Since I met Sean Carroll about a year ago, my life has changed for the better. In particular, I started following his wife @JenLucPiquant on Twitter and began reading her Scientific American blog, Cocktail Party Physics, a great place to get the latest news on physics – with a twist. Today, through one of Mrs. Ouellette’s RTs (re-tweets), I came across a fascinating article on Feynman, titled `Richard Feynman: Life, the universe and everything.‘

The article goes into some detail about the unusual life Feynman led, describing some of its high points without shying away from the idiosyncratic aspects of the master physicist’s life. Described in the article is this colorful animation that a graphic designer made of a brief excerpt from the now famous BBC interview of Feynman (The pleasure of finding things out):

As the Telegraph article describes, the little animation has gone viral, spreading the message that science actually adds to our ability to appreciate beauty in the world: Unlike popular belief would have us think, science is not dry, it is not cold, not clinical, or simply analytical, devoid of emotional impact on the ones that have devoted their lives to pursue it. Science is the one honest, brave (and obviously awesome) answer humanity has come up with to the burning question:

What just happened here?

The truth is that science always begins with the following answer: I don’t know. That is the honest part. Then comes the desire to know, otherwise known as curiosity. Whereas many of us will say of certain things: We can’t possibly know this, the scientist will say: I will try anyways. That is the brave part. Because some questions lead to answers that we don’t really want to accept – we are afraid that the answer may break something inside of us, something we invested time to construct, something we cherish, something important like the feeling of accomplishment for effortlessly appreciating the sublime beauty of a flower.

And then, of course, there is that thing about science being hard to do. It is. You can try to bs your way through science, and some do try, but then you might as well be a car salesman and make some good money in the process (actually, I met an honest car salesman just three weeks ago and I am still not sure what to make of it – he works for a Mini Cooper dealership in L.A. and that is all I am allowed to say in order to protect him and his family.)

But this is only half of the story…

The question that (too many) scientists are afraid to ask themselves is the following: What if my science doesn’t speak for itself? What if my science seems super-boring to others, or simply pointless (like studying fruit flies)? What if I actually need to go out into the unknown (the world that lies outside the Ivy Tower) in order to engage the public, to get the world excited about my discoveries?

Aristotle, the grandaddy of analytical thinking, wrote the most influential treatise on Rhetoric (the art of persuasion) for good reason. So here is my thesis: Every other Sunday morning, every church hosts a scientist to give a public lecture (no boring, arcane jargon allowed) on subjects ranging from the Big Bang Theory to the Theory of Evolution and Stem Cell research. No need to try to reconcile science with religion during the lecture, or be combative – just a good story based on scientific findings – let the audience decide if they want more. All I am saying is: Give it a try. Like pastors, there are scientists out there who love to tell a good story and provide some food for thought (and maybe raise some money from the parish for their good work). We can even use animations like the one above, or this one from PhD Comics.

What do you think?

Most readers of this blog already know that when it comes to physics, I am faking it. I am a mathematician, after all, and even that is a bit of a stretch. So, what force of nature could convince me to take graduate level Quantum Mechanics during my years of pursuing a doctorate in Applied Mathematics?

After graduating from MIT with a degree in Mathematics with Computer Science (18C), I found myself in the following predicament: I was about to start doing research on Quantum Computation as a PhD candidate at UC Davis’ Department of Mathematics, but I had taken exactly two physics courses since 9th grade (instead of Chemistry, Biology and Physics, I had no choice but to take Anthropology, Sociology and Philosophy throughout high school; which I blame for starting a fashion line…) The courses are well-known to MIT undergraduates – 8.01 (Classical Mechanics) and 8.02 (Electromagnetism) – since they are part of MIT’s General Institute Requirements (GIRs). Modesty and common sense should force me to say that I found the two MIT courses hard, but it would not be true. I remember getting back my 8.01 midterm exam on rocket dynamics with a score of 101%. I didn’t even know there was a bonus question, but I remember the look on my friend’s face when he saw my score and Prof. Walter Lewin announced that the average was 45%. It doesn’t take much more than that to make you cocky. So when my PhD adviser suggested years later that I take graduate Quantum Mechanics with no background in anything quantum, I accepted without worrying about the details too much – until the first day of class…

Prof. Ching-Yao Fong (Distinguished Professor of Physics at UC Davis) walked in with a stack of tests that were supposed to assess how much we had learned in our undergraduate quantum mechanics courses. I wrote my name and enjoyed 40 minutes of terror as it dawned on me that I would have to take years of physics to catch up with the requirements needed for any advanced quantum mechanics course. But out-of-state (worse, out-of-country) PhD students don’t have the luxury of time given the fact that we cost three times as much as in-state students to support (every UC is a public university). So I stayed in class and slowly learned to avoid the horrified looks of others (all Physics PhD candidates), whenever I asked an interesting question (thanks Dr. Fong), or made a non-sense remark during class. And then the miracle happened again. I aced the class. I have already discussed my superpower of super-stubbornness, but this was different. I actually had to learn stuff in order to do well in advanced quantum mechanics. I learned about particles in boxes, wavefunctions, equations governing the evolution of everything in the universe – the usual stuff. It was exhilarating, a whole new world, a dazzling place I never knew! In all my years at MIT, I never took notes on any of my classes and I continued the same “brilliant” tactic throughout my PhD, except for one class: Quantum Mechanics. I even used highlighters for the first time in my life!

It was a bonafide love affair.

Thinking about it years later, comfortable in my poly-amorous relationship with Paul Dirac (British), Werner Heisenberg (German), Erwin Schrödinger (Austrian) and Niels Bohr (Danish), I realize that some people may consider this love one-sided. Not true. Here is proof: Dirac himself teaching quantum mechanics like only he could.

Note: The intrepid Quantum Cardinal, Steve Flammia, scooped us again! Check out his post on the Dirac lectures and virtual hangouts for quantum computation lectures on Google+.

Of course they aren’t geeks! That was it…the whole purpose was to crack the image of the so-called “geek”. Having known that, since I was a Caltech alum turned filmmaker, I would get the stereotype and know the culture, Spiros came up to me 6 months ago and asked me if I could create a set of videos for outreach. These would be targeted towards getting high school kids more interested in science. Another facet of the videos would be to celebrate what we do here at Caltech and present it to be as “cool” as it really is. That began the talk of how many American kids these days stereotype science to be nerdy and “uncool”. With the recent advent of shows like Numb3rs and The Big Bang Theory, it is becoming more hip and popular to be a quintessential “nerd” or “geek”, but still a lot more work needs to be done to translate this effect into increasing the numbers of enrollment in science degrees. In a world where cultural slang is spoken more than language, we just can’t escape those titles of “nerd” or “geek”. Those terms often have negative connotations, but if we really look them up in a dictionary, this is what we get for “geek”: an enthusiast, or expert, especially in a technological field or activity. Now that isn’t so bad, is it?

So, we began with touring some of the labs of the agreeing advisors in the IQIM division, who were fine with a huge camera, a dolly track for movement and a couple of non-science strangers, namely our film crew, in their sensitive, experiment-running labs. I started meeting with the postdocs and grad students and not surprisingly, they inspired me. We realized that we wanted to celebrate the people behind the science and not the science, in this video.  The science is known and celebrated in so many other avenues. It was about the scientists and how they did all these amazing things in addition to their scientific pursuits and oh, by the way, they did do some serious science too. To me, it was about making a more 3-D vision of the “nerdspace” out there in media for science and engineers. Breaking the identity that if you are a scientist, you are boring and all you do is work in the lab. What could have been the most risqué representation I thought… bingo: High Fashion! And then came the convincing…

Emma Wollman, with her drill and black gown.

We had a meeting where we asked people to wear tuxes and gowns and pick the one item that they would take with them if Earth was to be evacuated; the one hobby, the one piece of identity. Initially there was paranoia, nerves and resistance, but then I cut a pitch tape to give an idea of my theme and style. They were getting convinced, but still not too sold on being so high fashion. So we met halfway. It was not the initial black, formal event attire, but it was still clean cut whilst being real, and frankly, a lot more personal in the end. People came up with very interesting stuff, whether it was Emma Wollman who held a drill and wore a gorgeous draped black gown she made herself (!), or Chen-Lung Hung, who played a violin in the Kimble lab, or Erik Henriksen with his long, lightsaber-looking device, or John Preskill with his baseball glove!

John Preskill really likes baseball.

By putting them in the labs and their environments of science, but having a fashionable look, where they were lit especially to create distance from their environment thanks to the talented cinematography of Anthony C. Kuhnz, the shots became about the person more than the science in the labs, without completely separating them. It was their identity, but not all of it.

Another segment of the video that celebrates the power of “imagination and inspiration” is the inter-cutting of archival imagery of nature and science. Whether it is a ballerina’s spin bringing to life the spin of an atom, the probabilistic nature of the casino roulette metaphorizing the inherent indeterminism of nature, or water waves moving like a sine wave display in an oscilloscope, making the viewer aware that Physics is around us in ways that we might not even notice, is important. These juxtapositions with work that is being done here at Caltech may capture the eye of a new viewer who would initially react and say, “wait a minute…what does this have to do with science?” The video is supposed to be the hook, to  intrigue and confuse and question and answer and I hope it does all this and, maybe, a little more.

A ballerina swiftly turns, hinting at quantum “spin”.

Of course, the punch to it all is the incredibly exciting and goose-bumping score by British composer, Andrew T. Mackay, part of the award-winning duo of Bombay Dub Orchestra, who, within a week, scored the video remotely from his Sunshine Desserts studio in London. Having worked with him on my feature film, we had developed a short-hand of what I like and it worked, within 9 days.

And all this crazy coordination and handling was thanks to Mrs. Marcia Brown who was always far too understanding and giving. She knows how to get us absent minded scientists and artists with our quirky moods and creative withdrawals, in line and on time to get the job done.

Lastly, I leave you with a few highlights of the video to urge you to click and watch and share. My favorite part of the video now, apart from Emma Wollman’s unbelievably attractive drill shot, is the beginning text that was a complete collaboration between me, Spiros and John Preskill with emails back and forth over a Wednesday in sunny Pasadena. Preskill’s genius tagline “nature is subtle” completely summarized my vision and the vision of IQIM and its scientists. The genius, the inspiration, the movement is all too important, yet subtle…and just purely “hot” in whatever sense of the word you want to take it!

Chen-Lung Hung with his violin. The text written in collaboration with John Preskill.

Here is the intro text in the video:

There is mind
There is matter
There is motion
There is interaction
There is the universe
To understand
To change
There is you…and your imagination.

IQIM

Nature is subtle.

And now, without further ado, I present to you, the IQIM Promotional Film. Sit back, relax, enjoy and share!

Editor’s Note: Pakistani filmmaker, Iram Parveen Bilal is the CEO and Founder of Parveen Shah Productions, a film production company with offices in Pakistan and Los Angeles. Having made and distributed a few short films, she is currently touring with her noted first feature length film, JOSH (English title: Against the Grain). Bilal is a Caltech alum, BS ’04 with honors, in Environmental Science Engineering and has an MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Filmmaking. Recent awards and fellowships include the 2012 Women In Film Award, the USC Stark Special Project Award, the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, the Paul Studenski Fellowship, the Caltech Mabel Beckman Leadership Award and the Caltech Dean’s Cup.