#atomic science

But there is a little comedy in the fact that the American nuclear bomb program was jumpstarted and heavily funded in part because Fermi and his colleagues looked around at each other in a squash court under a football stadium in Chicago and said, "We have to beat the Nazis to the bomb, and we better hustle. They must be way out ahead of us, because we managed to do this and we're a bunch of dipshits."

Like, I'm not calling Enrico Fermi and his colleagues dipshits, clearly they were brilliant and talented scientists. But the general sentiment from Fermi was that if he could do it with what he had at his disposal, the Nazis must already have done it (they Had Not).

Broadly speaking, I think you're right. Heroic scientists of the 1940s-60s were very much the model for Marvel science heroes, writ large.

And yeah, I think Bruce Banner could be seen as quite similar to Oppenheimer, a tragic figure who realizes only too late the consequences of atomic science, and who ends up an outcast figure hunted by a paranoid U.S national security state.

TRANSCRIPT - FROM 31:39

Tim: I found out that atoms don't look anything like every atom I've ever seen drawn looks like. (Bryn: No, that's complete lies) Tim: They're all lies! Bryn: Yep. Tim: Because all of the electrons are basically everywhere in a big cloud of potentialness— (Bryn: Yes, absolutely.) Tim: —and so it wouldn't look anything like every atom I've ever been shown! EXPLAIN!

Bryn: Atoms are drawn like solar systems because... apparently people who draw diagrams of atoms believe children are stupid. Tim: I would have preferred a cloud of— look, here is a globe, the atom is everywhere and nowhere all at the same time— again, if you'd have told me that, and that dude's crazy-ass name, I'd have been much more interested in science! Bryn: (Cracking up) Ben: To be fair though, it would make it much more difficult to count the electrons when you were doing one of those puzzles about like, 'we knock the electron out and what isotope does it become' so you have to count the electrons and work it out. Tim: Just dissolve it into a cloud and go, 'best of luck!' Ben: Yeah exactly, exactly you just flick one out of the cloud and like (PFBBBT) 'Have a guess. :)'

Bryn: This is actually an important point about science— is, y'know we talked about science being a method of understanding truth, or not, as the case may be. Tim: It's an onion of lies! Bryn: —and a lot of science is lies, because what science really is, is a model of the universe; of reality. It's not— you know, it is not necessarily a perfect understanding, and especially when quantum physics was being developed, where we discovered stuff like: an electron is actually a cloud of possibilities, we discovered that the universe is much weirder and harder to understand than we could possibly have imagined before, Tim: So we stopped trying. Ben: (Pffffft) Bryn: Basically, yes. What we have to accept is that our understanding of the universe is what we call a 'model' and the model is only useful as long as it makes predictions. But the model can also be useful, even when it doesn't necessarily reflect reality. And so chemists, to understand chemical reactions, and to understand things like isotopes or chemical bonding between elements— their model of the atom doesn't need to care about the fact that electrons aren't little balls of stuff orbiting around the center of the atom. (Tim: Okay. Alright.) Bryn: Their model allows them to make accurate predictions of the real world based on something that is not technically true, but— We've talked about the scientific method— hypothesis, test conclusion. If their hypothesis is a model that, in certain circumstances, we can say, 'an atom works like this,' and it makes correct conclusions, then it doesn't matter that the real picture is more complicated. And we do this all the time in physics as well. So you've probably both studied— y'know back in school— stuff like the laws of motion, and you probably had to calculate cars moving around, or billiard balls, or things on slopes.

Tim: I was asked to, I can't claim that I ever did— but I was certainly asked to.. Ben: Probably, and at some point I was asked about Boyle's law, and shown a spring, and I was like 'ah, (unintelligible), I dunno.' Bryn: (Cracking up) Sure. In all these examples, we ignore air resistance. Unless you're studying— y'know, and depending on what age you're studying these things, you may or may not ignore friction. But we know these things from our everyday experience exist, and we know that if we wanted to get super accurate results, we'd have to include air resistance and friction, but actually the results that we get by ignoring them are close enough that if we don't need to be 100% accurate, if we're just trying to make a decent prediction, the prediction is good enough most of the time.

Tim: It's spherical chickens again. ((I think this is a reference to the previous Tim & Ben do Science episode)) Bryn: It's spherical chickens in a vacuum, absolutely. And it's an important joke in a way, because what it says is, 'well, reality is complex and messy as we've already established, and science helps us understand it, but if science is making accurate predictions, that's really what's important.' And accurate predictions are essentially specific to a certain field or a certain test. If I say, 'well if I chuck this acid and this alkalide into a cup together, I don't need to know what's going to happen with every single atom inside. What I need to know is what's gonna end up in the cup at the end. Tim: There's potentially a lovely analogy, I think, from cartography where they say 'the only true map is the exact size and shape of the thing you are trying to map.' (Bryn: Absolutely.) Tim: '—but best of luck taking that on a short camper-vanning holiday in the Cotswolds.'

END TRANSCRIPT - AT 35:45

When you find the obvious error in your calculations which has been messing you up for an hour