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4h8m
The story of how Higgs predicted his mechanism was part of what got me into physics as a kid. It fit 10 year old me's obsession with the 'soft-spoken genius' archetype perfectly and formed a pillar in my belief that 'genius' was made through hard work (and some amount of luck) rather than being born with it.
The announcement of the detection at the LHC is a core memory of mine, I still distinctly remember where I was, what I was doing and very excitedly trying to explain how cool it was to my parents at the time.
That is awesome, we need some more amazing scientists in the public eye to inspire the young. I know there are a lot of amazing scientists, but somehow need to get them on tiktok or something? Can you share the story?
My parents had a hard time explaining my dad's job to me, so they just told me he was a scientist because he had a masters in physics (he was a diplomat). Like any little kid, my parents were my heroes, so of course this led me to becoming obsessed with scientists and reading up on science stuff, eg trying to read my sister's university textbooks.
I developed a hobby of reading up on and sharing factoids I found online, and found one about the 'god particle'. At first I thought it was cool because it seemed to basically talk about a particle that causes mass (of course, this was actually wrong, but that didn't really matter to a 10 year old), but reading about how it was predicted 40-50 years ago and the largest single machine humanity had built was being used to try to find it made it my favorite factoid and I'd excitedly start talking all about it the moment anyone showed even the slightest bit of interest.
In 2012 when the detection was announced, we were on a short 2-3 day vacation in Dubai and were having breakfast in the hotel. The TV was right next to us, and seeing the news I was trying (and failing) to explain to my parents how the Higgs boson had been predicted 50 years ago and it took that long for the technology to finally catch up to be able to verify it, and how this would represent one of the last remaining pieces of the standard model (although back then I didn't quite grasp that the standard model was not a full theory of everything). I was trying to explain to them the size of the LHC, how it was the biggest single machine we've built, how when they were turning it on for the first time, there were fears about it creating micro-black holes which might swallow the Earth.
I think that while we need scientists in the public eye, we don't need them as social media entertainers, a lot of well known science communicators on social media come off as attention-seeking charismatic fakes/frauds to me (eg NDT). Stuff like the interviews and documentaries Stephen Hawking had appeared in (or to a lesser extent, the ones Michio Kaku has appeared in) did much more for me in being inspired, even without having known what research they were known for.
I think we could also do with more books like Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' and encouraging kids to read them. Also, instead of over-simplifying everything and passing off scientists as geniuses in the traditional sense, we should be more open in showing that the people who made these discoveries or predictions were not inherently born with it, the vast majority of them were completely normal people who worked very hard to build skills in the thing they enjoyed.
Another discovery I feel was somewhat similar is that of discrete time crystals, casually predicted in 2012, turned out to actually be possible in 2018 and has a similar 'cool' factor.
how is ndt a fake/fraud?
Some of the concerns are documented here: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson
He switched PhD programs from Texas to Columbia and some people thought he took too long or something
He gives me a similar feeling to say, SBF did prior to the FTX collapse. This isn't to say he's a scammer like SBF, but rather that he has a similar hard to describe 'dishonest' air around him, where I feel he's deliberately trying to make himself seem smarter than he is for the sake of the attention alone, which makes me distrustful of him. I'm not really sure how to describe the feeling besides "attention-seeking charismatic fakes/frauds", but as another example, Bill Nye also gives me the same feeling.
His X shenanigans don't help either, where he has a reputation of engagement farming by posting dumb somewhat condescending "but akschually" type comments on things people are enjoying. Eg, when the last American total solar eclipse happened in 2017, he posted something along the lines of "ignore people when they tell you eclipses are rare", it's technically correct that eclipses happen fairly often, but he obviously had to know that what makes them exciting is that they're rare for the location the viewers are at. It's become somewhat of a meme to call someone NDT when they're being a buzzkill.
I get your sentiment, but I think it's important for science communication to adapt to the times. Decades ago (and even as little as one decade ago), most scientists (maybe Hawking being the exception) who would dare appear in these 1hr documentaries would be belittled by the "hardcore" scientists with the same words you used "Science should not be over-simplified like that", "they are not real scientists, they just want to be on TV", etc.
The truth is that young people are mostly on TikTok et al, so this type of content needs to get there.
Won’t say that TikTok audience is a pound where you’ll find future scientists. I’ll invest on promoting alternative spaces both virtual and local best.
Yeah that's a fair point. As an early career scientist myself now and as someone not that interested in current social media trends, I certainly do risk being in the same spot as those 'hardcore' scientists.
Great story! Thanks.
I think a difficulty with science communication is that it is very rare to have someone who is both a great scientist and great science communicator, and even with the ability, it is difficult for them to devote enough time and focus to be great at both. Feynman was, if flawed in some ways as a communicator. Hawking was, but I got the sense that at some point later in his life his focus on communication to the public limited his ability to continue doing research rigorously (after somewhat idolizing him as a child, as a graduate student I went to a research talk he gave to the theory side of our department, possibly in the context of TAPIR, that was both embarrassing and depressing, as it both felt like he really wanted to keep doing good research and very clearly couldn't manage to, and it seemed like everyone in the room knew it, including him). Einstein, despite having the ability to draw a public audience, arguably wasn't a great communicator.
On the other side, while yes, NDT is problematic, I think there is a value to people who are great science communicators without being great scientists. Sagan was arguably a great science communicator and not a great scientist per se. But his communication to the public was inspiring and educational, with enough rigor but not too much complexity, with a sense of wonder but not too far into speculation presented as science, with intuitive explanations but without too disastrously overburdened metaphors. There's the view that his talent for communication and broad intuitive understanding was such that even his contributions to research came primarily from his ability to be, in Kuiper's words about him, a "liaison between sciences". But even when just to the public, someone devoted to that sort of work, and good at it, is not less valuable than a scientist.
Specific to Particle physics and Peter Higgs, this book (https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/frank-close/elusive/978166...) by Frank Close is fantastic.
What makes you think he wasn't born with it?
I can see in own kids that each one is built differently, with different inmate propensities despite similar environment.
Most childhood prodigies don't end up being all that different from the average person as an adult, and of course no one's born with the knowledge of some revolutionary discovery in their head.
While all of us have things we find easier to do than the average person, short of a literal mental disability, we can build up skills in things we are not good at through practice. I used to barely pass in math class and didn't even understand the concept of negative numbers until 8th grade. A year of practicing daily for 2 hours after school, and my fundamentals had gotten good enough that I unknowingly derived a calculus-based solution to some problems I was stuck at, 2 grade levels before when I'd actually start learning calculus and got to skip a year as a result.
Similarly, I've been teaching myself to draw despite having been pretty terrible at it and discovering how 'deliberate' most professional artists have to be with practice and building skills.
I think it's pretty common for people to write off their inability to do something as just a lack of innate ability, when it's really just that no one really sees the struggle anyone famous for their work/skill has gone through to get there.
But there definitely is a wide variation in peak capability. I have been playing keyboard instruments almost my whole life, and while I can play relatively complex pieces, I've never gotten at the level of professional musicians, let alone the greats. It's true they wouldn't have gotten where they are without practicing, but practicing is just not enough.
But has the goal you've been aggressively working towards been to reach those levels? or have you been playing just for the enjoyment of playing?
Not to suggest that the latter is wrong, just interested in your actual goal. In teaching myself to draw (anime art specifically), I'm aiming to reach a professional level, but am not interested in becoming a professional artist. The only factor I've felt would limit my ability to achieve this is time commitment (since research is pretty time consuming already). I'm not interested in committing as fully to it as someone who makes their living off art, so I don't expect to match them in all ways. So, for instance, while I expect to eventually be able to match in terms of overall result, I expect to not be anywhere near as fast as a professional can be.
People with innate ability almost always take it for granted.
I think the point is that if one aspires to be a figure like Higgs, one can't just coast on "innate propensities". It requires fiendishly hard work.
That really resonates with me. When I was a kid I got complimented a lot for being smart, especially when I did something quickly and easily. This trained me pretty well in seeming smart, but really discouraged me from things that required hard work or persistence through failure. It took me years to get over that.
Some have higher inmate propensities than others. ;)
With a layperson in mind, curious about physics, do you recommend any resource (hopefully not too math-intensive) to learn how the higgs boson actually "gives mass" to stuff?
https://www.amazon.com/Massive-Missing-Particle-Sparked-Grea...
Since you said 'not too math-intensive', I figure you're fine with getting more details and background than usual just without having to parse equations, in which case PBS Space Time is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Q4UAiKacw
Sean Carroll's pandemic era youtube series "The Biggest Ideas in the Universe"[1] goes into scalar fields and some gauge theory, but I don't remember if he covers the Higgs mechanism. Might be in one of the Q&A videos.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3j...
Did you succeed with your parents? It's hard to be excited about theoretical physics as a layman. It has been a long time since any of those theories had any practical application.
They still aren't all that interested in this stuff, and on their advice I ended up studying computer engineering instead of physics, but I've still found myself working at one of the other labs with big particle accelerators, as a researcher who can link the computing side with enough of the physics side to work with physicists.
They don't fully understand what I do and don't really care too much about the details, but when they saw pictures of where I worked, they did immediately bring up that I used to go on and on about something that seemed similar, so they at least did understand what I liked.
I guess the closest they get to being interested in theoretical physics is that my Dad, having run through his stash of novels during covid, eventually read my left-behind copy of A Brief History of Time, and occasionally quotes it when he's in the mood to wax philosophical. My Mom instead tries to keep up with my other interest of space exploration/astronomy.
Same, same, and same, + currently working on one of the LHC detectors as a phd student -- but it can all be traced back to the lore of the golden age of particle physics and the discovery of Brout–Englert–Higgs boson in 2012.
Some of my professors during my physics BS worked with the LHC during the mad scramble to find the particle. I remember people saying tongue in cheek "The Higgs particle doesn't exist, but it's inside this energy range."