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

Down with Light Pollution

I admit that I don't like light pollution because it spoils the beauty of the nighttime sky. It obscures the majestic swath of stars across the sky that make up our Milky Way Galaxy (yes, this is what our naked eyes would see without light pollution - but a tad dimmer) and washes out the delicate structure of galaxies and nebula as seen through the telescope. Because of light pollution, many people are unaware that the Andromeda galaxy appears larger than the moon in our skies and can be seen with the naked eye.


The most useful lighting radiates downward illuminating our yards, roads, and parking lots. However, lighting that is poorly designed can radiate in all directions, thus wasting that 50% of the light that goes up into the sky and pollutes our view.

There are several negative consequences. Most obviously, energy is wasted. With simple reflectors that direct lighting downward, half the wattage is required to get the same amount of useful illumination.

Bright street lights that are not aimed downward can temporarily impair a driver's vision. Our campus at Washington State University has lighting in several places near crosswalks that is blinding to drivers and obscures pedestrians. I once almost hit a pedestrian at such a crosswalk.

As we age, our pupils respond more slowly under changes in lighting; so, older drivers that leave brightly-lit shopping centers have trouble adjusting to lower light levels as they leave the parking lot. Several accidents have been attributed to this effect.

Contrary to the claim of business owners that bright lights attract customers, studies show that glaring lights are less inviting and result in fewer customers. Many municipalities believe that bright lights reduce crime; but, cities that have reduced lighting levels have found crime rates to either stay the same or decrease. Ironically, the lighting at our local Walmart is of the full cutoff type, which sends the least amount of lighting upward.

Bright night lighting has other negative impacts on the environment. City lights are known to disorient migrating birds and have been found to be responsible for the demise of whole flocks of confused animals that flew into structures such as buildings.

Night lighting is also known to adversely affect our circadian rhythm, which requires periods of dark. The biological effects of bright nighttime lighting has also been associated with increased incidence of certain types of cancer.

Turns out that there is one other reason for eliminating light pollution. A form of nitrogen oxide in our atmosphere breaks down chemicals from vehicle exhaust and other man-made sources. However, this compound is destroyed by the sun, so this natural cleaner works only at night. Researchers at NOAA and CIRES found that light pollution also destroys the nitrate compound, so its cleansing effect is lost.

Let's fight light pollution so that we can save energy, decrease greenhouse gasses, protect wildlife, improve our health, and allow nature to clean the pollution that we create. All it takes is light fixtures that direct lighting downward. The icing on the cake is that decreased light pollution will allow us to once again stare in awe at the beauty of our universe, allowing photons that originated millions of light years away in other galaxies to directly tickle our optic nerves.

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