Chris Search, a professor of physics, is one of my favorite Stevens people. I like having him speak to my science-writing students because they love hearing him riff about physics and other science-related topics. I recently interviewed Search for my Scientific American blog. Here is an abridged version of our exchange. —John Horgan, Director, Stevens Center for Science Writings.
Horgan: Why physics?
Search: I was always curious about how things work. When I was young, physics seemed to offer answers to all of the mysteries of the universe. It felt authoritative and unequivocal in its explanations of nature and the origin of the universe. In that sense it was the perfect religion for my teenage self as I went through an atheist phase, which admittedly was probably provoked by all the popular physics books that I was devouring at that age such as A Brief History of Time. Those books were always so dogmatic, like the Catholic Sunday school I went to as a kid.
Horgan: Nice comparison. Any regrets about choosing physics?
Search: No. Over the years my view of physics has evolved significantly. I no longer believe that physics offers all of the answers. It can’t explain why the universe exists or why we are even here. It does though paint a very beautiful and intricate picture of the how the universe works. I actually feel sorry for people that do not understand the laws of physics in their full mathematical glory because they are missing out on something that is truly divine.
The beautiful interlocking connectedness of the laws of physics indicates to me how finely tuned and remarkable the universe is, which for me proves that the universe is more than random chance. Ironically, it was by studying physics that I stopped being an atheist because physics is so perfect and harmonious that it had to come from something. After years of reflecting, I simply could not accept that the universe is random chance as the anthropic principle implies.
I should also add that physics has amazing predictive powers that continue to fascinate me. All of the equations fit so perfectly together that it boggles my mind that I can start from a few simple equations and derive how a new device will function. No other area of human pursuit has the same level of precision and predictive power as physics.
Not only that but physics can and does explain so much of the world we live in. I feel like we are living in a post-scientific age with quackery running rampant because people are so ignorant of science. This ranges from climate deniers who don’t understand basic thermodynamics to much of the new age stuff I see for sale all over the very affluent (and ironically well-educated) town that I live in, which is nothing more than marketing to earn a buck. I feel if people just understood more science and in particular physics they wouldn’t be so easily duped. For this reason, I’m also very grateful for having studied physics since it makes it easier to discern fact from fiction in life, and hopefully I can do that for others.
Horgan: Now I wish I’d taken more than one lousy semester of physics! What are your current interests?
Search: Over the last few years I’ve moved more and more away from basic physics and towards applied physics. I’ve been working on various types of optical sensors, including gyroscopes. I’ve even started a new degree program in optical engineering, which probably means I’ve lost my credentials as a true physicist.
Horgan: You’re too modest. Does your work have any relevance for quantum computing? Speaking of which, do you think we’re going to have commercial quantum computers any time soon?
Search: I certainly hope that I have nothing to do with quantum computing. It is nothing personal against the subject, but I just view it as the research topic du jour. Physics doesn’t change, but what is popular in physics does change, and old physics gets rebranded as new physics. (What we call qubits are nothing more than the two-level systems such as spin-1/2 and two level atoms physicists have studied since the dawn of quantum physics.) I’m very skeptical of doing what is trendy and popular because then you are just playing follow the leader. Everyone jumps into the field, all doing more or less the same stuff because that is where the funding is and that is the easiest way to publish papers. In my opinion, this trendiness leads to a massive amount of invested effort but with very few significant results because what everyone is doing is so similar and overlapping. I suppose it is a form of the law of diminishing returns. The big breakthroughs that fundamentally change our understanding come from the people who follow their own path even when everyone else is running in the other direction. Unfortunately, physics, like other academic fields, usually doesn’t give much support to those who don’t want to play follow the leader.
I think in the future there will be certain very specific applications for simple quantum computers that we may be able to build. However, I don’t think there is any chance that ordinary computers are ever going to be supplanted by quantum ones.
Horgan: Good to know! So what’s your take on string theory and the whole quest for a unified theory?
Search: It is a waste of time. Unless it is testable, which it most likely will never be, then it is no longer even science. I think those people doing string theory forget they are actually doing science, or perhaps they should be sent back to middle school to be reminded of the scientific process. What distinguishes science from other modes of inquiry about the world we live in (e.g. religion and philosophy) is that new theories have to be tested experimentally. If they are not confirmed by experimental results, we discard them.
I think the entire string theory community should take a deep breath and figure out what next to do with their lives. Someday in the distant future when technology has advanced enough or we have nearly infinite energy resources then we may be able to directly test string theory or other unified theories, at which point theoretical work on unified theories may become relevant again.
Horgan: Might physics look different if more non-Western, non-male, non-white physicists were involved?
Search: Physics has without a doubt been a profession of white men in the past. Diversity is still very lacking in physics today. I was reflecting with a friend recently that both as an undergraduate and in graduate school, none of my physics professors were either Black or Latino. They were almost all white and to a lesser extent Asian. There were also only two female professors that I had in my entire education as a physicist. Things don’t seem to have changed that much since I was a student — just look at the Physics department at Stevens. (As a rather stark example of the lack of diversity, in 2013 only 1.7% of bachelor’s degrees in Physics went to women of color according to the American Institute of Physics.)
This question of how physics would look if it were more diverse is therefore hard to answer. One can only speculate. My belief is that different cultural traditions and less homogeneity of thought (i.e. group think) would have led to more diverse avenues of research within physics and would have enriched the philosophical interpretations by drawing on more non-Western philosophies and systems of belief. Such diversity of research directions and interpretations could only have enriched physics and led to developments that we can only imagine. Perhaps we would have by now a working theory of quantum gravity?
Horgan: I’d love to think so. Should physics research, if supported by tax dollars or student tuition, have some practical potential?
Search: Yes. There are simply so many problems facing not just the US but the entire planet these days ranging from climate change to massive wealth and income inequality in this country. It is unconscionable for tenured academic researchers to earn very generous salaries from their faculty positions and research grants and not be using their abilities to help solve some of these problems. Many are doing just that, but one has to wonder how string theorists are contributing to society when even most of the physics community doesn’t understand what they are doing.
Horgan: If you were Physics Czar, would you pull the plug on any projects? Increase funding for any?
Search: I wouldn’t want to comment on specific projects here since I’m not sufficiently familiar with the details and directions of science funding. I do think that this country spends an obscene amount of money on defense, and the Department of Defense has always been one of the biggest funders of science. I often comment in my freshmen physics class that war is good for physics. That is ironic since most college faculty politically lean very decidedly to the left but nevertheless increased military spending usually benefits us professors.
Horgan: What’s your utopia?
Search: My utopia is a fairer society than the one we live in, where everyone has the same opportunities for success and a good life regardless of wealth, gender, or race. This is by far my biggest worry these days.
The American dream is pretty much dead. We do not live in a meritocracy where one gets ahead simply by hard work and talent, rather we live in what someone I read called an inherited meritocracy. The family you are born into is more decisive these days than how hard you work as far as the level of economic attainment you achieve. The color of your skin and the wealth of your family is more important than anything else because these things determine if you can get a high quality K-12 education and can afford to go to an elite university, which opens most of the doors and opportunities that help secure one’s career and economic future. Also, coming from an economically secure family gives young people more options and opportunities because of the economic support they can count on such as the freedom to graduate from college without massive amounts of student debt.
We need to change these things before the oppressive level of inequality in this country destroys it. The problem has many facets ranging from the heartless winner-take-all capitalism that we practice in this country, the very scant and frayed social safety net that has not kept up with the changing economy, the horrific costs of a college education, to government policies such as funding for schools being tied to local property taxes. Even those factors ignore the systemic racism and gender discrimination in our society and economic system, which gives white men like myself so many more advantages and privileges than everyone else.
Horgan: Thanks, Chris.
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