has a doubling time of about sixty

277
00:10:12,575 --> 00:10:15,375
years or something like that. But, maybe we

278
00:10:15,375 --> 00:10:17,054
could cope with a factor of two more

279
00:10:17,054 --> 00:10:18,115
population, but

280
00:10:18,839 --> 00:10:20,839
it's gonna be very difficult. And if we

281
00:10:20,839 --> 00:10:22,860
don't do something to control it,

282
00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:23,720
then,

283
00:10:25,159 --> 00:10:28,120
nature will control it by pandemics or major

284
00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:31,064
disasters or something. So it it's so we

285
00:10:31,064 --> 00:10:32,584
have to be careful about about,

286
00:10:33,784 --> 00:10:36,904
dampening down the exponential growth of population and

287
00:10:36,904 --> 00:10:38,125
and other things.

288
00:10:38,584 --> 00:10:41,725
And so, Michael, you spoke briefly about space.

289
00:10:42,745 --> 00:10:44,365
A good number of the stories,

290
00:10:45,049 --> 00:10:47,450
are related to space. I suppose that's not

291
00:10:47,450 --> 00:10:50,669
surprising if you're trying to convey scientific concepts

292
00:10:50,809 --> 00:10:53,209
to to the general public. Space is a

293
00:10:53,209 --> 00:10:54,509
great place to start.

294
00:10:55,610 --> 00:10:57,610
Why why do you think that that space

295
00:10:57,610 --> 00:10:58,429
has captured

296
00:10:59,144 --> 00:11:00,125
human imagination

297
00:11:00,664 --> 00:11:02,824
for eons? Is this I mean, I I

298
00:11:02,824 --> 00:11:04,745
think in in in your stories, you do

299
00:11:04,745 --> 00:11:06,204
write about how you,

300
00:11:06,664 --> 00:11:08,944
as a as a young boy, were were

301
00:11:09,384 --> 00:11:11,004
Yes. Enamored with space.

302
00:11:11,370 --> 00:11:13,690
Yes. But I think space has been fascinating

303
00:11:13,690 --> 00:11:16,090
for eons, you'd say, back in back in

304
00:11:16,090 --> 00:11:18,490
the days of our caveman ancestors that,

305
00:11:18,970 --> 00:11:20,029
people saw the

306
00:11:20,490 --> 00:11:22,509
sky. They didn't know what it was,

307
00:11:23,129 --> 00:11:24,110
but it's beautiful.

308
00:11:24,995 --> 00:11:26,215
And, so

309
00:11:26,754 --> 00:11:28,434
space has always been fast or things in

310
00:11:28,434 --> 00:11:30,754
space have been fascinating. The the sun and

311
00:11:30,754 --> 00:11:32,355
the moon, what are they? They make gods

312
00:11:32,355 --> 00:11:34,215
out of them, you know. And,

313
00:11:35,475 --> 00:11:36,134
but now

314
00:11:36,839 --> 00:11:39,720
space our knowledge about space has changed so

315
00:11:39,720 --> 00:11:41,879
enormously in the last decades, you know. When

316
00:11:41,879 --> 00:11:43,639
my when my father was a was a

317
00:11:43,639 --> 00:11:46,440
kid, we thought that, you know, we knew

318
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:47,639
the Milky Way was,

319
00:11:48,279 --> 00:11:50,600
was around us was made of stars, and

320
00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:52,534
we thought we're in a in a galaxy

321
00:11:52,534 --> 00:11:53,595
that was the universe.

322
00:11:54,934 --> 00:11:55,434
And,

323
00:11:56,375 --> 00:11:58,214
it's only really in the lifetime of my

324
00:11:58,214 --> 00:12:00,375
father and myself that we've gone from thinking

325
00:12:00,375 --> 00:12:01,834
that, you know,

326
00:12:03,014 --> 00:12:05,100
the whole universe is is our galaxy. We've

327
00:12:05,100 --> 00:12:07,820
now found a 100,000 galaxies. We know they're

328
00:12:07,820 --> 00:12:10,379
roughly bare by counting them in a small

329
00:12:10,379 --> 00:12:12,879
pinhead area and then multiplying up.

330
00:12:14,139 --> 00:12:14,459
But,

331
00:12:15,019 --> 00:12:17,745
and then space has been fascinated with

332
00:12:18,464 --> 00:12:20,884
science, science fiction, and so on. So

333
00:12:21,264 --> 00:12:22,804
but, yeah, as a small boy,

334
00:12:23,504 --> 00:12:25,585
you're right. I I I started at the

335
00:12:25,585 --> 00:12:27,904
age of about 10. I even remember before

336
00:12:27,904 --> 00:12:28,404
that

337
00:12:28,705 --> 00:12:30,705
being puzzled by the moon. What's that doing

338
00:12:30,705 --> 00:12:32,610
up in the sky? And I remember my

339
00:12:32,610 --> 00:12:35,170
dad waking me up late one night, to

340
00:12:35,170 --> 00:12:36,450
go and see a total eclipse of the

341
00:12:36,450 --> 00:12:38,129
moon. He knew I was interested in those

342
00:12:38,129 --> 00:12:38,629
things.

343
00:12:39,009 --> 00:12:39,970
So when I was,

344
00:12:41,170 --> 00:12:42,149
11, 12,

345
00:12:43,090 --> 00:12:45,429
I started a small astronomy club with kids

346
00:12:45,570 --> 00:12:47,571
kids in the neighborhood, you know, and we'd

347
00:12:47,571 --> 00:12:48,285
meet and and

348
00:12:50,585 --> 00:12:51,245
and then

349
00:12:51,945 --> 00:12:53,945
it that was my main hobby through my

350
00:12:53,945 --> 00:12:55,884
teen teen years as astronomy.

351
00:12:56,745 --> 00:12:57,065
And,

352
00:12:57,705 --> 00:12:58,845
I was very lucky,

353
00:12:59,705 --> 00:13:02,320
that not far away from me, I lived

354
00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:04,320
in Crawley in Sussex, and at East Quinstead

355
00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:06,799
about eight miles away was Patrick Moore, who

356
00:13:06,799 --> 00:13:08,720
was then unknown. He was a school teacher,

357
00:13:08,720 --> 00:13:11,120
actually, and but starting to write books, Guide

358
00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:12,500
to the Moon, Guide to the Planets.

359
00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:13,440
And,

360
00:13:14,559 --> 00:13:17,139
he was president of the Junior Astronomical Society

361
00:13:17,894 --> 00:13:20,695
that, that I I I joined there, and

362
00:13:20,695 --> 00:13:22,134
I wanted to go to a meeting in

363
00:13:22,134 --> 00:13:22,634
London.

364
00:13:23,975 --> 00:13:25,575
And my dad didn't want me to go

365
00:13:25,575 --> 00:13:27,435
by myself, but he

366
00:13:27,894 --> 00:13:30,535
saw that the president was Patrick Moore, who

367
00:13:30,535 --> 00:13:32,535
lived not far away, called him up and

368
00:13:32,535 --> 00:13:34,970
said, would he take me to the meeting,

369
00:13:34,970 --> 00:13:36,970
which we met at the railway station? And

370
00:13:36,970 --> 00:13:38,730
my dad was immediately impressed with him, you

371
00:13:38,730 --> 00:13:40,509
know. So but but

372
00:13:42,090 --> 00:13:44,350
then, I could cycle over to his house,

373
00:13:44,490 --> 00:13:46,809
look through his backyard 12 inch telescope and

374
00:13:46,809 --> 00:13:48,704
the moon and planets, and that was so

375
00:13:48,704 --> 00:13:51,204
exciting. And then sometimes I'd be there,

376
00:13:51,904 --> 00:13:52,884
and it was cloudy,

377
00:13:53,184 --> 00:13:55,424
and he was be sitting there typing away

378
00:13:55,424 --> 00:13:57,605
on his next book on an old typewriter

379
00:13:57,664 --> 00:13:59,584
that he used throughout his whole life, his

380
00:13:59,584 --> 00:14:00,324
old typewriter.

381
00:14:00,944 --> 00:14:01,264
And,

382
00:14:02,304 --> 00:14:04,360
and I could sit there, and he had

383
00:14:04,360 --> 00:14:06,759
his wonderful books and magazines about astronomy, so

384
00:14:06,759 --> 00:14:09,019
I should read them. So and

385
00:14:09,799 --> 00:14:10,860
so that was,

386
00:14:11,720 --> 00:14:13,399
that was great to have a mentor like

387
00:14:13,399 --> 00:14:15,480
that to sort of encourage me. He took

388
00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:17,399
me for my boy scout's astronomy badge, for

389
00:14:17,399 --> 00:14:17,899
example.

390
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:20,325
And I think may maybe for our,

391
00:14:20,965 --> 00:14:23,125
readers outside of The UK, I think would

392
00:14:23,125 --> 00:14:24,644
it be right to say that that this

393
00:14:24,644 --> 00:14:27,205
is on par with sort of hanging around

394
00:14:27,205 --> 00:14:29,285
with Carl Sagan? I think it would be

395
00:14:29,285 --> 00:14:31,764
a very for for an American, sort of

396
00:14:31,764 --> 00:14:33,750
a similar thing, wouldn't it? It? Probably. I

397
00:14:33,750 --> 00:14:35,450
would ignore as a, you know, a great

398
00:14:35,910 --> 00:14:39,430
sort of promoter of scientific thought Right. Especially

399
00:14:39,430 --> 00:14:41,430
in the space. Yeah. He he,

400
00:14:42,870 --> 00:14:44,310
yeah, he's not well known in the in

401
00:14:44,310 --> 00:14:46,149
The USA, but I think in in England,

402
00:14:46,149 --> 00:14:47,910
people pretty well know him because at that

403
00:14:47,910 --> 00:14:48,410
time,

404
00:14:48,725 --> 00:14:50,165
there were only two black and white TV

405
00:14:50,165 --> 00:14:52,264
channels. We didn't even have a TV ourselves

406
00:14:52,485 --> 00:14:55,524
at home, and, he started his monthly program

407
00:14:55,524 --> 00:14:57,764
of Sky at Night. And the very first

408
00:14:57,764 --> 00:14:58,264
episode

409
00:14:58,884 --> 00:15:00,535
of that was in April

410
00:15:00,535 --> 00:15:01,384
1957.

411
00:15:01,524 --> 00:15:02,985
I remember the date because

412
00:15:03,759 --> 00:15:05,199
we didn't have a TV. I didn't know

413
00:15:05,199 --> 00:15:07,199
what was going on, but I found later

414
00:15:07,199 --> 00:15:08,740
that his episode was

415
00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:11,360
about a new comet, Aaron Roland, in the

416
00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:13,199
sky. And it was gonna be a bright

417
00:15:13,199 --> 00:15:14,879
naked eye comet, so I was excited to

418
00:15:14,879 --> 00:15:15,615
look for that,

419
00:15:16,654 --> 00:15:19,294
night after night. And, eventually, on the very

420
00:15:19,294 --> 00:15:20,674
same night as first,

421
00:15:21,695 --> 00:15:23,394
emission of the sky at night,

422
00:15:25,615 --> 00:15:26,115
the,

423
00:15:26,975 --> 00:15:28,735
I saw it. I was on a cycling

424
00:15:28,735 --> 00:15:30,274
trip away from home and

425
00:15:31,070 --> 00:15:32,990
been watching it every night. And I saw

426
00:15:32,990 --> 00:15:34,290
it, and it was so exciting.

427
00:15:34,910 --> 00:15:35,730
And I noticed,

428
00:15:36,029 --> 00:15:37,410
actually, that there was a

429
00:15:37,790 --> 00:15:39,549
a beard, a sort of anti tail pointing

430
00:15:39,549 --> 00:15:41,149
in the direction seems to be pointing in

431
00:15:41,149 --> 00:15:42,509
the direction of the sun. I thought that's

432
00:15:42,509 --> 00:15:44,595
odd. I I knew comet tails pointed away

433
00:15:44,595 --> 00:15:46,274
from the sun being blown by the solar

434
00:15:46,274 --> 00:15:46,774
wind.

435
00:15:48,035 --> 00:15:49,955
Anyway, I drew I drew this, and night

436
00:15:49,955 --> 00:15:52,215
after night the next night, it was gone.

437
00:15:52,514 --> 00:15:52,915
And,

438
00:15:53,715 --> 00:15:55,415
so I drew drew this and

439
00:15:55,759 --> 00:15:57,200
and wrote a little note about it to

440
00:15:57,200 --> 00:15:59,139
the Junior Astronomical Society magazine.

441
00:15:59,679 --> 00:16:00,179
And,

442
00:16:01,039 --> 00:16:01,779
they they

443
00:16:02,799 --> 00:16:04,019
they referred to this

444
00:16:04,799 --> 00:16:06,500
observation as an anti tail.

445
00:16:06,879 --> 00:16:08,080
I had no idea what it was at

446
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:08,740
the time.

447
00:16:10,245 --> 00:16:12,325
Later, I found out what it was, which

448
00:16:12,325 --> 00:16:15,845
was a dust trail left in the orbit

449
00:16:15,845 --> 00:16:16,904
of the comet

450
00:16:17,285 --> 00:16:19,845
and only visible on rare occasions when the

451
00:16:19,845 --> 00:16:22,184
Earth passed through the orbit of the comet.

452
00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:25,839
And it really is going away from the

453
00:16:25,839 --> 00:16:28,399
Sun, but by perspective and the right angles

454
00:16:28,399 --> 00:16:29,839
between the comet and the Earth and the

455
00:16:29,839 --> 00:16:30,339
Sun,

456
00:16:31,039 --> 00:16:32,559
it looked as if it was pointing towards

457
00:16:32,559 --> 00:16:34,019
the Sun. It wasn't really.

458
00:16:34,959 --> 00:16:35,600
But but,

459
00:16:36,455 --> 00:16:37,894
I found out later it had been seen

460
00:16:37,894 --> 00:16:40,075
only once before on a comet in

461
00:16:40,455 --> 00:16:41,355
eighteenth century.

462
00:16:41,975 --> 00:16:42,375
And,

463
00:16:43,174 --> 00:16:44,794
so it's a real thing. And,

464
00:16:45,335 --> 00:16:47,174
you know, it was exciting. I it was

465
00:16:47,174 --> 00:16:49,014
a discovery. I mean, of course, other people

466
00:16:49,014 --> 00:16:50,934
saw it, but not so many saw it.

467
00:16:50,934 --> 00:16:53,269
Yeah. And you and you you reported it.

468
00:16:53,269 --> 00:16:55,269
I reported it. You had the sense to

469
00:16:55,269 --> 00:16:57,429
report it. Yes. And I still have my

470
00:16:57,429 --> 00:16:59,210
notebook at the time with the whole series

471
00:16:59,509 --> 00:17:01,350
of of a comet drawings. I drew in

472
00:17:01,350 --> 00:17:02,950
white ink on black paper. So

473
00:17:03,829 --> 00:17:04,329
Oh,

474
00:17:04,710 --> 00:17:05,450
that's fantastic.

475
00:17:05,829 --> 00:17:08,285
Yeah. And there's another comet that year, naked

476
00:17:08,285 --> 00:17:11,825
eye comet, co comet Murakos. And, that was

477
00:17:11,965 --> 00:17:14,045
also exciting, but the first one was was

478
00:17:14,045 --> 00:17:16,285
really great. And I you I use that

479
00:17:16,285 --> 00:17:16,785
story

480
00:17:17,484 --> 00:17:19,565
of having seen something new in the sky

481
00:17:19,565 --> 00:17:22,119
as a 13 year old to encourage kids

482
00:17:22,119 --> 00:17:22,619
to

483
00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:24,759
to you could you could you even kids

484
00:17:24,759 --> 00:17:25,740
can make a discovery

485
00:17:26,039 --> 00:17:27,160
if they look at the sky or if

486
00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:29,980
they search for fossils and so on, or

487
00:17:30,599 --> 00:17:32,599
they they can actually if they know what

488
00:17:32,599 --> 00:17:34,859
to expect and see something they didn't expect,

489
00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:35,420
that

490
00:17:35,884 --> 00:17:37,825
is fun anyway, and it could even be

491
00:17:38,365 --> 00:17:40,205
a new dinosaur you found or something like

492
00:17:40,205 --> 00:17:41,505
that or,

493
00:17:44,205 --> 00:17:45,884
or other things happening in the sky. It's

494
00:17:45,884 --> 00:17:47,904
all things happening in the sky. And

495
00:17:48,445 --> 00:17:50,545
and even even a naked eye observation

496
00:17:51,730 --> 00:17:52,630
can can

497
00:17:53,009 --> 00:17:54,069
can become important.

498
00:17:54,929 --> 00:17:55,829
Certainly interesting.

499
00:17:56,210 --> 00:17:58,130
And I was lucky because we lived in

500
00:17:58,130 --> 00:18:00,289
Crawley, not so far from London, but,

501
00:18:01,009 --> 00:18:03,809
but the skies outside the house were dark.

502
00:18:03,809 --> 00:18:05,409
I could go outside at night to see

503
00:18:05,409 --> 00:18:07,414
the Milky Way. And Wow. Just a moment.

504
00:18:07,455 --> 00:18:09,015
And drop in the galaxy. Guess with my

505
00:18:09,015 --> 00:18:11,015
naked eye. Gosh. Yeah. 20 miles south. I'm

506
00:18:11,015 --> 00:18:13,035
guessing you can't do that today in Cromwell.

507
00:18:13,255 --> 00:18:15,115
Unfortunately, the sky is so polluted.

508
00:18:15,654 --> 00:18:18,154
It's sad because I think so many kids,

509
00:18:18,454 --> 00:18:20,394
for example, living in the city of Chicago,

510
00:18:20,899 --> 00:18:22,899
they've not really ever seen a night sky.

511
00:18:22,899 --> 00:18:23,559
You know?

512
00:18:24,579 --> 00:18:25,779
And I think it would be great if

513
00:18:25,779 --> 00:18:28,099
you have I there's a night skies a

514
00:18:28,099 --> 00:18:30,659
dark skies association that I I joined.

515
00:18:31,619 --> 00:18:33,940
But it would be nice if maybe for

516
00:18:33,940 --> 00:18:35,799
one evening a year, we

517
00:18:36,205 --> 00:18:38,365
shut stuff all put that put off all

518
00:18:38,365 --> 00:18:40,445
the switch off all the lights. Right? And

519
00:18:40,445 --> 00:18:41,984
and so the kids in the cities

520
00:18:42,684 --> 00:18:45,005
can maybe see the night sky, but even

521
00:18:45,005 --> 00:18:47,585
then, the sky is the air is polluted.

522
00:18:48,205 --> 00:18:50,065
But taking kids out of the city

523
00:18:50,519 --> 00:18:52,200
in, like, a summer camp to some place

524
00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:54,519
where you can see the sky is, inspiring

525
00:18:54,519 --> 00:18:55,259
for them,

526
00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:57,099
and that would be good.

527
00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:00,200
And sort of moving fur further into your

528
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:00,700
book,

529
00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:03,420
there there's quite a bit about particle physics.

530
00:19:04,105 --> 00:19:06,345
You you're a particle physicist and,

531
00:19:07,144 --> 00:19:09,625
you, I suppose had the great privilege of

532
00:19:09,625 --> 00:19:10,284
being involved

533
00:19:11,304 --> 00:19:13,404
in the discovery of both the top quark

534
00:19:13,544 --> 00:19:15,244
and the Higgs boson.

535
00:19:15,820 --> 00:19:18,059
But what's next for you? I mean, if

536
00:19:18,059 --> 00:19:18,720
you could,

537
00:19:19,500 --> 00:19:20,960
if you could, will,

538
00:19:21,420 --> 00:19:21,920
another

539
00:19:22,539 --> 00:19:24,700
breakthrough in particle physics, what would it be?

540
00:19:24,700 --> 00:19:26,619
Is there a a particle that you would

541
00:19:26,619 --> 00:19:28,380
like to see discovered? Or,

542
00:19:29,019 --> 00:19:29,519
Yes.

543
00:19:29,934 --> 00:19:32,115
Right. I'm still I'm still I'm still doing

544
00:19:32,575 --> 00:19:34,035
working on it even though

545
00:19:34,575 --> 00:19:35,394
I I

546
00:19:35,695 --> 00:19:36,195
so

547
00:19:38,654 --> 00:19:41,474
the real interest is related to dark matter

548
00:19:41,535 --> 00:19:42,035
because

549
00:19:42,730 --> 00:19:45,049
cosmologists, astronomers tell us there's more mass out

550
00:19:45,049 --> 00:19:46,490
there in the universe that we don't know

551
00:19:46,490 --> 00:19:48,029
what it's made of. It's not atoms.

552
00:19:48,970 --> 00:19:51,130
It could be lumped coal or rocks or

553
00:19:51,130 --> 00:19:52,109
whatever, but,

554
00:19:52,890 --> 00:19:54,809
normally, we expect it's made of particles we

555
00:19:54,809 --> 00:19:55,869
haven't yet discovered.

556
00:19:57,944 --> 00:19:58,845
Either because

557
00:19:59,464 --> 00:20:01,404
they're they're they're too massive for the LHC

558
00:20:01,544 --> 00:20:03,964
or they're too weakly interacting with normal particles.

559
00:20:04,744 --> 00:20:07,164
And theorists scream up all sorts of possibilities,

560
00:20:08,105 --> 00:20:08,605
and

561
00:20:09,464 --> 00:20:11,404
it could be that these dark matter particles

562
00:20:11,464 --> 00:20:13,679
don't interact at all with normal matter particles

563
00:20:13,679 --> 00:20:14,659
except through gravity,

564
00:20:15,039 --> 00:20:16,799
which would make it very hard to actually

565
00:20:16,799 --> 00:20:17,539
find them,

566
00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:19,460
unless

567
00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:23,440
they're big solid lumps or something or micro

568
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:25,214
black holes or something like that. But

569
00:20:27,134 --> 00:20:30,194
but they think there may be particles that

570
00:20:30,734 --> 00:20:31,634
called portals,

571
00:20:32,255 --> 00:20:34,674
windows to the dark side, if you like.

572
00:20:35,294 --> 00:20:37,134
So dark matter particles, which have to be

573
00:20:37,134 --> 00:20:38,674
stable because they're still around,

574
00:20:40,329 --> 00:20:42,349
but these particles could couple

575
00:20:42,730 --> 00:20:43,230
weekly

576
00:20:43,769 --> 00:20:45,950
to normal matter particles like protons

577
00:20:46,569 --> 00:20:48,029
and dark matter particles.

578
00:20:48,409 --> 00:20:50,329
So they could be produced in the Large

579
00:20:50,329 --> 00:20:51,230
Hadron Collider,

580
00:20:52,285 --> 00:20:54,065
and then decay back to,

581
00:20:55,244 --> 00:20:57,664
normal matter particles if they have,

582
00:20:57,965 --> 00:20:59,565
you know, if they have the right couplings

583
00:20:59,565 --> 00:21:01,184
and strength and so on. So

584
00:21:01,644 --> 00:21:03,805
people are looking very actively for these so

585
00:21:03,805 --> 00:21:06,305
called portals. There are many examples serious

586
00:21:07,100 --> 00:21:07,600
propose,

587
00:21:07,980 --> 00:21:09,359
including a dark photon,

588
00:21:09,660 --> 00:21:11,180
which has the same quantum numbers as a

589
00:21:11,180 --> 00:21:13,340
photon, but it's got a mass. And,

590
00:21:14,220 --> 00:21:15,039
it would decay

591
00:21:15,580 --> 00:21:18,539
back to electron positrons or muon pairs or

592
00:21:18,539 --> 00:21:20,240
whatever depending on its mass.

593
00:21:21,224 --> 00:21:24,605
But the most exciting one possibility, I think,

594
00:21:24,825 --> 00:21:27,005
is that there's another Higgs but another Higgs

595
00:21:27,065 --> 00:21:27,804
type boson,

596
00:21:28,265 --> 00:21:30,105
which could be quite light actually. It could

597
00:21:30,105 --> 00:21:30,605
be

598
00:21:30,984 --> 00:21:32,684
ten, twelve, 15 GeV.

599
00:21:33,544 --> 00:21:34,589
And the Higgs

600
00:21:35,069 --> 00:21:37,650
we found at massive one twenty five GeV,

601
00:21:38,990 --> 00:21:40,609
could decay to two of these.

602
00:21:40,990 --> 00:21:41,490
So

603
00:21:42,029 --> 00:21:42,529
the

604
00:21:42,909 --> 00:21:44,669
the Higgs we know and love to two

605
00:21:44,669 --> 00:21:45,869
of these new Higgs is

606
00:21:46,750 --> 00:21:48,609
and they could be.

607
00:21:49,365 --> 00:21:49,865
So

608
00:21:50,484 --> 00:21:52,585
they could come this this Higgs

609
00:21:53,125 --> 00:21:55,785
the these light Higgs's or scalars,

610
00:21:57,125 --> 00:21:59,845
could would then decay back to normal particles,

611
00:21:59,845 --> 00:22:01,670
but maybe they travel

612
00:22:01,970 --> 00:22:02,470
typically

613
00:22:02,930 --> 00:22:05,009
a 100 meters, and a place to look

614
00:22:05,009 --> 00:22:07,269
for them might be down the beamline direction.

615
00:22:07,809 --> 00:22:10,369
All the other searches are looking sideways where

616
00:22:10,369 --> 00:22:11,750
the big detectors are,

617
00:22:12,450 --> 00:22:13,430
focusing on.

618
00:22:14,130 --> 00:22:14,450
But,

619
00:22:15,730 --> 00:22:16,230
so

620
00:22:16,595 --> 00:22:18,134
it turns out there's a place

621
00:22:18,434 --> 00:22:20,214
along the NHC beam lines

622
00:22:20,994 --> 00:22:23,974
after they've gone through steering magnets and focusing

623
00:22:24,035 --> 00:22:24,535
magnets,

624
00:22:25,795 --> 00:22:27,575
and there's a space of, like,

625
00:22:28,434 --> 00:22:30,515
20 meters where there are no magnets. There's

626
00:22:30,515 --> 00:22:32,275
a straight pipe with the two beams going

627
00:22:32,275 --> 00:22:34,269
in in and out through this pipe

628
00:22:35,130 --> 00:22:37,130
before it goes back into the,

629
00:22:37,929 --> 00:22:39,309
the main superconducting

630
00:22:40,089 --> 00:22:42,509
elements of the ring. So that space

631
00:22:43,210 --> 00:22:45,784
could one could put detectors in there to

632
00:22:45,784 --> 00:22:47,625
look for something that's being produced in the

633
00:22:47,625 --> 00:22:48,684
main collision region.

634
00:22:49,544 --> 00:22:52,444
It it's weakly interacting, so it penetrate

635
00:22:52,904 --> 00:22:54,904
up to 50 meters of iron in the

636
00:22:54,904 --> 00:22:55,404
magnets,

637
00:22:56,025 --> 00:22:57,464
and then come out the back of these

638
00:22:57,464 --> 00:23:00,569
magnets and decay back to standard model particles

639
00:23:00,569 --> 00:23:01,869
where we could detect them

640
00:23:02,250 --> 00:23:05,369
using the same detectors being built for the

641
00:23:05,369 --> 00:23:05,849
upgrade,

642
00:23:06,329 --> 00:23:08,890
high precision detectors, calorimetry, and tracking, and so

643
00:23:08,890 --> 00:23:09,390
on.

644
00:23:09,690 --> 00:23:11,130
So the idea is to put the set

645
00:23:11,130 --> 00:23:13,365
of detectors at the back there and look

646
00:23:13,365 --> 00:23:14,345
for these particles

647
00:23:14,724 --> 00:23:16,265
if they come into k. Now

648
00:23:16,644 --> 00:23:18,964
the golden channels would be this if this

649
00:23:18,964 --> 00:23:20,424
is another scalar

650
00:23:20,964 --> 00:23:22,505
that's produced from the

651
00:23:23,045 --> 00:23:25,045
main Higgs that we know and love down

652
00:23:25,045 --> 00:23:27,589
to two of these with a branching fraction

653
00:23:27,589 --> 00:23:29,929
of one or 2%, which is still conceivable,

654
00:23:30,630 --> 00:23:31,690
not ruled out,

655
00:23:32,230 --> 00:23:33,669
then one of them could come in our

656
00:23:33,669 --> 00:23:34,169
direction

657
00:23:34,710 --> 00:23:36,490
and then decay back to,

658
00:23:37,669 --> 00:23:39,609
the heaviest particles it can.

659
00:23:39,994 --> 00:23:41,615
So if its mass is, like,

660
00:23:42,315 --> 00:23:44,575
12 TeV, it can go to,

661
00:23:45,434 --> 00:23:47,914
tau plus, tau minus. They're heavy versions of

662
00:23:47,914 --> 00:23:49,215
the electron in the neuron,

663
00:23:50,475 --> 00:23:52,715
or to charm anti charm pair or to

664
00:23:52,715 --> 00:23:53,809
beauty beauty

665
00:23:54,190 --> 00:23:56,210
anti beauty or b anti b quark.

666
00:23:56,590 --> 00:23:57,870
And this would be a signature,

667
00:23:59,390 --> 00:24:00,210
that is,

668
00:24:01,630 --> 00:24:04,450
sort of unique. So maybe if you can

669
00:24:04,509 --> 00:24:05,490
kill the backgrounds,

670
00:24:06,269 --> 00:24:07,250
you could discover

671
00:24:07,644 --> 00:24:08,464
such a particle

672
00:24:09,164 --> 00:24:11,664
with only half a dozen events if

673
00:24:12,845 --> 00:24:14,684
if, the mass and the lifetime and so

674
00:24:14,684 --> 00:24:16,785
on are in the right range. So that's

675
00:24:17,164 --> 00:24:19,164
it's looking under a lamppost. Other people haven't

676
00:24:19,164 --> 00:24:21,164
looked under, you know, for these particles. That

677
00:24:21,164 --> 00:24:23,460
would be very exciting because that's a new

678
00:24:23,940 --> 00:24:26,179
form of particle. It could be dark they

679
00:24:26,179 --> 00:24:28,819
call people call it dark photon or axion

680
00:24:28,819 --> 00:24:31,079
like particle or dark eggs and so on

681
00:24:31,220 --> 00:24:33,159
or heavy neutral lepton. These are

682
00:24:33,539 --> 00:24:36,019
all particles that theorists dream up, and,

683
00:24:36,899 --> 00:24:39,244
it's exciting to look for them. So so

684
00:24:39,464 --> 00:24:41,565
after my retirement, I've been

685
00:24:42,184 --> 00:24:44,125
working on this, but

686
00:24:44,984 --> 00:24:48,184
as I'm not employed anymore, I can't leave

687
00:24:48,184 --> 00:24:50,265
this, you know, but, I've been working with

688
00:24:50,265 --> 00:24:52,809
it, and I'm hoping we now have a

689
00:24:52,809 --> 00:24:53,470
a group,

690
00:24:54,569 --> 00:24:55,069
who

691
00:24:56,169 --> 00:24:58,569
we we put together a paper recently about

692
00:24:58,569 --> 00:25:00,909
how this, could have sensitivity,

693
00:25:02,169 --> 00:25:02,829
that is,

694
00:25:03,609 --> 00:25:05,869
better than other experiments in this particular

695
00:25:06,845 --> 00:25:07,345
domain.

696
00:25:08,285 --> 00:25:08,525
And,

697
00:25:09,724 --> 00:25:11,565
we're at the stage of we've talked to

698
00:25:11,565 --> 00:25:14,525
the CMS leadership about it. They're interested. We're

699
00:25:14,525 --> 00:25:15,664
talking to the LHC

700
00:25:16,045 --> 00:25:18,845
machine people about it. And I hope that

701
00:25:18,845 --> 00:25:20,384
this year, we can put together

702
00:25:20,769 --> 00:25:21,509
a proposal

703
00:25:21,970 --> 00:25:22,289
to,

704
00:25:22,929 --> 00:25:25,029
first to CMS to see if they would

705
00:25:25,250 --> 00:25:26,309
add this to their

706
00:25:26,849 --> 00:25:27,349
busy

707
00:25:27,650 --> 00:25:29,109
schedule of things to do.

708
00:25:29,569 --> 00:25:30,210
And then,

709
00:25:30,849 --> 00:25:31,990
and and then

710
00:25:32,289 --> 00:25:32,984
it's it's

711
00:25:33,464 --> 00:25:36,424
it's not hugely expensive as these things go

712
00:25:36,424 --> 00:25:36,924
because

713
00:25:37,224 --> 00:25:39,964
it uses it would use about 2%

714
00:25:40,105 --> 00:25:42,984
of the new detectors being built for the

715
00:25:42,984 --> 00:25:43,484
upgrade.

716
00:25:44,105 --> 00:25:45,865
So it's all we say almost in the

717
00:25:45,865 --> 00:25:47,384
spares, you know, but they say, well, you

718
00:25:47,384 --> 00:25:50,089
can't touch our spares right now. Anyway, we'll

719
00:25:50,089 --> 00:25:53,210
see. I mean, that's still exciting project for

720
00:25:53,210 --> 00:25:53,950
me, but,

721
00:25:54,970 --> 00:25:57,390
don't hold your breath because it would be

722
00:25:57,529 --> 00:25:58,109
at least

723
00:25:58,970 --> 00:26:00,809
five, six years before it could get in

724
00:26:00,809 --> 00:26:03,164
there, then maybe it's ten years before you

725
00:26:03,404 --> 00:26:05,484
have a discovery. But I I don't just

726
00:26:05,484 --> 00:26:07,164
call it a search for, I call it

727
00:26:07,164 --> 00:26:08,225
discovery hog.

728
00:26:09,644 --> 00:26:12,365
And, Michael, that's the LHC, which, you know,

729
00:26:12,365 --> 00:26:14,765
still has a few good years left in

730
00:26:14,765 --> 00:26:18,549
it. Do you have any thoughts about what

731
00:26:19,009 --> 00:26:22,230
should come after the LHC? Should there be,

732
00:26:23,089 --> 00:26:23,589
another,

733
00:26:24,289 --> 00:26:26,309
possibly bigger, more energetic

734
00:26:27,089 --> 00:26:28,634
particle collider built?

735
00:26:29,755 --> 00:26:31,355
And if so, do do you have a

736
00:26:31,355 --> 00:26:33,295
favorite candidate? Are you looking at

737
00:26:33,755 --> 00:26:35,835
a a bigger version of the LHC or

738
00:26:35,835 --> 00:26:38,875
a linear collider? What, what would you like

739
00:26:38,875 --> 00:26:40,494
to see built after the LHC?

740
00:26:40,795 --> 00:26:41,279
Well,

741
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,240
because CERN CERN wants to have a long

742
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,200
term future. It it it so it's it's

743
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,099
developing the idea of a future CERN collider,

744
00:26:50,559 --> 00:26:52,480
which would have about seven times the energy

745
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:54,180
of the LHC. It's a huge machine,

746
00:26:54,799 --> 00:26:57,315
but nearly a 100 kilometers in circumference.

747
00:26:59,234 --> 00:26:59,734
And

748
00:27:00,275 --> 00:27:00,934
the present

749
00:27:01,394 --> 00:27:03,555
idea, I think, is you start with electron

750
00:27:03,555 --> 00:27:05,875
positron collisions in that in that in that

751
00:27:05,875 --> 00:27:06,375
tunnel,

752
00:27:07,394 --> 00:27:08,375
much low energy.

753
00:27:09,289 --> 00:27:09,950
And then

754
00:27:10,329 --> 00:27:12,990
after some period of doing that, you put

755
00:27:13,369 --> 00:27:16,109
superconducting magnets in and do proton proton collisions.

756
00:27:16,490 --> 00:27:18,009
And when you have proton beams, you can

757
00:27:18,009 --> 00:27:20,730
also put heavy ion beams like, lead nuclei

758
00:27:20,730 --> 00:27:21,549
and so on.

759
00:27:23,024 --> 00:27:24,325
But I I'm not

760
00:27:24,704 --> 00:27:27,664
an expert about all the practical issues, but

761
00:27:27,664 --> 00:27:28,244
I think

762
00:27:28,784 --> 00:27:29,524
why not,

763
00:27:30,065 --> 00:27:32,784
build the tunnel such that you can have

764
00:27:32,784 --> 00:27:34,704
at the same time an electron ring in

765
00:27:34,704 --> 00:27:36,865
there and a proton ring in there. And

766
00:27:36,865 --> 00:27:39,640
then you have the possibility, not only electron

767
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:40,140
positron,

768
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,539
but with the same but also proton proton,

769
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:45,500
proton nucleus,

770
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,360
electron nucleus, and so on. And,

771
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:51,194
you know, you don't do them

772
00:27:51,674 --> 00:27:53,434
at the same time, but you have the

773
00:27:53,434 --> 00:27:55,375
machine in there. You don't have to wait

774
00:27:55,835 --> 00:27:58,315
wait six or eight years before you replace

775
00:27:58,315 --> 00:28:00,394
the electron positron machine with a proton proton

776
00:28:00,394 --> 00:28:03,134
machine. I call this omnitron. It's for everybody.

777
00:28:03,755 --> 00:28:05,359
So it has all these possibilities.

778
00:28:06,140 --> 00:28:09,500
And that would be I I I I

779
00:28:09,500 --> 00:28:11,820
don't know about the technical difficulties of that

780
00:28:11,820 --> 00:28:13,980
or how much it would cost upfront to

781
00:28:13,980 --> 00:28:14,880
make the tunnel

782
00:28:15,180 --> 00:28:17,339
the right shape and size for this, but,

783
00:28:18,059 --> 00:28:19,904
but that would be a good machine. Other

784
00:28:19,904 --> 00:28:21,125
other and

785
00:28:22,705 --> 00:28:23,765
but I'm skeptical

786
00:28:24,225 --> 00:28:25,365
about, for example,

787
00:28:25,904 --> 00:28:28,404
well, maybe maybe supersymmetric

788
00:28:28,705 --> 00:28:30,865
particles, which we we we think would be

789
00:28:30,865 --> 00:28:32,884
wonderful to find a whole new particles,

790
00:28:34,019 --> 00:28:35,880
a beautiful sim new symmetry.

791
00:28:37,460 --> 00:28:40,180
But there's no reason why a factor of

792
00:28:40,180 --> 00:28:41,160
seven in energy

793
00:28:41,779 --> 00:28:43,380
would get you there. Then maybe you need

794
00:28:43,380 --> 00:28:45,140
a 100 in energy. I don't, you know,

795
00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:47,384
I don't know. Yeah. It's the the unknown

796
00:28:47,525 --> 00:28:49,605
unknown, isn't it? Right. It's very difficult to

797
00:28:49,605 --> 00:28:51,605
plan for that sort of thing. So we

798
00:28:51,605 --> 00:28:54,085
haven't supersymmetry is a nice idea, but we

799
00:28:54,085 --> 00:28:56,664
haven't found any supersymmetric particles. And

800
00:28:57,045 --> 00:28:58,904
and for example, the electron

801
00:29:01,559 --> 00:29:03,640
should have a partner called the SUSY electron

802
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:04,380
or Selectron,

803
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:06,840
but we haven't seen it up to a

804
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:07,980
TV and energy,

805
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,920
which is like a a million times heavier

806
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:12,974
than the electron. So if it's a symmetry,

807
00:29:12,974 --> 00:29:14,755
it's a very badly broken symmetry.

808
00:29:16,335 --> 00:29:17,174
And it

809
00:29:17,615 --> 00:29:19,234
so it could be that you'd need

810
00:29:19,535 --> 00:29:21,954
a a much higher energy collider, which is

811
00:29:22,174 --> 00:29:23,855
to to find them, or you find them

812
00:29:23,855 --> 00:29:25,154
a different a different way.

813
00:29:26,549 --> 00:29:27,289
And then

814
00:29:27,750 --> 00:29:30,070
other possibilities called a muon collider is on

815
00:29:30,070 --> 00:29:32,230
people's radar, and people are working about at

816
00:29:32,230 --> 00:29:34,890
Fermilab as well, developing the idea

817
00:29:35,670 --> 00:29:37,509
of having on the Fermilab site, you could

818
00:29:37,509 --> 00:29:38,650
have a muon collider.

819
00:29:40,214 --> 00:29:43,095
And, technically, it's a huge challenge because the

820
00:29:43,095 --> 00:29:45,174
muons, you have to produce pions, and muons

821
00:29:45,174 --> 00:29:46,794
decay. You have to capture them,

822
00:29:47,255 --> 00:29:50,294
make beams of them, and then accelerate them

823
00:29:50,294 --> 00:29:51,035
very quickly.

824
00:29:52,615 --> 00:29:54,340
Of course, they're decaying all the time. But

825
00:29:54,340 --> 00:29:56,019
the faster they go, the longer their lifetime

826
00:29:56,019 --> 00:29:56,840
is. So

827
00:29:57,940 --> 00:29:58,680
and then

828
00:29:58,980 --> 00:29:59,940
and then you could,

829
00:30:00,580 --> 00:30:01,080
study,

830
00:30:02,180 --> 00:30:04,420
things like the Higgs boson and height with

831
00:30:04,420 --> 00:30:06,600
high precision in different ways and so on.

832
00:30:06,740 --> 00:30:07,720
So that would be

833
00:30:08,295 --> 00:30:10,455
that would be an interesting future, but it

834
00:30:10,455 --> 00:30:12,855
doesn't really replace the large hydrogen chloride. It

835
00:30:12,855 --> 00:30:13,355
does

836
00:30:13,735 --> 00:30:14,715
specialized thing.

837
00:30:16,695 --> 00:30:16,934
And,

838
00:30:17,575 --> 00:30:19,674
of course, Fermi now is much into neutrino

839
00:30:19,815 --> 00:30:21,835
physics, which is a big, very interesting

840
00:30:22,740 --> 00:30:25,240
channel hand channel. We don't understand the neutrinos

841
00:30:25,380 --> 00:30:27,799
and how the three flavors and three masses.

842
00:30:29,619 --> 00:30:32,039
But a breakthrough could come in

843
00:30:32,500 --> 00:30:33,000
developing

844
00:30:34,099 --> 00:30:36,974
either very rapid acceleration techniques with so called

845
00:30:36,974 --> 00:30:37,634
wake field accelerators

846
00:30:39,934 --> 00:30:42,015
to get very high energy in a short

847
00:30:42,015 --> 00:30:42,515
distance

848
00:30:42,974 --> 00:30:43,474
or,

849
00:30:44,255 --> 00:30:44,755
in

850
00:30:45,134 --> 00:30:47,795
superconducting magnet developments. So there's no

851
00:30:48,335 --> 00:30:50,299
there's no thing like speed of light limit

852
00:30:50,299 --> 00:30:51,920
as far as I know that prevents

853
00:30:52,299 --> 00:30:54,559
you having magnets with 10 times the field

854
00:30:54,700 --> 00:30:56,619
if you can develop them. And then you

855
00:30:56,619 --> 00:30:58,320
could, you know, you could

856
00:30:58,700 --> 00:31:00,960
build high energy machines without

857
00:31:01,265 --> 00:31:02,565
going to huge sizes.

858
00:31:03,105 --> 00:31:05,265
So these these are I'm not competent to

859
00:31:05,265 --> 00:31:07,745
judge the practicalities of these things, but there

860
00:31:07,745 --> 00:31:09,505
are there there's a future. And then, of

861
00:31:09,505 --> 00:31:10,005
course,

862
00:31:10,465 --> 00:31:12,465
we have the year of the the laboratory

863
00:31:12,465 --> 00:31:14,644
in the sky of cosmic rays,

864
00:31:15,579 --> 00:31:17,740
which should deserve, of course, I mean, being

865
00:31:17,740 --> 00:31:20,000
studied in many ways, of course, but

866
00:31:20,460 --> 00:31:21,599
but there could be

867
00:31:22,139 --> 00:31:24,059
that they take us to collision energies that

868
00:31:24,059 --> 00:31:26,059
are thousands of times higher than the Large

869
00:31:26,059 --> 00:31:26,880
Hadron Collider.

870
00:31:27,339 --> 00:31:27,839
And

871
00:31:28,875 --> 00:31:31,355
one simulates the collisions of these particles in

872
00:31:31,355 --> 00:31:32,015
the atmosphere.

873
00:31:33,835 --> 00:31:34,335
And

874
00:31:35,275 --> 00:31:37,674
there have been sometimes abnormalities like more muons

875
00:31:37,674 --> 00:31:39,515
than you expect and so on. So this

876
00:31:39,515 --> 00:31:41,840
really followed up because maybe they are pointing

877
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:43,839
to something new happening at a higher much

878
00:31:43,839 --> 00:31:45,299
higher energies than the LHC.

879
00:31:45,839 --> 00:31:46,900
I was part of

880
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:48,420
this project,

881
00:31:49,039 --> 00:31:51,220
which is ultra high energy cosmic rays.

882
00:31:51,599 --> 00:31:52,740
At the beginning, developing

883
00:31:53,599 --> 00:31:54,099
this,

884
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:56,740
Jim Cronin,

885
00:31:57,115 --> 00:31:59,755
who got Nobel Prize for CP violation, but

886
00:31:59,755 --> 00:32:01,994
he he then said, look. Well, we should

887
00:32:01,994 --> 00:32:04,234
really understand the highest energy cosmic rays, where

888
00:32:04,234 --> 00:32:05,134
they're coming from.

889
00:32:06,315 --> 00:32:08,015
There's the top energy

890
00:32:08,954 --> 00:32:10,974
the top end of the energy spectrum

891
00:32:11,470 --> 00:32:12,210
is a cutoff

892
00:32:12,990 --> 00:32:13,490
because,

893
00:32:13,870 --> 00:32:15,090
for example, protons

894
00:32:15,710 --> 00:32:16,610
above the energy

895
00:32:17,309 --> 00:32:19,570
would hit photons in the microwave background,

896
00:32:20,110 --> 00:32:21,789
and they'd be blue shifted to high enough

897
00:32:21,789 --> 00:32:24,190
energies that you can create pi mesons in

898
00:32:24,190 --> 00:32:26,130
the proton plus microwave background,

899
00:32:26,750 --> 00:32:27,250
events.

900
00:32:27,684 --> 00:32:29,605
And that's a cutoff. It makes the universe

901
00:32:29,605 --> 00:32:30,984
transparent on a scale

902
00:32:31,285 --> 00:32:32,345
of galaxy scale.

903
00:32:33,365 --> 00:32:33,865
So

904
00:32:34,404 --> 00:32:35,224
seeing them,

905
00:32:36,565 --> 00:32:39,384
above that's cutoff would mean they're very local.

906
00:32:40,565 --> 00:32:41,065
So

907
00:32:41,765 --> 00:32:42,420
they built,

908
00:32:43,539 --> 00:32:46,920
this Auger Observatory cosmic ray observatory in Argentina,

909
00:32:47,539 --> 00:32:48,039
finding

910
00:32:48,500 --> 00:32:50,820
the place where the darkest very dark sky

911
00:32:50,820 --> 00:32:52,920
is away from city lights but still accessible.

912
00:32:53,539 --> 00:32:55,640
And I was down there at the beginning.

913
00:32:57,285 --> 00:32:58,664
We'd chosen the site,

914
00:32:58,965 --> 00:33:01,705
and they built 1,300 water tanks.

915
00:33:05,684 --> 00:33:06,164
About,

916
00:33:06,725 --> 00:33:08,265
1,300 water tanks

917
00:33:08,565 --> 00:33:09,705
spaced by kilometer,

918
00:33:10,009 --> 00:33:11,930
so covering an area about three times the

919
00:33:11,930 --> 00:33:13,390
area of the city of Chicago.

920
00:33:14,170 --> 00:33:17,210
And sometimes with these very handy cosmic rays,

921
00:33:17,210 --> 00:33:19,210
they make showers in the atmosphere that spread

922
00:33:19,210 --> 00:33:21,230
over many square kilometers of the ground,

923
00:33:21,930 --> 00:33:24,410
and the particles come into a dozen or

924
00:33:24,410 --> 00:33:25,549
so of water tanks

925
00:33:26,454 --> 00:33:28,615
and make make light in the tanks by

926
00:33:28,615 --> 00:33:29,674
Cherenkov light.

927
00:33:30,134 --> 00:33:31,115
And by timing

928
00:33:31,654 --> 00:33:33,894
precision timing, you can tell where the cosmic

929
00:33:33,894 --> 00:33:34,794
ray came from,

930
00:33:35,575 --> 00:33:37,654
to within about better than half a degree,

931
00:33:37,654 --> 00:33:38,954
the size of the full moon.

932
00:33:39,599 --> 00:33:41,140
And they have now,

933
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:44,180
started to see sources like,

934
00:33:44,759 --> 00:33:45,619
a galaxy

935
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,119
or galaxies that seem to be emitting these

936
00:33:49,119 --> 00:33:50,019
cosmic rays.

937
00:33:51,119 --> 00:33:53,759
The highest energy ones, you need them to

938
00:33:53,759 --> 00:33:55,059
do astronomy because

939
00:33:55,575 --> 00:33:58,054
most of them get bent by galactic magnetic

940
00:33:58,054 --> 00:33:59,654
fields, and they don't point back to the

941
00:33:59,654 --> 00:34:01,015
source. But when you get to the really

942
00:34:01,015 --> 00:34:03,015
high energy ones, they tend to point back

943
00:34:03,015 --> 00:34:04,534
to the source, and they've started to see

944
00:34:04,534 --> 00:34:06,534
them. So that's a new era of cosmic

945
00:34:06,534 --> 00:34:07,275
ray astronomy.

946
00:34:10,179 --> 00:34:10,679
Then,

947
00:34:12,019 --> 00:34:13,320
other non electromagnetic

948
00:34:13,699 --> 00:34:16,519
astronomy is now with we've got neutrino astronomy

949
00:34:17,219 --> 00:34:19,780
with IceCube project, which is amazing, a cubic

950
00:34:19,780 --> 00:34:21,889
kilometer of ice and Antarctica

951
00:34:22,905 --> 00:34:23,405
instrumented.

952
00:34:25,224 --> 00:34:27,405
That that's brilliant. The way they

953
00:34:27,864 --> 00:34:29,324
vary thousands of protomultipliers

954
00:34:29,625 --> 00:34:31,945
deep in the ice with hot water melting

955
00:34:31,945 --> 00:34:32,445
columns.

956
00:34:32,824 --> 00:34:35,065
And then there's gravitational wave astronomy. So these

957
00:34:35,065 --> 00:34:37,244
new astronomers coming in, we we now detect

958
00:34:37,304 --> 00:34:39,809
so many black hole and neutron star mergers

959
00:34:39,809 --> 00:34:40,710
and so on.

960
00:34:41,170 --> 00:34:42,929
So these are new windows on the sky

961
00:34:42,929 --> 00:34:44,309
that I think is an exciting

962
00:34:44,769 --> 00:34:45,989
future for that.

963
00:34:46,449 --> 00:34:47,109
But that's

964
00:34:47,889 --> 00:34:49,429
okay. It's related to

965
00:34:50,304 --> 00:34:53,344
particle physics, of course, specular neutrinos are, not

966
00:34:53,344 --> 00:34:56,224
so much gravitational waves, but, neutrinos and cosmic

967
00:34:56,224 --> 00:34:57,125
rays are.

968
00:34:58,784 --> 00:34:59,765
So, Michael,

969
00:35:00,144 --> 00:35:02,405
I mean, beyond your your work in physics,

970
00:35:02,940 --> 00:35:06,000
you have a long standing interest in art,

971
00:35:06,219 --> 00:35:07,920
visual art, and music.

972
00:35:08,460 --> 00:35:12,480
And you're currently collaborating with, the Indian American

973
00:35:12,539 --> 00:35:13,519
visual artist,

974
00:35:14,630 --> 00:35:15,844
Shanti Chandrasekhar.

975
00:35:16,465 --> 00:35:18,885
Can you talk a bit about that project?

976
00:35:19,344 --> 00:35:19,844
Yes.

977
00:35:20,385 --> 00:35:20,885
So

978
00:35:21,184 --> 00:35:23,364
the Fermilab, we had an art exhibition,

979
00:35:24,144 --> 00:35:26,244
rotating art exhibition, and Shanti Chandrasekhar

980
00:35:26,545 --> 00:35:29,219
came and had an exhibition of her abstract

981
00:35:29,519 --> 00:35:30,980
art as beautifully done,

982
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:34,480
but inspired by science. She came from a

983
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:35,780
science family in India,

984
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,640
and she had pieces about black hole and

985
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,780
big bang and space and time and energy.

986
00:35:42,079 --> 00:35:44,000
And she gave a colloquium about it, and

987
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:44,295
I was

988
00:35:45,014 --> 00:35:47,174
I thought this is wonderful. And I was

989
00:35:47,174 --> 00:35:48,614
able to take her and her husband to

990
00:35:48,614 --> 00:35:49,835
dinner and said,

991
00:35:50,214 --> 00:35:51,655
you know, I really think you should have

992
00:35:51,655 --> 00:35:53,815
a a coffee table book of your art.

993
00:35:53,815 --> 00:35:55,655
And if you want if you ever do

994
00:35:55,655 --> 00:35:57,239
that, and she hadn't done it,

995
00:35:57,960 --> 00:35:59,320
maybe I could write a bit about the

996
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:00,780
science behind your inspiration.

997
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,440
So she has a beautiful piece inspired by

998
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:04,940
time,

999
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:05,980
and

1000
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:07,099
I wrote,

1001
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:09,255
not to go with it. And

1002
00:36:10,375 --> 00:36:12,214
a few years later, she called me, and

1003
00:36:12,214 --> 00:36:13,734
she said she'd been invited to do an

1004
00:36:13,734 --> 00:36:15,494
exhibition at the,

1005
00:36:16,054 --> 00:36:19,434
American University in DC at the Katzin Gallery,

1006
00:36:20,454 --> 00:36:22,375
and would I like to collaborate with her

1007
00:36:22,375 --> 00:36:25,539
and write science behind her pieces? You know?

1008
00:36:25,539 --> 00:36:25,859
Her

1009
00:36:26,500 --> 00:36:26,820
I didn't

1010
00:36:27,619 --> 00:36:28,119
so

1011
00:36:29,219 --> 00:36:32,179
that was great fun, and we had an

1012
00:36:32,179 --> 00:36:34,760
exhibition with 24 pieces of her art, and

1013
00:36:35,300 --> 00:36:37,859
each one had my science writing beside it.

1014
00:36:37,859 --> 00:36:38,355
And

1015
00:36:38,835 --> 00:36:39,335
and

1016
00:36:40,355 --> 00:36:42,195
that we published a catalog or a book

1017
00:36:42,195 --> 00:36:43,715
of those pieces. It wasn't a coffee table

1018
00:36:43,715 --> 00:36:44,434
book, but,

1019
00:36:45,234 --> 00:36:45,734
and

1020
00:36:46,114 --> 00:36:47,255
it went

1021
00:36:47,554 --> 00:36:50,034
quite well because the gallery said we'll print

1022
00:36:50,034 --> 00:36:51,875
50 copies of this catalog, but they went

1023
00:36:51,875 --> 00:36:53,715
quickly. And so they print another 100, and

1024
00:36:53,715 --> 00:36:55,139
they're it's out of print now.

1025
00:36:55,940 --> 00:36:57,880
But, that was fun. So

1026
00:36:58,179 --> 00:36:58,679
then,

1027
00:37:00,099 --> 00:37:03,559
we followed up with three further smaller exhibitions,

1028
00:37:04,739 --> 00:37:06,659
some using the same pieces and others new

1029
00:37:06,659 --> 00:37:07,159
pieces.

1030
00:37:08,534 --> 00:37:11,175
One at the Cosmos Club in DC and

1031
00:37:11,175 --> 00:37:12,795
two at the Kennedy Center.

1032
00:37:13,494 --> 00:37:14,954
So and now

1033
00:37:15,335 --> 00:37:16,875
the National Academy of Sciences

1034
00:37:17,974 --> 00:37:20,214
asked if she would be interested in doing

1035
00:37:20,214 --> 00:37:21,434
an exhibition there.

1036
00:37:22,619 --> 00:37:24,539
So because, yes, of course. So we put

1037
00:37:24,539 --> 00:37:25,679
a proposal in.

1038
00:37:26,139 --> 00:37:28,380
She has many more pieces that she's done,

1039
00:37:28,380 --> 00:37:30,059
and I would write pieces of science to

1040
00:37:30,059 --> 00:37:32,859
go with them. So that proposal is in

1041
00:37:32,859 --> 00:37:35,934
waiting because the National Academy is now not

1042
00:37:35,934 --> 00:37:38,094
sure about its situation funding wise and so

1043
00:37:38,094 --> 00:37:40,014
on and so forth. So but I hope

1044
00:37:40,014 --> 00:37:40,514
that,

1045
00:37:41,054 --> 00:37:41,795
will happen.

1046
00:37:42,335 --> 00:37:44,114
But even if that doesn't happen,

1047
00:37:45,454 --> 00:37:47,954
I think we will be talking to publishers

1048
00:37:48,094 --> 00:37:49,829
about maybe making a

1049
00:37:50,550 --> 00:37:53,110
coffee table book about these pieces, 40 pieces

1050
00:37:53,110 --> 00:37:55,349
or 50 pieces of soap with writing. So

1051
00:37:55,349 --> 00:37:57,670
that was that. That's the art connection. I'm

1052
00:37:59,030 --> 00:38:00,950
I I don't actively do art. I I

1053
00:38:00,950 --> 00:38:03,910
was doing art for two, three years in

1054
00:38:03,910 --> 00:38:04,410
Geneva.

1055
00:38:05,614 --> 00:38:08,255
That was fun. And my daughter's a very

1056
00:38:08,255 --> 00:38:09,875
good artist, by the way. And,

1057
00:38:10,335 --> 00:38:10,835
but,

1058
00:38:12,494 --> 00:38:14,355
then the music is another story

1059
00:38:14,974 --> 00:38:15,474
because

1060
00:38:15,855 --> 00:38:17,934
about twelve years ago, I went to a

1061
00:38:17,934 --> 00:38:18,434
concert,

1062
00:38:19,659 --> 00:38:22,239
in Chicago or in Naperville in the suburbs

1063
00:38:22,780 --> 00:38:25,340
about Holts planets with Holts Planet Suite, and

1064
00:38:25,340 --> 00:38:26,079
they showed

1065
00:38:26,380 --> 00:38:28,940
together with the music, in fact, synchronized with

1066
00:38:28,940 --> 00:38:31,440
the music, beautiful video of the planets,

1067
00:38:32,605 --> 00:38:35,025
that was put together by an astronomer,

1068
00:38:35,644 --> 00:38:37,105
Jose Francisco Salgado,

1069
00:38:37,805 --> 00:38:39,025
who is also a videographer.

1070
00:38:39,565 --> 00:38:39,965
And,

1071
00:38:40,845 --> 00:38:41,345
that

1072
00:38:41,885 --> 00:38:43,805
so I I saw that and thought that's

1073
00:38:43,805 --> 00:38:46,059
great. And then two years ago, I was

1074
00:38:46,059 --> 00:38:47,839
at another concert in Chicago.

1075
00:38:48,380 --> 00:38:49,599
I met by chance,

1076
00:38:50,780 --> 00:38:52,480
Anne Barlow, who had started

1077
00:38:53,260 --> 00:38:53,760
this

1078
00:38:55,260 --> 00:38:56,400
science and symphony,

1079
00:38:56,940 --> 00:38:58,639
organization. They've since done

1080
00:38:59,974 --> 00:39:00,474
14

1081
00:39:00,934 --> 00:39:01,914
different productions

1082
00:39:02,855 --> 00:39:05,735
of different science tub with with with with

1083
00:39:05,735 --> 00:39:07,675
a symphony music. Some of it's,

1084
00:39:08,614 --> 00:39:09,114
already

1085
00:39:09,894 --> 00:39:12,375
composed. Some pieces, they get specially composed for

1086
00:39:12,375 --> 00:39:14,440
the for the for the pieces. Is that

1087
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:15,559
KV265?

1088
00:39:15,559 --> 00:39:17,160
That's a technical KV265.

1089
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:18,920
Right. Okay. Yep. Do you know what that

1090
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:19,420
mean?

1091
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:21,480
I well You may have read it, but

1092
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,039
No. Actually, I don't. So what does what

1093
00:39:24,039 --> 00:39:27,045
does that mean? Right. Right. Right. So not

1094
00:39:27,045 --> 00:39:28,964
many people know that, but it's the catalog

1095
00:39:28,964 --> 00:39:30,824
number of a piece of music by Mozart.

1096
00:39:31,204 --> 00:39:32,565
Okay. I thought there might have been a

1097
00:39:32,565 --> 00:39:34,804
Mozart connection. Yeah. And and and the tune

1098
00:39:34,804 --> 00:39:36,664
is Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

1099
00:39:37,444 --> 00:39:39,065
So Oh, that's fantastic.

1100
00:39:39,829 --> 00:39:41,210
So now I'm

1101
00:39:42,070 --> 00:39:44,550
I'm quite actively involved with Anne and Jose

1102
00:39:44,550 --> 00:39:45,050
Francisco.

1103
00:39:45,909 --> 00:39:48,809
She's a musician, and he's a videographer astronomer.

1104
00:39:49,349 --> 00:39:51,269
And he left the other plan chair, and

1105
00:39:51,269 --> 00:39:52,730
he's doing this full time now.

1106
00:39:53,094 --> 00:39:55,114
But my vision is that we could bring

1107
00:39:55,335 --> 00:39:55,994
the new

1108
00:39:56,295 --> 00:39:58,855
the new astronomers into the game by having

1109
00:39:58,855 --> 00:40:01,414
a a short films about gravitational waves and

1110
00:40:01,414 --> 00:40:03,414
black hole mergers and so on synchronized with

1111
00:40:03,414 --> 00:40:05,355
music and neutrino astronomy

1112
00:40:05,815 --> 00:40:08,369
and also cosmic ray astronomy. So these are

1113
00:40:08,450 --> 00:40:10,769
the new windows on the sky put together

1114
00:40:10,769 --> 00:40:11,970
with music, and,

1115
00:40:12,450 --> 00:40:14,550
and I'm hoping that will happen.

1116
00:40:15,490 --> 00:40:17,910
Timescale is probably two years and so on.

1117
00:40:18,289 --> 00:40:20,130
I mean, sort of things sort of things

1118
00:40:20,130 --> 00:40:22,070
that Brian Cox does very well,

1119
00:40:22,494 --> 00:40:22,994
but

1120
00:40:23,295 --> 00:40:23,795
his

1121
00:40:26,175 --> 00:40:28,594
this is a bit different because the this

1122
00:40:28,655 --> 00:40:30,514
this the symphony is actually

1123
00:40:30,815 --> 00:40:33,215
synchronized very well with the visual, so that's

1124
00:40:33,215 --> 00:40:35,454
something very special about it. And That sounds

1125
00:40:35,454 --> 00:40:36,195
very nice.

1126
00:40:36,574 --> 00:40:37,474
Live orchestra

1127
00:40:38,030 --> 00:40:40,130
with big visuals or big screen

1128
00:40:41,309 --> 00:40:43,570
of black holes merging and so on.

1129
00:40:43,949 --> 00:40:47,230
It's it's powerful stuff. And he also does

1130
00:40:47,230 --> 00:40:49,230
also when they've reached half a million people

1131
00:40:49,230 --> 00:40:50,909
in concerts around the world with these con

1132
00:40:50,989 --> 00:40:53,570
with these concerts, actually. And he always does

1133
00:40:53,914 --> 00:40:57,195
science talks preceding or after the after the

1134
00:40:57,195 --> 00:40:57,695
concert,

1135
00:40:58,714 --> 00:41:00,954
you know, talking about the background behind it.

1136
00:41:00,954 --> 00:41:01,454
So,

1137
00:41:02,074 --> 00:41:03,534
like, all auras and

1138
00:41:04,155 --> 00:41:06,394
planets and galaxies in collision, things like that.

1139
00:41:06,394 --> 00:41:08,650
So so that's an exciting project. And

1140
00:41:09,670 --> 00:41:12,550
and also, another thing keeping me busy. Yeah.

1141
00:41:12,550 --> 00:41:14,630
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm I mean, speaking of

1142
00:41:14,630 --> 00:41:16,789
of keeping busy, this, I suppose this is

1143
00:41:16,789 --> 00:41:19,364
my final question for you, Michael. You've you've

1144
00:41:19,364 --> 00:41:22,585
retired formally from Fermilab nine years ago.

1145
00:41:23,284 --> 00:41:25,605
But, you know, obviously, you're very active both

1146
00:41:25,605 --> 00:41:27,704
in physics and outside of physics.

1147
00:41:28,164 --> 00:41:29,844
And, you know, I think these days, we'd

1148
00:41:29,844 --> 00:41:32,324
say that you're very much into the the

1149
00:41:32,324 --> 00:41:34,344
third age of your life.

1150
00:41:35,950 --> 00:41:38,910
So what advice can you give to physic

1151
00:41:38,989 --> 00:41:41,630
physicists who want to enjoy a very active

1152
00:41:41,630 --> 00:41:43,090
retirement? Should they stay

1153
00:41:43,390 --> 00:41:45,469
in touch with the physics, or maybe that's

1154
00:41:45,469 --> 00:41:47,630
not necessary? And and how do you get

1155
00:41:47,630 --> 00:41:49,664
involved in, you know, things that you love,

1156
00:41:49,664 --> 00:41:51,125
for example, like art

1157
00:41:51,505 --> 00:41:53,905
and Right. Music? Right. How do you how

1158
00:41:53,905 --> 00:41:55,585
did you pull it off, Michael, I suppose?

1159
00:41:55,585 --> 00:41:57,744
Well, actually has different tastes and things they

1160
00:41:57,744 --> 00:41:59,664
want to do. I I suspect that a

1161
00:41:59,664 --> 00:42:02,085
lot of physicists of mine who've retired,

1162
00:42:03,380 --> 00:42:05,539
they they they got into physics because they

1163
00:42:05,539 --> 00:42:07,140
loved it. They loved the science and so

1164
00:42:07,140 --> 00:42:08,980
on in the early days. And maybe as

1165
00:42:08,980 --> 00:42:10,900
their career developed, they've had to get more

1166
00:42:10,900 --> 00:42:11,719
into administration

1167
00:42:12,340 --> 00:42:12,840
or

1168
00:42:13,460 --> 00:42:15,300
it's harder to do to write your own

1169
00:42:15,300 --> 00:42:17,559
software, which was fun, you know, whatever.

1170
00:42:18,054 --> 00:42:19,974
Physics has changed. The big physics has changed.

1171
00:42:19,974 --> 00:42:22,054
I'm talking about particle physics experiments and so

1172
00:42:22,054 --> 00:42:22,554
on.

1173
00:42:23,255 --> 00:42:25,114
But when you retire, you could

1174
00:42:25,655 --> 00:42:28,074
you you put aside the responsibilities

1175
00:42:28,375 --> 00:42:30,375
you had of admins and budget searching and

1176
00:42:30,375 --> 00:42:32,215
so on and get back to the physics

1177
00:42:32,215 --> 00:42:34,369
you enjoyed in the first place. And one

1178
00:42:34,369 --> 00:42:35,590
way of doing that,

1179
00:42:36,610 --> 00:42:38,230
is by outreach to the public.

1180
00:42:38,690 --> 00:42:39,190
And

1181
00:42:40,769 --> 00:42:42,849
you you can develop your speaking skills, I

1182
00:42:42,849 --> 00:42:44,309
suppose. But Paul Manchanai,

1183
00:42:44,849 --> 00:42:46,450
he was on the OJ project. He's not

1184
00:42:46,450 --> 00:42:48,070
a retired physicist from Fermilab.

1185
00:42:48,945 --> 00:42:49,445
So

1186
00:42:50,065 --> 00:42:52,465
we found about life what's called Lifelong Learning

1187
00:42:52,465 --> 00:42:54,965
Institute, which does lectures for seniors,

1188
00:42:55,744 --> 00:42:57,125
55 and better.

1189
00:42:57,425 --> 00:42:57,825
And,

1190
00:42:58,545 --> 00:43:01,265
so we we started a series there. One

1191
00:43:01,265 --> 00:43:02,789
year, we did six talks.

1192
00:43:03,349 --> 00:43:05,269
Well, we did one or two talks, and

1193
00:43:05,269 --> 00:43:07,269
we got others to do other talks about,

1194
00:43:07,670 --> 00:43:08,570
one was about

1195
00:43:09,269 --> 00:43:11,750
about the the universe, one was about life

1196
00:43:11,750 --> 00:43:13,989
in the life in the universe, and and,

1197
00:43:14,469 --> 00:43:16,614
particles and so on. And these are pretty

1198
00:43:16,614 --> 00:43:18,075
popular. People would come

1199
00:43:19,815 --> 00:43:22,215
in, and, well, we'd had 25 or 30

1200
00:43:22,215 --> 00:43:25,015
people, but and then we'd go out to

1201
00:43:25,015 --> 00:43:27,575
also to other clubs, like, rotary clubs, for

1202
00:43:27,575 --> 00:43:29,335
example, who like to have a twenty minute

1203
00:43:29,335 --> 00:43:30,614
talk about what what do we do at

1204
00:43:30,614 --> 00:43:32,989
Fermidab. You know? And the other things that

1205
00:43:32,989 --> 00:43:33,969
Fermilab has

1206
00:43:34,589 --> 00:43:37,150
or had, which is prayer restoration and things

1207
00:43:37,150 --> 00:43:38,210
like that. So

1208
00:43:38,829 --> 00:43:39,329
so

1209
00:43:39,789 --> 00:43:40,769
I think that

1210
00:43:41,630 --> 00:43:42,289
in a

1211
00:43:42,829 --> 00:43:44,429
you may just want to go fishing or

1212
00:43:44,429 --> 00:43:46,449
something like that in your retirement, but

1213
00:43:46,805 --> 00:43:48,885
but you could give back to the public

1214
00:43:48,885 --> 00:43:50,184
because you you have,

1215
00:43:50,565 --> 00:43:52,644
you know, you have more time, you've got

1216
00:43:52,644 --> 00:43:54,025
knowledge, and and

1217
00:43:54,405 --> 00:43:57,144
you can inspire people and give them back

1218
00:43:57,445 --> 00:43:59,945
after the public pays for this. You know?

1219
00:44:00,380 --> 00:44:01,980
We say it's like a dollar per person

1220
00:44:01,980 --> 00:44:03,039
per year, but,

1221
00:44:05,019 --> 00:44:06,160
so but, anyway,

1222
00:44:06,940 --> 00:44:09,980
it's important the public understands what we do,

1223
00:44:09,980 --> 00:44:11,280
why we do it, and,

1224
00:44:11,980 --> 00:44:13,920
supports science, especially nowadays.

1225
00:44:15,099 --> 00:44:15,599
Great.

1226
00:44:16,565 --> 00:44:18,805
Well, that that's fantastic, Michael. Thanks so much

1227
00:44:18,805 --> 00:44:20,885
for joining me today. It was a great

1228
00:44:20,885 --> 00:44:23,765
conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thanks very much,

1229
00:44:23,765 --> 00:44:25,445
Hamish. It's a pleasure and good to be

1230
00:44:25,445 --> 00:44:25,945
here.

1231
00:44:26,644 --> 00:44:27,465
Thank you.

1232
00:44:34,510 --> 00:44:36,349
I'm afraid that's all the time we have

1233
00:44:36,349 --> 00:44:39,489
for this week's podcast. Thanks to Michael Albro

1234
00:44:39,630 --> 00:44:41,329
for a fascinating discussion.

1235
00:44:41,949 --> 00:44:44,945
I'll put a link to Michael's book, Space

1236
00:44:45,325 --> 00:44:47,825
Times Matter, in the podcast notes.

1237
00:44:48,285 --> 00:44:49,425
And as ever,

1238
00:44:49,724 --> 00:44:51,025
thanks to our producer,

1239
00:44:51,405 --> 00:44:52,465
Fred Isles.

1240
00:44:52,844 --> 00:44:54,704
We'll be back again next week.