Peter Kalmus

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Physics, society, culture, and the sciences
Forum Physics and Society. Graz. April 2006
Peter Kalmus
p.i.p.kalmus_at_qmul.ac.uk
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The value of basic physics
Satisfy scientific curiosity At the time appeared
remote from practical applications
Basic Fundamental
Applied science
Very important
to Industry to Governments to Tax payer
Easier to justify
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The value of basic physics
Anecdotes Cultural values Training of skilled
manpower Benefits to health Economic
benefits Internationalism The World Wide
Web Benefits from spin-off Some examples
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Healing broken bones
mission
Suppose that in the 1890s we had set up
a Mission-oriented Lab
? Screws, splints, glues, plaster casts
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Healing broken bones
mission
Suppose that in the 1890s we had set up
a Mission-oriented Lab
? Screws, splints, glues, plaster casts
Unlikely to fire electrons in vacuum at a metal
target and discover X-rays. Roentgen 1895
First Nobel Prize. Very unusual that applications
follow so rapidly. Often takes several tens of
years.
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1830s Faraday Electromagnetic induction
Motors, dynamos, ?
Electricity
Electronics
1897 Thomson Electron
?
Vacuum tube ? transistor ? integrated circuit
The whole of modern industry and society depends
on these discoveries in basic physics These
discoveries must have created far more wealth
than the cost of all basic research
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Cultural values
Probably attracts many people into
science Sometimes long time ? part of general
culture Members general public ? claim
interest Many books for general public, ? black
holes quantum
phenomena, etc. Waterstones 100 different
popular physics books Talks astronomy and
particle physics ? popular TV programmes (not
many on basic physics)
? fairly large audiences
London book shop
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Training of skilled manpower
2800 students 80
P. I .P. Kalmus Phys. Bull. 36 (1985), 168,
short summary in Czech. J. Phys B 36 (1986)
Most popular topics were basic physics Applied
less popular
Relativity, gravitation (56) Astronomy,
cosmology, space (39) Elementary particles
(34) Students selected 3 out of 14 topics
Physics graduates in great demand not only high
tech industries but many parts of economy
including finance and government
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Xrays already mentioned
Benefits to health
Many medical diagnostics and some treatments
Dirac antiparticles. Anderson, Blackett ?
positron ? Now PET scans for brain disorders etc.
Radioactive sources, particle accelerators ?
ionising radiation for cancers etc.
NMR important studying chemical bio.
materials MRI now hospital tool
MRI Peter Mansfield Queen Mary Physics student
? Nobel Prize
Superconductivity Kamerlingh Onnes
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pay for whole of basic science
Economic benefits
Already mentioned electricity, electronics
Rutherford ? nuclear energy moonshine Hahn
Meitner ? fission ? power stations Fusion ??
Nuclear reactions 1930s Bethe
Basic understanding of magnetism in solids ?
magnetic materials ? information storage
computers, tape recorders
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Internationalism basic physics
Scientists have always travelled
Scientific collaboration is commonplace.
Very evident Big science Complicated, expensive
facilities (accelerators, telescopes, space
craft, synchrotron light, neutrons sources etc.)

Cooperation is better than rivalry
Prime example CERN laboratory (formed 1954 by
European countries which had recently been
fighting each other) Cold war European,
American and Soviet physicists used each others
high energy laboratories
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The Guardian 27 March 2007
Buried deep in granite under the border between
France and Switzerland, the biggest and most
expensive scientific experiment on earth is
nearing completion. Working at temperatures
colder than deep space, the 27km-long Large
Hadron Collider (LHC) will, when it is first
fired up next year, reshape what is known about
the origins of the universe. The flagship project
of CERN, the international particle physics
laboratory whose expertise is so wide-ranging
that it invented the world wide web as a sideline
and gave it away free, the LHC is an uplifting
example of international cooperation achieving
what no single country could manage it brings
together 6,400 scientists from around the globe.
The aim is to find and explore dark matter, the
unknown type of matter which dominates the
universe. CERN's scientists talk of finding new
dimensions. The specialism is so extraordinary
that the consequences are near impossible for
non-experts to comprehend but what is found at
CERN in the next few years could change the
world.
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pay for whole of basic science
The World Wide Web
1988 (before www) 130,000 internet users 1989
Tim Berners-Lee invented Web 1993 CERN gives www
away free 1999 56 million users of Web 2005
11.5 billion web pages
So that CERN physicists could share results
Now Web totally dominated by non scientific items
Next The GRID
The data deluge. Physicists, astronomers,
prominent developers
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Benefits from Spin-off
Often earliest most visible signs to
non-specialist
Scintill. crystals, wire chambers ?
radiography Particle accelerators ? industrial
radiography, non-destructive testing, food
sterilisation Synchrotron radiation ? brilliant
Xray sources for materials science, chem. and
biological studies Liquifacton of gases ? large
cryogenic industries
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Some examples
Lasers Planck quanta, Einstein stimulated
emission Relativity Einstein. GPS system (SR
GR). Atomic clocks Particle accelerators Nuclear
data (fission and fusion) radiography, oil and
gas surveys, semiconductor ion implantation Crysta
l structure Bravais 1845, Bragg, DNA,
proteins Synchrotron radiation Materials science,
biology, chemistry .
Next free
electron laser ?? Solid state electronics
Transistor. Microchips The nanoworld Rohrer,
Binnig STM.
.
Kroto, Curl, Smalley Buckyballs
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Final thoughts

• Basic physics is of great value to society
• Often takes many years for this value to be
  realised
• Basic physics should be supported in
  universities . and laboratories by
  Governments and Industry

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1.      The role of physics in the context of
society, culture, and the sciences. What are
the specific tasks physics has to fulfil in
society? Are these tasks culture-dependent? Is
the presently available knowledge in physics
sufficient to fulfil these tasks (compared to
other sciences)? Who needs physics and
why?Should physics be measured mainly by its
applicability or should it be regarded as a value
in itself? What should be the weight of physics
compared to other sciences?How should be the
relation of physics with the humanities and arts?