I am a physicist

Miguel Alcubierre

What motivates a person to dedicate himself to physics? What does this discipline
consist of? What are your rewards? A first-hand account that debunks several myths.

My first contact with physics occurred, as it does for almost everyone, in high school. It
wasn't particularly bad, but it wasn't very interesting either. In any case, it was rather
boring. The fault was not with the teachers, whom I remember fondly, but with the topics
on the program: parabolic shot, inclined plane, pulleys and surface tension, you know.
Math was much more fun, although also more difficult. The problem is perhaps that to
study the interesting parts of physics you need to know mathematics, and when you are just
learning mathematics, it seems that there is no other option than to study very boring
physics.

I was about 15 years old when I discovered a wonderful astronomy book: The Dare of the
Stars, by Patrick Moore and David Hardy. The book captivated me with its descriptions of
the Solar System's planets and their satellites, and its futuristic images of spaceships
visiting those worlds and astronauts jumping between asteroids. After reading that book I
decided I wanted to be an astronomer.

In sixth grade, I remained firm in my decision and went to the Faculty of Sciences at
UNAM to ask what one had to do to become an astronomer. It turned out that you had to
study physics first: astronomers are, first and foremost, physicists. This news was not
unpleasant to me, because at that time I had already learned, thanks to the great science
popularizer Isaac Asimov, that there was an area of physics called relativity, developed at
the beginning of the 20th century by Albert Einstein, and which said a lot of surprising
things about the properties of space and time.

After finishing high school, I entered UNAM to study physics, not without remembering
the words of my grandfather, who had died a few years before, and who, upon learning of
my interest in astronomy, had told me with great concern that one would die of hunger
from it.

But what is physics?

We physicists have many experiences to tell about the different reactions of people when
we dare to confess at a social event —horror of horrors!— that we are physicists:

1) "Ahhh, you're a physical education teacher!" some say, to our surprise. But didn't they
go to high school?
2) "I never understood physics classes and always failed," most say, showing that they at
least went to high school. The tone that accompanies this phrase usually implies that those
who did understand physics and did not fail were hopelessly antisocial.

3) "Physical? How interesting. "Ehhh, sorry, I think they're calling me over there," say
others, as they flee in terror. To tell the truth, there is a minority that shows a legitimate
interest, although most of the time it is accompanied by an almost total ignorance of what
physics is. So, dear reader, my first task will be to try to clarify what physics is. Well, it
turns out that physics is, neither more nor less, the science whose task is to discover the
fundamental laws of nature, that is, the laws that govern the behavior of space, time, light,
elementary particles, atoms, etc. If we consider that the various sciences study increasingly
complex sectors of nature, physics is at the base of all the others.

Physics studies the simplest parts of the Universe, its basic constituents. The behavior of
molecules is, of course, much more complicated than that of elementary particles, but that
is what chemists are for. And let's not even talk about the complexity of the behavior of
living beings, but there are biologists. Physics is both less and more ambitious than the
other sciences. Less ambitious as it does not aim to study truly complex phenomena such as
life, and more ambitious as it aims to find the final laws, the ultimate causes from which
everything that exists in the Universe arises.

But if physics studies the simplest systems in nature, why is there a widespread impression
that it is the most complicated science of all? The apparent paradox lies in the fact that,
when studying simple systems, it turns out that physics has managed to formulate
mathematical models to describe them, and everything that sounds like mathematics is
usually perceived as complicated. Mathematics does not deserve this bad reputation. They
are not so complicated if you look at them with a little bit of good will. Mathematics is a
simplified language, although abstract of course, that allows us to carry out logical
reasoning related to magnitudes (that is, numbers), without getting tangled up with words,
which are usually so imprecise for these purposes. If you don't believe me, try to solve with
words one of those problems that say "so-and-so is six years younger than so-and-so and
so-and-so's age is three times that of so-and-so." Chances are they'll make a huge mess of it,
whereas if they do it with algebra it comes out in two lines. Mathematics, moreover, is the
most sophisticated and successful version of a fun game that consists of inventing
completely consistent imaginary universes. It is a real delight to admire the strange and
wonderful properties of the worlds that mathematicians glimpse. Those who are afraid of
mathematics have the misfortune of missing out on one of the most creative and
aesthetically pleasing areas of human endeavor. Mathematics is truly an art.

But let's get back to physics. The rapid development of physics in the last three centuries is
due precisely to the fact that in the 17th century, scientists of the stature of Isaac Newton
(without a doubt the most important physicist of all time) realized that the behavior of
simple physical systems could be described with mathematical models. This freed physics
from the eternal discussions and tangles of words that never led anywhere, and turned it
into a science capable of predicting phenomena in a quantitative manner: beyond just
saying that the stone will fall to the ground if we throw it in the air, physics could now say
how long it would take, and where it would fall. Starting from something as humble as
studying the fall of stones (or apples if one believes Newton's story), physics has allowed
us to understand why planets rotate, why the Sun shines, and why birds fly. Taken to its
logical conclusion, physics has also allowed us to study the very origin of the cosmos, as
well as to glimpse its possible end. During the 20th century, modern physics took us down
unexpected and wonderful paths by showing us that space is curved, that time does not flow
at the same rate everywhere, that energy and matter come in packets, and that elementary
particles sometimes behave as if they were in several places at once.

As Einstein once said, in recent centuries we have discovered that the most
incomprehensible property of the Universe in which we live is that it is comprehensible.

And what is physics for?

Now that we have a better idea of what physics is, we might ask ourselves, what is the point
of doing physics? The most obvious answer is this: understanding nature helps us to control
it, that is, to create technology that makes our lives more comfortable. Scientific knowledge
has allowed us to invent things like the telephone, the radio, television, airplanes,
computers, and yes… also the atomic bomb.

However, this answer is not the only possible one, and in my opinion it is not even a
particularly good answer. Technological applications are a rather secondary product of
science, often fortunate, and other times not so much. At its core, the fundamental reason
for science is the same as that of art: the desire to understand nature and marvel at its
beauty, which is part of what makes us human. We do science because we are curious and
we do art because we are creative. No one with a modicum of sensitivity would ask what
the symphonies of Beethoven or the works of Shakespeare are for.

Science is a fundamental part of human culture, although unfortunately it is not always seen
that way. It is common for very cultured people to be surprised if someone does not know
who wrote Don Quixote de la Mancha, without those same people being able to say what a
galaxy is or what Newton's three laws are, knowledge as elementary in the field of science
as is knowing that Cervantes wrote Don Quixote in literature. This is so common that the
term "intellectual" is often used for someone who knows about literature and art in general,
but not for someone who knows about science. However, science and art are actually sister
disciplines, which have much more in common than is often thought. Science is a deeply
creative activity. While it is true that nature exists independently of us, and the laws of
nature are somehow "out there," waiting to be discovered, the process of scientific
discovery requires great leaps of the imagination. Before "discovering" a law of nature, one
must imagine what the possibilities are. The big difference with art is that, in the case of
science, nature has the last word and it is nature that ultimately decides whether the laws
that humans "invent" are close to the true ones, or whether we should discard them and start
imagining again.

What do physicists do?

"Let's see, let's see, I have some idea of what physics is, but what I don't understand at all
is, what do you do all day?" This question is also common in social situations, once you get
past the barrier of talking about how difficult physics is supposed to be.

Physicists (and scientists in general) divide their activities basically into two areas: teaching
and research (plus an inevitable and growing component of bureaucracy and administration,
phew!). Let's start with teaching, which is a little clearer to everyone. Teaching is a
fundamental part of science. There is no point in spending a lifetime learning from nature if
that knowledge is not passed on to future generations. In science, one thing is very clear:
scientific progress is a matter of centuries and our efforts will only bear fruit in future
generations. Science is not an individual activity, but a collective one. The most one aspires
to is to contribute a new grain of sand to the pile of human knowledge (or with a lot of luck,
if one is an Einstein, a big stone).

Teaching is passing the torch to the next person, to the young people who come after. And
it has, in turn, two aspects. The first is the most obvious, giving courses at the
undergraduate and graduate levels. But teaching also involves training new scientists, and
one does not learn to do research sitting in a classroom. Because of this, teaching also
involves advising graduate students (master's and doctoral), proposing interesting but not
impossible research projects that allow them to learn to do research and become true
scientists. The problem here is knowing what is both interesting and simple enough for a
student to complete the research in a reasonable amount of time. Part of the job of
physicists is to solve this dilemma over and over again with each new student.

But science is not just about teaching. Science is not a dead discipline, where the only thing
left to do is to maintain the knowledge already acquired, but rather an activity where
knowledge is renewed day by day. We scientists never claim to be the owners of the final
answer or the absolute truth about the Universe. On the contrary, we know that, at most, if
we have done our job well, we know a small piece of the answer, and probably only a very
approximate piece. The scientist's job is to discover a little more of the ocean of the
unknown every day. This is called research.

And how do we investigate? There are two fundamental aspects of research that keep the
apparatus of science moving. First of all, we must remember that science is the study of
nature and that if we want to learn something new, we must ask nature, that is, we must
observe it in action. However, observing something like that all at once is extremely
difficult, as natural phenomena are often very complicated and involve many different
processes. Because of this, we scientists prefer to study small pieces, where we can isolate
individual processes in a controlled manner. This is called doing experiments. A good
portion of physicists do this all day long. They are experimental physicists, working with
lasers, or plasma chambers, or particle accelerators, asking nature ever more sophisticated
and specific questions, and trying to learn from its answers.

The realization that in order to learn from nature it was necessary to do experiments is what
marks the main difference between modern science and the science of antiquity. The
ancient Greeks thought that reason was enough, but although they were missing a
fundamental ingredient, they were right in assuming that observing nature is not enough.
Once one has data coming from nature, one must sit down and think about how to organize
that data into a consistent model, into a scheme of nature that not only allows us to explain
all the data, but also allows us to predict the outcome of new experiments not yet
performed. This model of a part of nature is a theory, like the theory of universal
gravitation or the theory of relativity, and another part of physicists is dedicated to this.

Theoretical physicists don't wear white coats or spend their days manipulating complex
instruments. Their work tools are chalk and blackboard, pencil and paper, computer… oh
yes, and lots of coffee. These physicists spend their days learning about recent experimental
results that cannot yet be explained, or reading about the work of their colleagues who have
proposed new ideas. From there, theoretical physicists imagine possible models that can
explain the new experimental results, or that allow us to understand the old ones from a
different point of view. Sometimes, some theoretical physicists manage to build such
beautiful models that they have no choice but to conclude that nature must be like that even
before doing the experiments to confirm it, and on very rare occasions they turn out to be
right. But what does it mean for a scientific theory to be beautiful? Well, it must be
mathematically consistent, elegant, simple, and naturally accommodate known
experimental results. When something like this occurs, which does not happen very often,
the feeling is the same as one experiences when listening to a glorious symphony, and it
can only be described using one word: beauty.

In recent decades, a third branch of physics has emerged, distinct from theoretical and
experimental physics. This is computational physics, and its task is to use the power of
computers to solve mathematical equations associated with physical theories in complex
and realistic situations, for which it is completely impossible to find exact solutions. A clear
example is in aircraft design, where the complex equations of fluid dynamics (air is a fluid)
are solved with the help of computers to find the flow of air around the wings, allowing us
to decide whether a design will work or not without having to build it first. Computational
physics also plays a major role in the study and prediction of climate, in the study of
complex astrophysical systems such as supernovae, and in the study of the properties of
complex molecules.

And finally, some physicists also dedicate themselves to writing articles like this one and
the others found in this magazine. This task is known as science outreach, and it seeks to
make scientific knowledge known to the general public using clear, enjoyable and
accessible language. Without disclosure, scientists run the risk of locking themselves in
their ivory towers and becoming like one of those secret societies that appear in thriller
movies.

Physics has given me the opportunity to know the world and learn that we are all part of the
great human adventure.

Coffee, nonsense and the scientific community

As I was saying, I entered the Faculty of Sciences at UNAM to study physics with the goal
of becoming an astronomer. But during my time at university I learned that physics was
much more interesting than I had imagined. I learned about quantum mechanics, which
studies the behavior of the smallest components of the Universe and tells us that elementary
particles behave in truly strange ways, jumping from one place to another for no reason,
and sometimes appearing to be in many places at once. I also learned about relativity, the
famous theory postulated by Albert Einstein. Relativity, which does not in any way say that
everything is relative, as people often believe, radically changed our conception of space
and time and showed us that the force of gravity is nothing more than simple geometry.
This idea seemed so elegant and beautiful to me the first time I understood it, that it became
my passion. Although I still enjoy astronomy, I now spend my days researching relativity
topics.

But my time at the Faculty of Sciences did not only teach me physics. It also allowed me to
discover the scientific community, starting with my classmates and our countless trips to
get coffee (at the time when we were supposed to be in class). I remember with joy how we
would spend long hours talking nonsense and imagining ourselves as gardeners in some old
castle in Lichtenstein, while my dear friend Sergio drew Martians on napkins and hummed
Schubert's Trout Quintet incessantly. I have never laughed so much in my entire life. Who
said physics wasn't fun? After finishing my degree, physics took me to many other places.
From Cardiff, UK, where I completed my PhD and stayed for six years, to the Max Planck
Institute in Potsdam, Germany, where I worked as a researcher for another five years. I
have spent these years trying to simulate, with the help of the largest computers in the
world, the collision of two black holes in space. But perhaps the most important thing I
have learned is that science is a universal activity, in which nationalities, religions or
borders do not matter. I was once at a conference in India, having dinner with a group of
friends and talking about physics and other things, when I stopped for a moment to count:
out of 12 people sitting at the table, 10 were of different nationalities and we all knew each
other well.

You see, Grandpa: not only have I not died of hunger, but physics has given me the
opportunity to get to know the world, to meet people who were born in the most
unexpected corners of the planet and to learn that all of us – scientists, musicians, writers,
Mexicans, Japanese and Indians – are, ultimately, part of the great human adventure.

Miguel Alcubierre is a physicist, graduated from the Faculty of Sciences of UNAM. He

obtained his PhD from the University of Wales, Cardiff, UK and was a researcher at the
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Golm, Germany. He currently works at the
Institute of Nuclear Sciences at UNAM.