Physics is...

Questions answered by Reinhard Scherm, former PTB Department "Fundamentals of Physics and Metrology"


1. What were your reasons for studying physics? After grammar school, I first wanted to study chemistry, then electrical engineering. But then I met a student of physics who told me that not only four geniuses but also 100 normal persons studied physics. That was it.
2. What university did you go to? Munich Technical University
3. Did you know a physical experiment at school which particularly impressed you? What are the physical experiments which impress you? As a schoolboy, I hung around at the German Museum in Munich for one week every year. They had a cloud chamber there!!
6. Are you also interested in a completely different speciality? Music, astronomy 8. Have you ever had a chemical kit? Yes, and also an electrical, an optical and a mechanical one as well as a radio from KOSMOS. Then chemistry in the attic, and an amateur radio receiver I had soldered myself...
9. By what do you recognize a physicist? Careless clothing, slightly crazed look
10. Your recommendation for future students of physics? Do something else – unless you are “motivated by your drives” to look at any cost behind the
scenes.
11. Do correct measurements require a healthy amount of ambition? Yes. Research requires curiosity, play instinct and ambition.
12. Those who measure a lot, measure a lot of rubbish... Do you think this saying contains a grain of truth? Of course. Those who do not dare to measure rubbish will not find something new.
13. Do you understand quantum mechanics? No. In the course of evolution, our brain developed to survive in a world with and . Consequently, how could we really understand RelT or QMech in a microscopic non-relativistic world? Nevertheless, I have often tried my best and meanwhile I am even in a position to separate the Hamiltonian H from the dose rate H₁₀.
14. What are light quanta? The smallest energy bundles of electromagnetic radiation (are a logical consequence of the second quantization, see above).
15. A trip to the moon – would you like it? No air no music
17. Do you master a musical instrument? more or less: the piano
20. Why does the world exist? Because a mouse is looking at it? Ah, the rigid anthropic principle as a teleological maxim. Very suspicious. We small human beings always walk into the same trap and take ourselves too seriously. If we did not exist, we couldn’t look at the world. Is this a reason for our existence? The question “why” is to be referred to the theologians. Without return.
21. A good measurement is always carried out very carefully, almost ceremoniously. Is this ceremony comparable with a sacred rite? No, please. The less mysticism is involved, the more critical the measurement is looked at and the more objective the measurement will be.
22. What is in your opinion most important in a measurement? Never start an experiment Friday afternoon. And then: open-mindedness, suspiciousness, questioning of trivial self-evident truths.
23. Correct measurement – a mechanical art or a science? A mechanical art, but a very noble one. Science performs measurements in order to discover relationships.
25. Do you think there are things which cannot be measured? In the affirmative, what? Yes, many things: beauty, happiness, love, the purring of my cat.
26. Did you ever see the primary kilogram in Paris? No
27. As you know, the Internet was invented by physicists to communicate in virtual terms. Would you have liked to be among the team of the “first Internet hour?” No
28. Which physicist do you admire? Maier Leibnitz (my 2nd teacher), R. Cowley, at the same time theoretician and experimenter, P. Dirac who, for reasons of the beauty of the mathematical relations, had the nerve to take a non-physical solution for his quadratic equation so serious that he postulated the antiparticles from it.
29. Complete the sentence: “A life without measurements is... Without measurements almost every theory is irrefutable. Aristoteles would eternally be the highest authority.
30. It is said that Goethe’s last words were “more light!” What should be your last measurement? Liquid He3 with polarized neutrons. Unfortunately in 10 to 20 years only.
31. Do you remember the most important measurement of your life? Yes. A three-week experiment at the ILL in Grenoble: liquid He3 at 50 mK (all black for neutrons) observed with neutrons. This was our fourth attempt. For three years, we had prepared sample cell and mK cryostat on the PTB reactor and now I saw the best data!
32. There was a time when certain physical experiments were suddenly regarded as politically undesired. How political can physics be in your opinion? Over and over again
33. Is it possible to still discover something new in the field of physics? Yes, always
34. Is nature really as physics, biology and chemistry describe it? No. We are always only preparing models which try to describe processes and relationships. Imagine the earth would always be covered with grey clouds and we had never seen the blue sky, the sun, the moon or the stars. What about our language and poems, our religious ideas and our “knowledge” of the universe? De facto we see the big, complex world through very narrow filters: one octave of colours, five octaves of acoustic waves, hot, cold, a bit of stale air and the pleasant taste of potato gratin or liver sausage. That’s all. Therefore: modesty. In spite of that, constant striving for objectivity is demanded.
35. Try to find a definition for coincidence. Toni is doing his practical course: a weakly radioactive source produces cracking in a loudspeaker. Toni is to record the arrival time for 200 events and then to paint at home distributions of Poisson statistics.
A - 04.30 p.m. First bleep. At 05.03 Toni has finished his first 200 bleeps, packs up his things and goes to the pub to play cards until midnight.
B – Let’s repeat the experiment! 04.30 p.m. First bleep. At 05.05 Toni has finished his first 200 bleeps, packs up his things – suddenly a female student arrives who has lost her pocket calculator. They are looking for it, finally they find it.... and the evening ends up quite differently.