Nobel Endeavours
June 9, 2022 5:34 AM Subscribe
In which we pose a series of questions to the biggest boffins on the planet.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman once said ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.’ As people who’ve never professed to understand quantum mechanics, The Fence find this statement quite presumptuous, but decided we’d ask some of the world’s biggest boffins how much they do or don’t know about their jobs, life and everything else besides.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman once said ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.’ As people who’ve never professed to understand quantum mechanics, The Fence find this statement quite presumptuous, but decided we’d ask some of the world’s biggest boffins how much they do or don’t know about their jobs, life and everything else besides.
This is fun. Also, Nobel medals are surprisingly heavy. I don't think you'd want to pin one to your coat for fear of ripping the fabric. (I've held one, won by someone for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with me. But, passing it around is a fun party trick if you've got one.)
Riffing on the prompt - as someone who has spent rather a lot of my adult life working with superconductors, I don't actually understand how superconductivity works. Not just in weird stuff like disordered thin films that nobody really understands, but even the ordinary, boring ones. I can do the math - both the textbook versions that are often wrong and versions with ad-hoc corrections that are less wrong - but I don't actually understand it. I have no intuition for whether I got the math right or missed a factor of a thousand except by actually measuring things. Certainly not in the way I claim to understand planetary orbits or the stat-mech of room temperature gasses or the equations describing light propagation or other things that I'm not an expert in. Feynman was a dick, but he was often right.
posted by eotvos at 6:25 AM on June 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
Riffing on the prompt - as someone who has spent rather a lot of my adult life working with superconductors, I don't actually understand how superconductivity works. Not just in weird stuff like disordered thin films that nobody really understands, but even the ordinary, boring ones. I can do the math - both the textbook versions that are often wrong and versions with ad-hoc corrections that are less wrong - but I don't actually understand it. I have no intuition for whether I got the math right or missed a factor of a thousand except by actually measuring things. Certainly not in the way I claim to understand planetary orbits or the stat-mech of room temperature gasses or the equations describing light propagation or other things that I'm not an expert in. Feynman was a dick, but he was often right.
posted by eotvos at 6:25 AM on June 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
As someone who spent a little time this year teaching long division to my granddaughter, I appreciate the line- Yes, anyone can do long division… it’s getting it right that’s the hard bit.
OK, I'll play. I've worked on laser printers since 1979, and I know the whole xerographic process- charge, discharge, developer, transfer, clean... , but why does a laser discharge an area of the photoconductor??
I think it's something quantum, and I saw an article online about it years ago, but I'd have to research it again to get close to an understanding.
posted by MtDewd at 6:35 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
OK, I'll play. I've worked on laser printers since 1979, and I know the whole xerographic process- charge, discharge, developer, transfer, clean... , but why does a laser discharge an area of the photoconductor??
I think it's something quantum, and I saw an article online about it years ago, but I'd have to research it again to get close to an understanding.
posted by MtDewd at 6:35 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Fence has previous form - Why are you asking me this? in which they asked "important questions of very important people" (mostly British celebries).-
posted by scorbet at 6:47 AM on June 9, 2022
posted by scorbet at 6:47 AM on June 9, 2022
My wife told me she would hide it in a place that no one would ever think to look. Literally, the next day, I open the drawer on my bedside table, looking for the TV remote and find the medal box that has ‘The Nobel Prize’ written on the outside in big gold letters. It was such a bizarre moment – to be looking for the TV remote, and to find the Nobel Prize – I couldn’t stop laughing for about 15 minutes. It was hands down one of the most surreal and funniest moments of my life.
That's hilarious.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:05 AM on June 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
That's hilarious.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:05 AM on June 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
I mean, she hid it somewhere no one would ever to think to look for a Nobel Prize, not somewhere no one would ever to think to look for a television remote!
posted by jacquilynne at 7:32 AM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 7:32 AM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
tangential, the best hiding place I have found is to tape something to the ceiling of a cabinet under a sink; most people will open the cabinet & cast an eye over what's sitting in there, but not check up
posted by taquito sunrise at 8:08 AM on June 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by taquito sunrise at 8:08 AM on June 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
anyone who's not at least slightly confused most of the time is doing it wrong
posted by philip-random at 8:26 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by philip-random at 8:26 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Now I know where to find taquito sunrise’s hidden valuables.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:04 AM on June 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:04 AM on June 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
I find their humility quite endearing. I don't care if the medal comes unadorned, if I ever win a Nobel Prize I'm gonna drill a hole through it, hang it on a shoelace, and wear it prominently 24/7. This is reason #4,297 that I will never win a Nobel Prize.
Ideally I would have it flattened out so as to be enormously wide, then I would fashion it into some sort of crude timepiece, a la Flava Flav
posted by Mayor West at 9:13 AM on June 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
Ideally I would have it flattened out so as to be enormously wide, then I would fashion it into some sort of crude timepiece, a la Flava Flav
posted by Mayor West at 9:13 AM on June 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
My favorite so far:
tf: Where do you keep your medal? And when did you last wear it?posted by y2karl at 9:53 AM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
DAVID MACMILLAN
My wife told me she would hide it in a place that no one would ever think to look. Literally, the next day, I open the drawer on my bedside table, looking for the tv remote and find the medal box that has ‘The Nobel Prize’ written on the outside in big gold letters. It was such a bizarre moment – to be looking for the tv remote, and to find the Nobel Prize – I couldn’t stop laughing for about 15 minutes. It was hands down one of the most surreal and funniest moments of my life.
I don't care if the medal comes unadorned, if I ever win a Nobel Prize I'm gonna drill a hole through it, hang it on a shoelace, and wear it prominently 24/7. This is reason #4,297 that I will never win a Nobel Prize.
Ideally I would have it flattened out so as to be enormously wide, then I would fashion it into some sort of crude timepiece, a la Flava Flav
posted by Mayor West at 9:13 AM on June 9
There is no need to ruin your future Nobel Prize. Instead, just take it to a jeweller and have them create a frame to circle the medal. Then on that frame you can attache your necklace bale (or the anchors for your watch strap.
For people who want to wear more standard-sized coins around their necks, they can shut go out and buy coin bezels, but I'm guessing you'd have to have one custom made for your Nobel.
There you go, now you're down to 4,296 issues to address before winning your Prize!
posted by sardonyx at 10:34 AM on June 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Ideally I would have it flattened out so as to be enormously wide, then I would fashion it into some sort of crude timepiece, a la Flava Flav
posted by Mayor West at 9:13 AM on June 9
There is no need to ruin your future Nobel Prize. Instead, just take it to a jeweller and have them create a frame to circle the medal. Then on that frame you can attache your necklace bale (or the anchors for your watch strap.
For people who want to wear more standard-sized coins around their necks, they can shut go out and buy coin bezels, but I'm guessing you'd have to have one custom made for your Nobel.
There you go, now you're down to 4,296 issues to address before winning your Prize!
posted by sardonyx at 10:34 AM on June 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
For people who want to wear more standard-sized coins around their necks, they can shut go out and buy coin bezels, but I'm guessing you'd have to have one custom made for your Nobel.
I guarantee you there's a guy at Berkeley who has a pattern.
posted by Etrigan at 10:40 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I guarantee you there's a guy at Berkeley who has a pattern.
posted by Etrigan at 10:40 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
My favorite:
(I have never done something that was once done to me. My host had a fine wine for himself, and much cheaper wine for his guests, though we all sat around the same dinner table. He was an economist, and I suspect he thought that he was maximizing total utility by allocating the good wine to the person who would appreciate it the most. Or he was just a jerk.)
Whenever economic arguments get taken too far, it always seems to end up like this.
posted by indianbadger1 at 10:43 AM on June 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
(I have never done something that was once done to me. My host had a fine wine for himself, and much cheaper wine for his guests, though we all sat around the same dinner table. He was an economist, and I suspect he thought that he was maximizing total utility by allocating the good wine to the person who would appreciate it the most. Or he was just a jerk.)
Whenever economic arguments get taken too far, it always seems to end up like this.
posted by indianbadger1 at 10:43 AM on June 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm currently working for the UC Berkeley Physics Department (redoing their website, I suck at math) there are lots people with Nobels, but I don't know if they wear them.
posted by supermedusa at 10:45 AM on June 9, 2022
posted by supermedusa at 10:45 AM on June 9, 2022
Ideally I would have it flattened out so as to be enormously wide, then I would fashion it into some sort of crude timepiece, a la Flava Flav
A road roller on smooth concrete would do the trick.
posted by y2karl at 10:51 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
A road roller on smooth concrete would do the trick.
posted by y2karl at 10:51 AM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
> why does a laser discharge an area of the photoconductor??
It is. It's stimulated emission or the photoelectric effect, and (to bring it back into the main discussion) it's what Einstein got his Nobel prize for. It turns out it could be explained classically in general, and you need to refine it a bit to force it to be a phenomenon that can only be explained quantum mechanically, but people didn't figure out that until later.
Not that I understand it either, despite years of work on quantum mechanics.
posted by madhadron at 11:01 AM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
It is. It's stimulated emission or the photoelectric effect, and (to bring it back into the main discussion) it's what Einstein got his Nobel prize for. It turns out it could be explained classically in general, and you need to refine it a bit to force it to be a phenomenon that can only be explained quantum mechanically, but people didn't figure out that until later.
Not that I understand it either, despite years of work on quantum mechanics.
posted by madhadron at 11:01 AM on June 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Nobel medals are surprisingly heavy
Whereas noble gases are quite light.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:01 AM on June 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
Whereas noble gases are quite light.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:01 AM on June 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
I guarantee you there's a guy at Berkeley who has a pattern.I'm laughing while trying figure out who you specifically have in mind. I've got two likely guesses. Or, maybe it's the weird old numismatics shop that used to be just off Shattuck? I'd buy that. We'll, I'd believe it. I don't think I'd literally buy it.
posted by eotvos at 12:08 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Surely if you had a Nobel, you'd keep it in the downstairs toilet next to your Oscar? That way you look as if you're centred enough not to take it too seriously while simultaneously ensuring that every single visitor to your house sees it.
The great achievement for entertainers, of course, is to accumulate an EGOT: an Emmy, a Grammy, am Oscar and a Tony. I wonder if anyone will ever manage to go one better and score a NEGOT?
[Bob Dylan's now got a Nobel, several Grammys and an Oscar, so I guess he'd be the closest so far. He's got a Pulitzer too, so that makes him a GNOP.]
posted by Paul Slade at 12:36 PM on June 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
The great achievement for entertainers, of course, is to accumulate an EGOT: an Emmy, a Grammy, am Oscar and a Tony. I wonder if anyone will ever manage to go one better and score a NEGOT?
[Bob Dylan's now got a Nobel, several Grammys and an Oscar, so I guess he'd be the closest so far. He's got a Pulitzer too, so that makes him a GNOP.]
posted by Paul Slade at 12:36 PM on June 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
From the article:
Also, I can't wait for a version of this article to come out in 60 or so years where the answers to this question are something like Cardi B (feat. Bad Bunny & J Balvin) or 100 gecs.
posted by mhum at 1:49 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
What was the last piece of music you listened to?The answers were John Coltrane, Liszt, and Dean Martin. Imagine if one of them said something like "lo fi hip hop beats to relax/study to" or "nyan cat 10 hours HD".
Also, I can't wait for a version of this article to come out in 60 or so years where the answers to this question are something like Cardi B (feat. Bad Bunny & J Balvin) or 100 gecs.
posted by mhum at 1:49 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I refuse to believe a physicist can’t work out from first principles why a kettle is loudest just before it fully boils. It’s really quite simple.
posted by sjswitzer at 1:50 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by sjswitzer at 1:50 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I enjoy all forms of: super smart people—they’re just like us! I truly do.
(I mean, that’s why I’m here.)
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:27 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
(I mean, that’s why I’m here.)
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:27 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yeehaw, I'm in a thread with a person who has touched a Nobel medal!
posted by a humble nudibranch at 5:50 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 5:50 PM on June 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
That's known as Xenon's Paradox.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:30 PM on June 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:30 PM on June 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
"prof. angus deaton (economics, 2015)
For me, macroeconomics is like quantum mechanics. "
Dear Prof Deaton: If macroeconomics were like quantum mechanics, the price of bread would change every time you looked at it in the store.
prof. barry barish (physics, 2017)
Black holes. They existed as a mathematical concept for 100 years, and have now been observed and even imaged. But, why do they exist? Is it just because they can exist?
Dear Prof Barish: You too are a mathematical concept.
posted by storybored at 6:19 AM on June 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
For me, macroeconomics is like quantum mechanics. "
Dear Prof Deaton: If macroeconomics were like quantum mechanics, the price of bread would change every time you looked at it in the store.
prof. barry barish (physics, 2017)
Black holes. They existed as a mathematical concept for 100 years, and have now been observed and even imaged. But, why do they exist? Is it just because they can exist?
Dear Prof Barish: You too are a mathematical concept.
posted by storybored at 6:19 AM on June 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Dear Prof Deaton: If macroeconomics were like quantum mechanics, the price of bread would change every time you looked at it in the store.
... and every time you sliced a loaf at home, its entangled twin back in the bakery would slice itself too (I think?).
posted by Paul Slade at 6:44 AM on June 11, 2022
... and every time you sliced a loaf at home, its entangled twin back in the bakery would slice itself too (I think?).
posted by Paul Slade at 6:44 AM on June 11, 2022
Yes, but how does quantum mechanics explain Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda?
posted by y2karl at 11:10 AM on June 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 11:10 AM on June 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
That's known as Xenon's Paradox.
I'd throw a tomato at you for that one, but it would never get there.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:48 PM on June 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'd throw a tomato at you for that one, but it would never get there.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:48 PM on June 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
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posted by pompomtom at 5:59 AM on June 9, 2022