Gadgetory

I want to do that you got it go for it all right sup guys I'm Kim PhD here and welcome to another guest a slightly unusual video but so just to give a little context on what's going on here just shot a video with Startalk and it went pretty well you should go and check it out I'll probably have a link in the description below but I figured while I'm here with Neil and Chuck might as well get a little interview in since it's only fair since you did interview me about two years ago we should reverse roles a little bit I'll talk to you for a little bit good to see we go yeah I could see you again too by the way um you're very nicely you were like 14 or something I was I was pretty young and I feel like that was definitely a big part of what we talked about but I've seen a lot since then and in fact you were 12 years old I played George basically an infant but yeah so this is this is gonna be fun I think the thing that was on my mind just when I had the opportunity to ask you anything is just from a an astrophysicist perspective I mean we look at the tech that we have on a palm of our hands every day and it's it's pretty sweet you know new phones new tablets but a lot of that comes from the higher end the the military technology the space program technology a lot of things eventually trickle their way down into what we're able to hold in our hands are the things that you guys have seen or heard of that maybe we don't know about that's on its way that might end up and our phones or tablets or handhelds someday I'm not authorized [Laughter] why don't I I have some ideas but I'm not very good at predicting the future sure and I have good evidence that I'm not good at predicting the future and I've told this many times Chuck when I'm old enough to remember Star Trek in first-run okay my past II can't what's your past and so there's the warp drives and the photon torpedoes and in this machine we put in a card and then hot food comes out instantly this was an extraordinary view of the future and I say yeah yeah that's all going to happen and there's one thing about Star Trek that I could not imagine and it it took the realism of Star Trek out of it for me and that was the fact that they could just walk up to a door and the door would open how does the door know over here and out of there and it opens and for some reason the warp drives and the photon torpedoes and the transporters were all believable to me or not the auto opening door automatic doors is where you drew the line I had that I I was I so this is all literally before any automatic doors okay so that's why I wouldn't trust my sense of the future here but I do want to give you an acute appreciation for how the past became the future all right so let's go back a hundred years the dawn of our understanding of the atom now how does the atom work I don't know let's probe it we start probing it in the 1920s through particle accelerators and experiments out of this comes quantum physics the quantum on top of that Albert Einstein says mmm using what we know about quantum physics and using what we know about this kind of physics I can put them together calculate I've come up with a new thing that would occur in atoms it's called the stimulated emission of radiation okay no one paid any attention to that paper it was interesting it advanced quantum physics but if you had lawmakers and politicians and people saying why doesn't that help me today why are you doing research has nothing to do with anything put him around back then they would be criticized in quantum physics from beginning to end what a waste of resources you're so smart why are you wasting it on atoms it would take 40 years 50 years before quantum physics would become the very foundation of information technology there is no creation storage or retrieval of information without an understanding of the quantum not only that this obscure research paper that Einstein wrote on the stimulated emission of radiation it would that would take 40 years 40 years later the laser would be invented based on that principle oh what a three of those letters stand for the light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation was Einstein thinking barcodes that's why what a laser cosmetic peel no no so all I can tell you is I don't know what the future will bring but if you stop investing in basic research today you won't have a future so it's being worked on today we should encourage it to be worked on today and don't go up to a scientist and say how does that relate to me today and how is that the only right answer is I have no idea but evidence of the history this exercise tells us that one day it will so there are things that are hugely important to your life and your I mean the collective view that no one knows about yet correct correct all that matters if you're curious is that you're exploring something you do not yet know I'll give it can I give another example I would love it by you my examples okay yeah yeah so far so good because I don't want to be like I'm just kind of absorbing it so okay whatever you usually you do all the talking a lot of times I do but that's scripted that's a lot easier oh well okay okay I'm not scripted I'm just I'm just blathering it works all right my physics professor in college his name was Edward Purcell sounds like a nice guy nice yeah it turns out he was a really nice guy he did calculations that gave us ways to measure the existence and the depth and the composition of gas clouds in space did very important research he also discovered a phenomena manaan where if you put an electromagnetic field across an atomic nucleus okay it will actually change that field according to the mass of the nucleus there's a resonance between the light that passed cross it and the nucleus itself yeah it was called nuclear magnetic resonance got the Nobel Prize for that afterwards a clever medical engineer said wait a minute if you could put this field of course and know the mass of the nucleus and I can differentiate this nucleus from this nucleus I can make a machine put you in the machine make images of all your nuclei and thus was born the magnetic resonance imaging which used to have and but it's one of the n-words that you're not supposed to use nuclear you go into a machine that uses nuclear magnetic resonance but the hospital's figured nobody wants to go in a machine that has nuclear honor so they dropped the end yeah drop the n-word right kept magnetic resonance imager and it's arguably the most potent tool in the arsenal of the medical doctor to diagnose the condition of your body without cutting you open that is based upon a principle of physics discovered by a physicist who had no interest in medicine so quantum physics lasers nuclear magnetic resonance the list goes on the unknown yeah let's do one mine okay do you know the laser alignment that connected the space shuttle to dock with the space station used a certain laser and programming technology that was then adapted for LASIK surgery allowing the laser to align with your eye even if your eye moves so that the cut is always in the right place so so then you might say well why have an 18 billion dollar agency just to invent grooves in a pavement okay we should have the Transportation Safety Board invent this but they didn't yeah we should have other people invented but they didn't this is my point however complex are however simple the germination of an idea does not always come because you legislated and in the agencies that you set up make sure there are cross pollinating pathways without which people stay in their silos of thinking and no truly great discoveries would unfold you can't necessarily decide to tell someone to get an idea or to do something better but when a better idea or a really forward-thinking organization comes along and happens to do it really well spread it share it enable it thanks for watching