A Small World

I always marvel at what we call science.  I am not referring to a collection of knowledge that is catalogued in textbooks, but rather the dynamic collective intellect that lives in the minds of its practitioners, able to adapt like a powerful fluid, tackling tough problems and seeking to understand the most profound puzzles of the universe and existence.

Science is built on a world-wide network of individuals who have a passion for the truth and work tirelessly in its pursuit.  Much of the work is done in solitude, with occasional interactions with others that leads to new ideas and insights that diffuses through that network.  This global mind greatly exceeds that capacity of the sum of its parts.

This morning I got an email from a senior colleague that reminded me of my privilege of being a small cell in this magnificent organism.  That email included two photos of me as an undergraduate working at Fermilab in the summer of 1977.  In those formative early years, my mind was drinking that wonderful nectar of physics at the quickest rate ever and built the foundations that I continue to call upon.

The work at Fermilab might not seem all that glorious.  I strung cables through conduits under hot, dusty and humid conditions, operated cranes that moved multi-ton detectors, cut my hands while working sheet metal to shield the detectors and calibrated photo tubes.  The point of it all was to study the interactions between quarks, and that made the work glamorous in my mind.

In today's post-fact world, this email reminded me of the glorious bubble in whcih I live, only occasionally surfacing to be disgusted by current events.  Below is that email and the photos are shown here to the right.  The only correction is that I was an undergraduate at the time, not a grad student.

To all my fellow scientists, I appreciate you all!

On 3/26/2020 4:30 AM, Manolis Dris wrote:

Dear  Mark, I  remember  you  from  my  years with the Univ. of Pa.

I  was stationed at Fermilab, working in the group of  the  late  Walter Selove.

I returned to Greece 1980.

I retired several years  ago from the National Technical Univ. of  Athens. I  work with the ATLAS experiment at  CERN, now  not  much.

I  am Professor  Emeritus (my  age  77+  years). I  remain  at  home  and  decided to organize  some  of  my  old  photographs.

I  found  your  name  from Wallter Kononenko (UPenn).

I  have  two  pictures of  you  one  with Larry Cormell and  the  other  with  me (my  face is  not  visible).

I  remember  you  as  a  young  man with a  laugh in  your  face. I  noticed  from  your  resent  photo in  your  site that your laugh is  till with  you.

Congratulations  for  your excellent carrier. BRAVO.

I  have  always problem how  to  explain to  students about  photons as  quanta (localization etc) etc

I  advised them  to  wait till  they  learn more  about quantum optics so  they  will  be  able  to learn  little  more. Most  of  us  know  something  about  the  subject

from general physics  and classical more or  less optics.

I  am  proud  to know  you.

Keep  up  the  good  work.

Manolis  Dris

 

 

Dear Manolis,

    Your email has really brightened my day!  Our University is
    basically shut down due to Covide-19, so we are all working from
    home; how wonderful that we can communicate around the world by
    email.  It's nice seeing my younger self and amazing to me that I
    did not look as tired as I recall feeling after working so many
    hours with so little sleep.
  
    I am 61, getting close to 62, and still working.  Physics continues
    to be my passion.  How many people can love what they do after so
    many years?  It must have been great fun working on the ATLAS
    experiment, which had such profound results!
   
    Incidentally, my first graduate student was from Greece and she
    stayed in the US, eventually becoming a senior director at a large
    biotech company.  Hopefully someone will send her future self a
    picture from grad school.  Small world...
 
    I am so happy hearing from you and wish you all the best in the
    future.

 
    Best Regards,

    Mark   

-- 
Mark G. Kuzyk
Regents Professor of Physics
Meyer Distinguished Professor of Sciences
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-2814

Phone: 509-335-4672
Fax: 509-335-7816

Web Page: www.NLOsource.com

Health Effects From 5G Networks

5G is a high bandwidth cellular service that is coming to our area, so our local government is holding hearings for community input.  One can argue that the new antennas are ugly, but those that are vehemently opposed to the upgrade on arguments of purported ill health effects don't have evidence on their side.

I wrote an op ed piece for our local paper on the topic, but the corona virus is getting all the attention so my piece might not appear.  I am pasting a copy below for those of you who may be interested in the topic or who are concerned about their health.  In a nut shell, don't worry!

My piece (submitted to the Moscow-Pullman daily News):

Important policy decisions about 5G need to be informed by the science.  Rather than debating the science, we should use the scientific consensus, or better yet, consilience.  But how can the average citizen determine what is true?  What is the scientific consensus?  Which “expert” should we believe? 

The most reliable experts are those whose own scientific careers are dedicated to research areas that have bearing on the topic.  Highly regarded scientists produce knowledge that forms the foundations on which future researchers or technologists build.  The least reliable sources are those that cheery pick data to support their desired conclusions, claim that the consensus view is wrong without proof, or call upon conspiracy theories.

Why do I discount claims that 5G has adverse health effects?

First, I apply the smell test to see if the claims make sense.  In high-density population centers, all human-made sources of electromagnetic waves add up to a mere 1/1000 the light intensity of the sun (also an electromagnetic wave) at the earth’s surface.  Man-made electromagnetic sources don’t have that much oomph.  Or consider cells in our body that are kept at a toasty 98.6^o F or so.  The energy imparted to cells and molecules due to thermal buffeting at this temperature is huge compared with the energy of electromagnetic waves produces by technology.  How huge?  Like a freight train barreling down the tracks compared to a bee leisurely searching for nectar.  How can 5G have adverse health effects if other ambient influences are so huge in comparison?

Next, we can go to the literature.  However, individual papers can be unreliable, and many of the studies report only on correlations.  But, correlation does not prove causation, as can be Illustrated with examples such as the near-perfect correlation with the diagnosis of autism and organic food sales; or the more humorous one of deaths due to falling televisions being correlated with undergraduate enrollment at US universities.  Talking an arithmetic average of the results of such correlational studies also makes little sense.  The task of interpreting the literature as a whole is compounded by the fact that journals are biased against null results; “a black hole is found at the center of our galaxy,” is a much more exciting headline that is more likely to be published than “researchers cannot find any black holes.”

The best summary of the literature can be found in meta studies, which aggregate the results from many publications to extract a more reliable connection between cause and effect.  These studies start by setting criteria for selecting a paper for inclusion, such as requiring a minimum sample size to improve statistics, demanding double-blind studies to remove bias, and excluding work based on surveys in which variables are not well controlled.  These criteria must be chosen BEFORE the researcher looks at any specific paper to avoid introducing a selection bias that favors a particular result.  Such studies show no adverse health effects of 5G.

Finally, I look for experiments that control the cause and observe the effect directly.   Hyperelectrosensitivity, a purported sensitivity to electromagnetic waves, is simple to test in double-blind experiments.  In such studies, subjects are exposed to electromagnetic stimuli at random times and their reactions recorded.  Both the subjects and the researchers are unaware of the timing of the stimulus to avoid cues that are perceived by the subjects and prevent the scientists from applying their own biases.   There is no observed correlation between the presence of an electromagnetic wave and the subjects’ reaction.  But show the subject a cell phone, and they react.  No well-controlled double-blind studies shows hyperelectrosensitivity (see tinyurl.com/rumdkvv).

In response to my letter of February 7^th, George Bedirian points to Americans for Responsible Technology (ART) as “a science-based grassroots organization.” Their website cherry picks publications that support ART’s position and ignores the rest.  One of their founding principles is, “We reject the rush to roll out 5G technology across America.”  No individuals are associated with the website and no reasoned arguments are offered.  The only input accepted from a visitor is a monetary donation.  This is not a science-based organization.

The real benefits of 5G in telemedicine, information and entertainment far exceed the health risks, which are almost certainly non-existent.