how advances in science are made and how science changes...
TRANSCRIPT
Douglas Osheroff Mahidol University Stanford University 12 December 2012
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How Advances In Science Are Made and How Science Changes Our Lives �
ose discoveries that most change the way we think about nature cannot be anticipated. How, then, are such
discoveries made, and are there research strategies that can increase ones chances of making such a discovery?
A Linked Chain of Discoveries and Inventions
1853-1926
1853-1926
Heike Kammerlingh
Onnes first liquified
in 1908
Nobel Prize for Physics
1913
Gilles Holst
The process of advancing science often leads to inventions and technologies that directly benefit mankind. However, it is impossible to know from where the advance will come that
might solve a problem facing mankind. Consider, for example, nuclear magnetic resonance.
What Is Nuclear Magnetic Resonance? Just as a gyroscope precesses about the
Earth’s gravitational !eld when its axis of rotation is tipped away from the direction of the gravitational !eld, a
nuclear spin precesses in a magnetic !eld when the direction of its spin is tipped away from the direction of the magnetic
!eld. "e nuclear spins carry a magnetic dipole moment, and as this moment
precesses, it will generate an oscillating voltage in a pickup coil."e strength of this voltage depends upon the number of spins that are
precessing, and the frequency of this oscillating voltage is the same as the frequency of precession of the spin.
Chemical and Spin Shifts in NMR
Richard Ernst
Nobel Prize Chemistry
1991
Three Dimensional Conformation of Organic Molecules Kurt Wütrich
…in Aqueous Solutions
Kurt Wütrich
Nobel Prize for Chemistry
2002
Magnetic Resonance Imaging: MRI
Weatherwax High School Science Club
The 3He-4He Dilution Refrigerator Invented 1965
Thanks to the Helsinki low temperature lab.
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1950
Tinitial = 15 mK
Strategies: 1. Utilize new technologies. • View nature from a new perspective or in a different realm. 2. Don’t give up when things are going badly. • Failure may be an invitation to try something new. 3. Spend a little time doing something different. • Curiosity driven research is fun, and can be rewarding! 4. Avoid too many commitments. • The demands of good research do not adhere to a schedule. 5. Back off from what you are doing occasionally to gain
a better perspective on the task at hand. • We become myopic when we focus too tightly on our work.
Stratey and Adams
Bloch and Purcell
Edwards and Hall
Hammel, Wheatley Landau …
Bardeen, Cooper
and Schreiffer Anderson,
Pomeranchuk ….
Advances in science are seldom made
by individuals alone. ey result
from progress of the scienti"c
community, asking questions,
developing new technologies to answer
those questions, and sharing their
results and their ideas with others. To
have rapid progress, one must support
scienti"c research broadly, and
encourage scientists to interact with one
another and to spend a bit of their
time satisfying their own curiosities.
!is is how advances in science are made.
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Galileo is often considered the father of modern astronomy. He improved the telescope, supported the helocentric view of the solar system first postulated by Copernicus, and discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter, now called the Galilean moons. Jupiter
Io Europa Ganymede Calisto
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Isaac Newton: Mathematician and Scientist Born 4 January 1643 Died 31 March 1727 (84 years)
We perhaps owe more to Sir Isaac Newton than to any other early scientist. He developed
the mathematics of calculus to understand particle motion, and the idea of a gravitational
!eld, thus explaining the motion of the planets.
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James Watt: Scottish Inventor born 1736 died 1819
Watt invented the rotary steam engine and used thermodynamics to vastly
increase the efficiency of steam engines.
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Industrial Pollution: Our Atmosphere and Waterways
Often human activity has a negative impact on our planet.
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1000 Years of Global CO2 and Temperature Change
Records of northern hemisphere surface temperatures, CO2 concentrations, and carbon emissions show a close correlation. Temperature Change: reconstruction of annual-average northern hemisphere surface air temperatures derived from historical records, tree rings, and corals (blue), and air temperatures directly measured (purple). CO2 Concentrations: record of global CO2 concentration for the last 1000 years, derived from measurements of CO2 concentration in air bubbles in the layered ice cores drilled in Antarctica (blue line) and from atmospheric measurements since 1957. Carbon Emissions: reconstruction of past emissions of CO2 as a result of land clearing and fossil fuel combustion since about 1750 (in billions of metric tons of carbon per year).
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Paleontology
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Life on Earth and Our Place in the Cosmos
The study of fossil remains of animals and plants that lived millions of years ago provides us with an understanding of the history of life on our planet. This is a story which helps us to better understand the origins
and evolution of life on Earth, and also to better appreciate the complex processes that produced the human race.
The evidence suggests that this planet is some 4.5 billion years old, and that our universe is some 14 billion years old. Our sun is one of
perhaps 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and we estimate that there are roughly 100 billion galaxies presently observable from Earth.
These studies do not enable us to create new technologies to improve our lives, but they pave the way for the exploration of our solar system
and beyond.
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James Clerk Maxwell and Electromagnetic Radiation James Maxwell was born in 1831 and died in 1879. He is the
father of the modern theory of electromagnetic radiation, which includes light. He found that a term was missing from
the four equations which described electric and magnetic !elds, and once he added that term, he quickly realized that
oscillating electric and magnetic !elds could propagate as waves.
Electromagnetic waves include radio waves, microwaves, light, X-rays and
Gamma rays.
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Charles Darwin
born 12 Feb. 1809 died 19 April 1882
Visited Galapagos
Islands in 1835
Theory of Natural Selection
Origin of the Species
published in 1859
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Alexander Fleming was born in 1881. He discovered penicillin in 1928, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945. This was just the first of many antibiotics
to follow.
Health care in the US cost 2.4 trillion dollars in 2007
Born 6 Aug. 1881
Died 11 March 1955
Antibiotics and Modern Medical Science
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DNA: "e Double Helix
Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine 1962 James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins
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Rosalind Franklin
born July 25, 1920 died April 16, 1958
In 1953 Rosalind Franklin played a key role in the
discovery of the structure and function of DNA through her X-ray diffraction studies of DNA.
Only three people can share a Nobel Prize.
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The Transistor Invented
1947
by Bardeen Brattain
and Schockl
ey
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Apple iPhone G3
Bell System Telephone, 1950
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2.93 GHz Intel Duo Core Processor 8 GB Ram
320 (500) GB Hard Drive
Computers and the Internet
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Hubble Space Telescope Launched April 24, 1990
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NASA: Monitoring "e Health of Our Planet
NASA has launched satellites to monitor continuously the CO2 content in our atmosphere. Such Earth-looking probes
help give us our weather forecasts, assist with telecommunications, defense, and many other important
tasks that can best be done from orbit.
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Mars and the Mars Rovers: Robotic Exploration
Spirit and Opportunity
4,400,000 lb launch weight 7,125,000 lb initial thrust 1,125,000 lb thrust Orbiter 6,000,000 lb thrust SRB’s Maximum payload: 56,000 lb to 28º orbit + 220,000 lb orbiter
Thank You for your attention!