I always get a bit stressed before I give a talk, so I was listening nervously to the talk 40 mins before mine, when in ambles Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson. He took a seat at the front left of the room. He is in nineties now so long since retired but clearly drops round sometimes. The workshop is at Princeton where he is an Emeritus Professor. My seventh and eighth slides were on his classic More is Different article from 1972. I did slightly brick myself at that point. But I needn’t have worried, he ambled out after the next talk, so missed mine. I guess I am a bit disappointed, but I was also a bit less stressed.
More is different
More is Different is the title of a famous article (pdf) by Philip W Anderson in Science in 1972. In it he argues that when you go from say one electron or one atom or one molecule etc, to many electrons, many atoms or many molecules, then completely new behaviour governed by new laws of physics arise. Many molecules are different from one. A classic example of this new behaviour is the colour of gold, one gold atom is not gold coloured, only a crystal of many thousands or more gold atom is. Anderson argues for the importance and interest in studying behaviour like this that only happens due to having many atoms or molecules. He was pushing against particle physicists claiming that what was important was discovering the most fundamental particles, and that once they were known, then everything else (e.g., working out why gold is gold coloured) was just routine*.
To be the best, you need the ocean’s hot dog
The American university MIT is ranked at number 1 in the world in engineering and technology, by the Times Higher Education Supplement. They say it is officially the best university in the world at technology. It is also where some of the research that led to the modern fish finger* was done. Coincidence? Probably. I used to really like fish fingers when I was a kid, so I am grateful to MIT.
Ignoring 9,999 proteins and just studying one seems to just about work
In a couple of weeks I will be amongst Princeton‘s dreaming spires, on the other side of the Atlantic. I have been starting to write my talk over the last couple of days. A quick look at the programme suggests I will also be hearing about some work what are called nucleoli — these are structures in the nucleus of cells that make ribosomes; ribosomes are the nanoscale factories that make protein molecules. So they are basically the factories that make the factories that make proteins.
Understanding life with the aid of a Tequila Sunrise
I have never had a Tequila Sunrise, a cocktail made from tequila and orange juice (the top orange layer), and grenadine syrup (the bottom red layer). I like tequila but this cocktail may be a bit sweet for me. But I am writing a talk for a meeting in Princeton, about coexisting liquid phases inside our cells, and am looking for analogous systems. A Tequila Sunrise may be one.
Learning at the Friends of Ham
I have just got back from a conference on crystallisation, held in Leeds. It was great fun. The conference was on how crystals start to form, a process called crystal nucleation. Crystallisation is a process that pops up all over the place. I learnt that some drugs given intravenously come with instructions that when the hospital makes up the solution for the drip, they have to use it within four hours. After that the drug will start to crystallise. That is an example of crystallisation being a problem, as when crystals start to form, the dose can’t be controlled. Drugs are powerful but dangerous things, and if £100 million worth of drug trials have shown that a concentration of X effectively treats patients then that is what you need to give them. A concentration of 0.1X will not help the patient, and a concentration of 10X may poison them.
Why don’t we all turn to stone?
In Greek mythology, Medusa could turn people to stone by simply looking at them. Of course, we are all part stone: our bones contain a mineral called hydroxyapatite that makes them strong enough to bear our weight. This mineral is a form of calcium phosphate. It is highly insoluble, which is good, we don’t want our bones dissolving on us.
When is a crystal not a crystal?
I had thought I had about 3 months to write a paper, but it turns out iI have about 3 weeks. As you can imagine, this has kind of light a fire under my arse. This is especially true as the paper’s current status is: lots of kind of interesting looking data, no conclusion, no clear questions it attempts to either ask or answer, and no words down on paper. The data are on crystallisation. Crystallisation is how crystals form, for example how crystals of salt form when salt water evaporates.
Success and challenges in teaching
It is week four of the second of our two semesters of the teaching year. The exam results from last semester are out, and our final years can see the end of their course in sight. They have only one more set of university exams. Last week was our MPhys Research Year Symposium, where our MPhys students gave talks on what they did during a year doing a research project. As usual the talks I caught (I had to miss some) were excellent. Also last week, I was on a panel interviewing some of our final years for funding for a PhD. For all these reasons I have surrounded by evidence that many of our final years have learnt huge amounts over the last 3 or 4 years. They are transformed in terms of what they can do, and in their self-confidence, from the eighteen-year-olds that arrived a few years ago. As an academic who has taught them, this is really satisfying.
Scientists should listen to Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld is famous for his “unknown unknowns” quote. He has been much mocked for it. Normally, the last thing I would want to do is defend him, but I think this particular criticism of him is harsh. The full quote is:
“… there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”
It comes from a 2002 briefing when he was questioned about the lack of evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Incidentally the Wikipedia page has fascinating discussion of this quote.
Chance & Necessity 