communication

 

It's almost Christmas and the candles are coming out.

 

Candles.    And Michael Faraday's remarkable gift to young people.  He's way up on my own list of favorite scientists.  In addition to making fundamental contributions to physics (like field theory even though he was poorly schooled in math), he happened to be an excellent public speaker.  Every year there would be Christmas lectures for children.  A legendary set of six lectures on the chemistry and physics of candle flames was given in 1848. While a good deal of deeper understanding has taken place, much of the lecture is still relevant.  Watch a modern performance!¹  Here's a Project Gutenberg link to the text.

 

My advisor believed his students should be able to describe their Ph.D.thesis work to a group of smart high school students.  That proved to be one of the most difficult and poorly received talks I've given.  (I've improved over the years:-)  This sort of challenge is becoming more common ..  Alan Alda's Flame Challenge is wonderful..  A question is presented every year and people attempt to explain it to groups of eleven year old students from around the world who then select a winner.    There is the five level challenge..  try explain your work to a grade school, high school, undergrad, and graduate students along with having a meaningful chat with another expert in the field.  My favorite is Neville Sanjana talking about CRISPR.  I think Faraday would have been thrilled.

And finally there's the Dance your Ph.D. competition open to STEM Ph.D.s...  This year's winner was Nancy Scherich with a focus on braid theory - a brach of topology that looks at knots in higher dimensional spaces.  Hula hoops, linear algebra and murder! 

I'm a terrible dancer, but I guess something could have been done with infrared freedom and ultraviolet slavery and the production of charm quarks...  Then again...

 

Now a few questions:

 

How important is it to communicate the beauty of what you are interested in to non-specialists?  How is it usually done and how would you improve it?  And how do you spark and sustain an interest in some?  

 

By the way.  The Christmas Lectures have continued to this day.

 

Lessons and Carols

 

And a late (10^th of December) addition

Music

 

I think songs would be great for science communication.  Although They Might Be Giants have a few good ones, pickings are sparse.  Sadly most scientists are not good singer songwriters and coming up with lyrics that communicate real science is not easy.  

 

There are exceptions.  Henry Reich put some nice lyrics to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star that are sound and current.  They work across ages and levels of astronomy experience.  The first time I heard it I thought I found something wrong, but another listen and some physics told me it was ok.²

 

twinkle twinkle little star
you look small cause you are far
lightyears out from here to there
your light is distorted by the air
so you twinkle twinkle little star
adaptive optics shows you as you are

twinkle twinkle little star
you must be a small pulsar
out away from earth you drift
this is known from you red shift
twinkle twinkle spinning star
degenerate neutrons are what you are

twinkle twinkle little star
supernova, au revoir
you got so big to big perhaps
electron capture core collapse
twinkle twinkle former star
a black holes all you now are

twinkle twinkle little star
wait actually no you’re a meteor
breaking up in the atmosphere
i wish id known you’d end up here
twinkle twinkle shooting star
became a meteorite that hit my car

 

Maybe it is enough to get people thinking and asking questions.    So in addition to dance your Ph.D., I'd love to see a sing your Ph.D. - or just sing your research.   Collaboration with a real singer is ok... witness this version of Howie Day's Collide sung by... Howie Day. The physics is quite up to date - get in touch if you want anything decoded.

 

Just don't get me started on the Big Bang Theory show...

__________

¹  The Faraday Candle Lectures

Introduction to Michael Faraday’s Chemical History of a Candle

Lecture One: A Candle: Sources of its Flame 

Lecture Two: Brightness of the Flame

Lecture Three: Products of Combustion

Lecture Four: The Nature of the Atmosphere

Lecture Five: Respiration & its Analogy to the Burning of a Candle

 

They've also produced a version with commentary if you want more after watching the remade lecture

Lecture One: A Candle: Sources of its Flame (Commentary version)

Lecture Two: Brightness of the Flame (Commentary version)

Lecture Three: Products of Combustion (Commentary version) 

Lecture Four: The Nature of the Atmosphere (Commentary version) 

Lecture Five: Respiration & its Analogy to the Burning of a Candle (Commentary version) 

 

²  Using redshift only works for distant galaxies and pulsars are observed in our galaxy (they're in other galaxies, but are too faint to measure a redshift, let alone detect).  Re-reading 

you must be a small pulsar
out away from earth you drift
this is known from you red shift

It is becomes clear that it is drifting away and we know that by it's redshift..  so the song is correct.