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Curiosity – A Shortcut on the Road to Genius
Open minded curiosity is an important quality for scientists, separating the genius from the mediocre, as can be seen from an incident in the life of Enrico Fermi.
Thomas Edison is famous for having said that "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." While this certainly proved to be true in Edison’s case, the inspiration can definitely speed things up. In fact, it might be said that the more fundamental quality of curiosity is even more important. While this would logically seem to be an essential quality of any scientist, the greatest are famous for a profound, open minded, and all encompassing sense of curiosity.
A discovery by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi serves to illustrate this point.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, physicists were making great progress in understanding radioactive decay. In 1919, Ernest Rutherford, commonly known as Lord Rutherford, publicly announced the results of an exacting set of experiments in radioactive phenomena. He used a sealed, evacuated cylinder, one end of which was coated with zinc sulfide. When a piece of radioactive material was placed at the other end, the alpha particles produced by the material traveled down the tube, striking the zinc sulfide and emitting "scintillations" of light. If the cylinder was filled with nitrogen, the scintillations were especially bright. Rutherford guessed, and it was later proven, that the alpha particles were knocking protons out of the nitrogen nuclei. By absorbing alpha particles and emitting protons, the nitrogen atoms were being changed into oxygen atoms, essentially fulfilling a dream of the ancient alchemists.
This concept of creating new atoms by banging atomic particles into existing atomic nuclei is known as nucleosynthesis. After the neutron was discovered, Enrico Fermi wondered if it might be a better tool for nucleosynthesis. Since neutrons are electrically neutral, they would not be repulsed by the positive charge of the nucleus and so could, in principle, penetrate any nucleus, no matter how large. The fact that they are uncharged also made producing a stream of them more difficult. Fermi discovered that if he bombarded a block of paraffin with protons, a stream of neutrons would be generated by the atomic collisions.
He and his colleagues started by bombarding hydrogen atoms with neutrons, and gradually worked their way through the periodic chart. They had no results until March 21, 1934, when after bombarding fluorine with neutrons, they ended up with a radioactive fluorine isotope. Soon they began to synthesize other radioactive isotopes. Initially, they thought that high-energy fast neutrons would work the best for nucleosynthesis. Then they discovered an interesting phenomenon. They got different results when using a wooden table than when using a marble table. The results were better if the neutron source was placed on the wooden table. Fermi had a hunch that the neutrons were slowed down by the wood in the table. Afterward, he used water and paraffin to try to achieve the same result, slowing down the stream of neutrons. He was surprised to learn, contrary to their expectations, that the slow neutrons had a greater probability of interacting with the nuclei, and so produced better results.
What’s the moral of the story? Curiosity and open mindedness sometimes pay unexpected dividends. Some people, even experimental scientists, would have ignored the discrepancies, perhaps even been irritated by them. After all, consistency and reproducibility are essential when conducting experiments. Instead of being upset by the unexpected results, Fermi was curious. He asked the simple question, why? Why was there a difference? This led to the success of the experiment and a greater understanding of atomic physics, and contributed to his reputation as one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century.
Of course, this discovery was also one step on the road to the making of the atomic bomb, the cold war, and the MAD age in which we find ourselves today, so perhaps curiosity does have a downside.
Open minded curiosity is an important quality for scientists, separating the genius from the mediocre, as can be seen from an incident in the life of Enrico Fermi.
Thomas Edison is famous for having said that "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." While this certainly proved to be true in Edison’s case, the inspiration can definitely speed things up. In fact, it might be said that the more fundamental quality of curiosity is even more important. While this would logically seem to be an essential quality of any scientist, the greatest are famous for a profound, open minded, and all encompassing sense of curiosity.
A discovery by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi serves to illustrate this point.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, physicists were making great progress in understanding radioactive decay. In 1919, Ernest Rutherford, commonly known as Lord Rutherford, publicly announced the results of an exacting set of experiments in radioactive phenomena. He used a sealed, evacuated cylinder, one end of which was coated with zinc sulfide. When a piece of radioactive material was placed at the other end, the alpha particles produced by the material traveled down the tube, striking the zinc sulfide and emitting "scintillations" of light. If the cylinder was filled with nitrogen, the scintillations were especially bright. Rutherford guessed, and it was later proven, that the alpha particles were knocking protons out of the nitrogen nuclei. By absorbing alpha particles and emitting protons, the nitrogen atoms were being changed into oxygen atoms, essentially fulfilling a dream of the ancient alchemists.
This concept of creating new atoms by banging atomic particles into existing atomic nuclei is known as nucleosynthesis. After the neutron was discovered, Enrico Fermi wondered if it might be a better tool for nucleosynthesis. Since neutrons are electrically neutral, they would not be repulsed by the positive charge of the nucleus and so could, in principle, penetrate any nucleus, no matter how large. The fact that they are uncharged also made producing a stream of them more difficult. Fermi discovered that if he bombarded a block of paraffin with protons, a stream of neutrons would be generated by the atomic collisions.
He and his colleagues started by bombarding hydrogen atoms with neutrons, and gradually worked their way through the periodic chart. They had no results until March 21, 1934, when after bombarding fluorine with neutrons, they ended up with a radioactive fluorine isotope. Soon they began to synthesize other radioactive isotopes. Initially, they thought that high-energy fast neutrons would work the best for nucleosynthesis. Then they discovered an interesting phenomenon. They got different results when using a wooden table than when using a marble table. The results were better if the neutron source was placed on the wooden table. Fermi had a hunch that the neutrons were slowed down by the wood in the table. Afterward, he used water and paraffin to try to achieve the same result, slowing down the stream of neutrons. He was surprised to learn, contrary to their expectations, that the slow neutrons had a greater probability of interacting with the nuclei, and so produced better results.
What’s the moral of the story? Curiosity and open mindedness sometimes pay unexpected dividends. Some people, even experimental scientists, would have ignored the discrepancies, perhaps even been irritated by them. After all, consistency and reproducibility are essential when conducting experiments. Instead of being upset by the unexpected results, Fermi was curious. He asked the simple question, why? Why was there a difference? This led to the success of the experiment and a greater understanding of atomic physics, and contributed to his reputation as one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century.
Of course, this discovery was also one step on the road to the making of the atomic bomb, the cold war, and the MAD age in which we find ourselves today, so perhaps curiosity does have a downside.
