ScienceMakers Toolkit Manual - The History Makers

split that atom. You chop it. Do you reach something that’s different from an atom? The answer is yes. You can
get nuclei, electrons. Then you can ask that about the nuclei…So what elementary particles deal with is trying
to understand these various levels. See, nature is actually separated into various levels. That’s why we can do
science. You have, let’s say, the level that we deal with, the so-called macroscopic level, then you have a level
below that, the atomic level where you have atoms and molecules, where they are important, and then you have
a level below that where you have the nucleus. It turns out that you can actually chop open in some sense, using
that metaphor, the nucleus, there’s another level. We call those things quarks. You know, and so nature is separated
into various levels and what elementary particle physics tries to do is to deal with this bottom layer and
ask fundamental questions. Is that the end, or is there something else? Now so far, you know, I mean, it appears
that that’s the end. But it may not be. Because we thought it was the end when it was up here, and then we got
here and thought it was the end. So we don’t know, but that’s one of the fundamental things. What is the structure
of the material universe? That’s what elementary particles deals with.
Clip 8 - Explanation of Accelerators: An accelerator is just a microscope. It turns out that there’s an inverse
relationship between the energy. Think of microscopes now as objects that produce, objects that have some
energy, or detecting energy. It turns out that the smaller an object is, then the larger energy is required in order
to see it. And so for example, if I want to see what’s in the want ads, I have a little hand magnifying glass. If I
want to see a cell, then I have an optical microscope that’s about this large. If I want to see things that are parts
of cells, more than likely I may have to go to an electron microscope, which will be as tall as this room, and if
I want to see really down deep into the nucleus, I need an accelerator. And usually the larger the energy of the
accelerator, the larger the accelerator is. And so there’s this correlation between the size in some sense of the
accelerator and the objects that you’re trying to see. The bigger the accelerator, on average, then the smaller the
object that you can see. Because the larger accelerator will, in principle, allow you to have a larger energy. And
you can actually write down a mathematical relationship that gives that to you.
Clip 9 - Mathematical Models: Currently, I’m working on a variety of topics. One of the most interesting
deals with the mathematical spread of diseases, particularly so-called periodic diseases. An example is measles.
And they are periodic because if you plot their incident versus time, they give you something like a sine wave.
One of the issues that we’re dealing with is mathematically modeling these things. And there are reasons why
you want mathematical models. One is that if you have a good mathematical model, you can do things to the
model that you can’t do to a human being. So, what a model will do is to allow you to play with things. If it’s a
good model, you can see, well if I carry out this policy, this strategy for vaccination, I’ll get a certain result. And
you can also compare it with the economics.
Clip 10 - Great Teacher: What is a great teacher? A great teacher is someone who motivates you, and as I
always tell my students, I am not a teacher. You know, I’m not here to present you with facts, even though that
may come out. What I’m here to do is to give you the benefi t of my experience and to see at least at this time
what are things that I consider to be important. And to put you in a position where you can acquire some of
these abilities. But as a teacher, my success depends on you being better than I. ‘Cause if you can’t do any better
than me, nothing has changed.
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Physics