Interview with a Nobel Laureate in Physics

We further wish to thank Dr. Wieman for taking time out of his busy schedule of teaching and speaking engagements to answer our questions.

Learn more about Dr. Wieman
  • Dr. Wieman's Biography
  • More Information about Dr. Wieman

 

An Interview with Carl Wieman
Nobel Laureate in Physics

EDITOR: Do you recollect the first time, in your childhood, when your passion for math and physics surfaced?

WIEMAN: I cannot remember very specific things, but I do remember liking math in grade school. Also, one of my earliest memories is one of great satisfaction in figuring out that if there were sixty minutes in an hour and a clock face had twelve numbers on it marking the hours, there should be five minute marks between each hour marker. I was about four at the time and had not learned about division. I still remember the thrill of figuring this out, and then running into the kitchen to check the wall clock to find out that my calculation was correct. So, I guess even at that early age, I appreciated the value of an experiment
to test ones theoretical predictions. I also remember my 7th grade science teacher Ron Tobias, teaching me about the arrangements of electrons in atoms and how that determined what chemical compounds they could form. I found that very exciting. Now, some 40 years later, I am still playing with atoms.

EDITOR: Please give us an example of one thing your parents did to encourage your interest and passion for learning that you feel contributed the most to your success.

WIEMAN: Probably the most important thing my parents did to encourage me was to NOT get a television. We lived way out in the woods and once a week we would drive into town (nearly an hour away) to buy groceries. On those trips my parents always took us to the public library. Although we lived far outside the city, they must have persuaded the librarians to not only let me check out books, but to also let me take far more than the official limit. I would take home a large pile of books every week and devour them. I read about everything, not just science and math.

EDITOR: You are obviously good at math. As math skills are critical in our fast changing, technology-rich world, can you share with us your ideas for how parents can present math education in an exciting way to their children?

WIEMAN: It is obvious that math skills are important for almost everything in our high tech world. I sort of take mine for granted and therefore have not given much thought as to how to best to teach them. In my case, I usually found math as far more exciting when I saw how it could let me solve real world problems and answer questions that I could not figure out without math. My advice, based only on my personal feelings, would be to present math in the context of how it can be used to solve realistic problems. Of course that is probably not the best approach for everyone. I know people who think the wonderful thing about math is its abstract beauty and pure logic removed from the real world. However, I suspect that a variety of approaches might work, and I would hesitate to say what the "best" approach would be for all students, or even that there is a "best" approach. It is important though for every child to appreciate how math applies to real world situations and how it can be used to answer important questions. Math is not the only thing that is important though. I probably did better on tests of verbal skills than math skills as a student, and this is very often the case among successful physicists.

EDITOR: On your quest to prove the Bose-Einstein Condensation Theory there must have been times when the tasks at hand seemed repetitious and daunting. What did you do to maintain a positive focus and keep your project alive?

WIEMAN: I always tell beginning graduate students that one of the key characteristics for being a successful experimental physicist is having a very high threshold for frustration. Having a strong sense of optimism is probably a close second. As many people can tell you, including every student I have ever worked with, I tend to be wildly optimistic about how easy and how much time will be required to do anything. So it helped me to be rather unrealistic as to how daunting the task actually was. However, when you are working on an interesting scientific challenge it is never repetitious. Every time you try a new experiment, even if the experiment does not turn out like you hoped, it tells you something new. Then, using this new information, you figure out what to try next. Sometimes it is obvious what to try next and other times very tough. However, working at the frontiers of research means that you cannot know how things will always turn out, and there are times when you just have to give up and try some other approach or switch to work on a new topic. Knowing when you should keep plugging away trying to get the experiment or approach to work, and when you should give up and try some new direction is a very important skill in research, and in life. I don't really know how you learn it except through experience and reflection on yours and others past experiences.

Learn more about the Bose-Einstein Condensation Discovery:
http://jilawww.colorado.edu/bec/

EDITOR: Winning a Nobel Prize is an incredible achievement! What advice can you give parents who wish to help their children create a "Nobel" worthy future?

WIEMAN: Not being a parent myself, I am very wary of offering advice on the enormously complicated task of raising a child. I stick to much easier jobs, like doing physics! However, there is some advice that I recently gave to students entering college, and perhaps it might have some relevance here.

1. Work hard and learn as much as you can. There is never going to be enough time in life to do everything you will want to.

2. Take responsibility for your learning. Very soon after you finish college there is no class or grade that will matter, but what will always matter is your ability and desire to learn new things. Keep that principle in mind as you go through your education and learn because something is worth knowing, not because it satisfies some official requirement or will get you a good grade.

Learn More about winning a Nobel Award:
http://www.nobel.se/

We wish to thank the Nobel Foundation for providing the biographical information for this interview."

 

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