All That Matters

A beautifully looking graphics, isn’t it? But there is a major caveat. As its creators would agree, this image is only a very crude depiction of reality and shouldn’t be used for any scientific purpose… (c) LANES, EPFL

Nanotechnology is a wonderful science that has pushed functional devices to sizes not far away from the size of atoms. So small that if you want to image such structures, even a conventional electron microscope wouldn’t get you far. There is no way to directly see what is going on. This is a common problem. Take condensed matter physics – it is impossible to directly visualize the various interactions and events taking place inside a crystal. Or photonics, where complex light fields interact with tiny nanostructures in ways that can be really difficult to visualize, especially in real-time.

So, no wonder that artificial graphics often serve to illustrate a scientific concept or a certain device. And with the prevalence of advanced computer graphics programs such illustrations are becoming more and more fancy. In my opinion, this is a dangerous trend, because such graphics can distort the underlying science they try to depict. [...]

The young Max Planck, when completing his high school degree, asked a professor of physics at the University of Munich, Philipp von Jolly, whether he should study physics. He got the famous answer that this wouldn’t make much sense, because physics is an almost fully mature science with not much to discover. (If you happen to speak German, it is worth reading the original text, reprinted in this biography of Max Planck.)

Of course, luckily Planck ignored this advice and went on to make some of the most profound discoveries in modern physics. And well, if you think we are in a similarly dull situation in physics at present, the past few weeks would have certainly disproved this, because a couple of intriguing, unpublished (in the academic sense) research findings have appeared widely in the news: neutrinos that continue to appear to be faster than the speed of light, a completely new view on wavefunctions in quantum mechanics, and it seems also that there isn’t much hiding space left for the Higgs boson, if it exists.

Arthur Eddington's 1919 photograph of the sun during a total eclipse. The position of the stars appearing behind the sun verified Einstein's theory of relativity. Photo via Wikimedia.

Those discoveries all come with the promise of significant changes to our understanding of physics, and we’ve seen some exposure in the news (and the occasional hype, too). This is perhaps not surprising. The neutrino experiment questions the theory of relativity. The absence of the Higgs boson on the other hand would open the question again about the different masses of particles. And the new view of wavefunctions seems to add further to the arguments whether the wavefunctions in quantum mechanics are purely an expression of probability to find an object in a certain physical state, or are a representation of actual reality. The paper now rules out the possibility that wavefunctions are probabilistic states, but still having an underlying reality. Instead, there are two interpretations left. One can either fall back to the argument that there is no underlying reality in quantum mechanics and wavefunctions simply are nothing but probabilistic. Or, the second option is that wavefunctions are an expression of actual reality, abandoning the probabilistic interpretation. Not surprisingly, for this reason the paper got lots of headlines. Most people my colleagues at Nature spoke to were quite enthusiastic, whereas Scott Aaronson didn’t seem to see that much of a surprise. Matt Leifer has an informative, quite detailed description of the paper on his blog. [...]

The study of materials is one of the major areas of science, with legions of researchers in physics, chemistry and materials science working on this topic. Condensed matter physics is one of the largest research areas in physics. Yet, it makes me often uneasy how the benefits of materials science are promoted. It is all too often about applications, and not about fundamental physics. How materials such as graphene might revolutionize electronics. And how new physical concepts could be used to develop materials for energy applications: solar cells, batteries and so on. In classical materials science it’s often about tougher materials, such as enhanced steels, and less about the fundamental insights they are based on. Of course, applications are an important aspect in the study of materials. But does this mean that too often fundamental insights are neglected in favour of a material’s commercial potential?

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The World Expo Center in Dalian, where the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2011 was held. Copyright World Economic Forum via flickr

Last week I had the pleasure to attend the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China. The meeting in Dalian is called the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, and in comparison to the more widely known one in Davos it apparently has more a focus on new technologies. How else would it be possible to present the latest advances in lighting technologies as part of a session organized by Nature…

The meeting was actually quite diverse; there were sessions even on topics such as art and Buddhism.  Yet, clearly there was a focus on business and global governance, and in the context of the more technology-oriented approach of this meeting this meant that there were some interesting discussions on sustainable growth, alternative energies, and so on.

But what did I really learn from these? Well, if you keep up with the daily news and analysis anyway, there wasn’t too much new to be learned. Of course, it was interesting to see some of the high flyers in action and to hear their personal assessment on various issues. But this clearly wasn’t the place to formulate grant visions in much detail. One-hour panel discussions are hardly the place for that. It was far more interesting to talk to some of the participants during coffee breaks, and to exchange opinions privately. I also attended a closed session by the WEF’s Risk Response Network. Discussing not only issues such as the risks to the public arising from new technologies but also the problems we have in dealing with risks offered some new perspectives. Perhaps the secret really is to try to get invited for more of those closed sessions.

But unfortunately, the mingling of the more scientific participants and those from business or politics didn’t seem to work too well. The more scientific discussions were hardly attended by business people and vice versa. I think both sides are to blame a little, and there were not even that many science policy types attending that could bridge this gap, with one of the notable exceptions being the Chinese science minister. That seems like a big missed opportunity to me. In this age, new technologies can revolutionize any business rapidly, and being informed about the trends in science can only be good for business.

More generally, it seemed that all those CEOs, representatives of NGOs etc. very much saw the world from their top-down perspective. Some of the discussions seemed quite ‘meta’ to me. In terms of global risks and sustainability for example, there seemed to be the conviction that there are a lot of answers and solutions, but that there is a general failure of political leadership to execute these, with the danger being that the longer we wait the greater the implications if catastrophes unfold. As someone said in one of the discussions, “the motivation of politicians is to get re-elected, not to execute.” This theme was pervasive in discussions on several topics. There was also praise for the Chinese to have their more long-term vision in the form of five-year plans.

Well, this made me a bit uncomfortable. This is very much a top-down approach in the way that these top executives run their company: implement a strategy and everyone has to follow suit. Is this really the public governance we want? Follow and shut up. There was almost no mention throughout on the fact that politics also works to a large degree from the bottom up.

For example, the risk of a global flu pandemic that kills millions within weeks unfortunately is all too real (c.f. swine flu, bird flu). Or earth quakes, tsunamis. If there is indeed a lack of leadership in addressing such threats, then I think this is the result of wrong priorities. Criticising leaders for inactions will only get us that far. If there is a public consensus that certain risks need to be mitigated, leaders can be forced to act from the bottom up. via the public. But to create risk awareness, everyone needs to be aware of such risks in the first place, and this issue is where I think the discussion needs to go.

Anyway, would I attend the World Economic Forum again if given the opportunity? Certainly! The WEF, and those attending these meetings, need more confrontation with science, and more of the bottom-up perspective.

Looking at sheer numbers, science writing is in a boom, enabled by the relative ease of publishing on the internet. Just looking at condensed matter physics and related areas such as nanotechnology, there are wonderful blogs such as 2020 Science, Condensed Concepts, nanoscale views, Soft Machines, and Uncertain Principles. If you do not follow them already, I suggest you take a look.

(c) Intel

But despite all the exciting developments in the field, condensed matter physics is not as much in the limelight as say, the LHC or personal genomics. And this despite revolutionary techniques that have a profound impact on our daily life: the transistor, semiconductor lasers, computer hard drives, or the latest advances in nanotechnology, to name but a few.

A few weeks ago, Chad Orzel wrote about this problem in his blog, mentioning that comparatively few people write about the exciting discoveries in condensed matter physics. Doug Natelson took this further and identified a number of problems related to the perceived relevance and profundity of the field, as well as the issue of accessibility for a field whose scientific concepts are often difficult to relay to non-experts.

In my opinion these are of course all valid points, but not impossible to overcome. Of course, it can be a difficult topic to write about. But we need to get the message out more often, so that it sticks better. The problem is certainly not a lack of people in the field. Condensed matter physics researchers make up the majority of members of the American Physical Society. The large body of research they create certainly provides plenty of material to write about.

I have been pondering about the launch of a blog for a while, but constraints on my time have always put me off the idea. However, this recent discussion has finally convinced me that a blog in this area might be of benefit.

In comparison to writers such as Doug and Chad, who are respected university professors, I can offer a slightly different perspective, namely that of an editor of a scientific magazine with experience in research areas ranging from condensed matter physics to chemistry, nanotechnology, materials science and photonics. I frequently discuss current trends and opinions with researchers in these fields. By launching this blog, I hope to bring you some of the exciting stories in this field and hope to increase the interest in a research area that is so relevant to the technologies that we use in our daily life.