Einstein’s Successors and Their Creativity

1. Einstein’s Successors and Their Creativity By Tom Cardaro

2. Area of Research • I’m going to be exploring why the next Einstein could be a woman, how long women have been competent scientists, why it has taken women this long to be acknowledged, and the list of women who have the best shot at being Einstein’s successor.

3. 21st Century Mysteries • Successors of Einstein are trying to figure out mysteries surrounding: • Ghostly neutrinos • Rolled-up dimensions • Clouds of super-cooled gas that can freeze lightbeams

4. Who are Einstein’s Successors? • Many are women • Womens’s work counters the claim that women might be innately less suited for math and science • This hypothesis was raised by Harvard President Lawrence Summers in January. • Time Magazine’s cover in January: “Who Says a Woman Can’t Be Einstein?”

5. Women of the Einsteinian Revolution • Women were involved • Einstein’s first wife, mathematician Mileva Maric, was said to have helped Einstein with his research during his miracle year of 1905. • Einstein referred to the research as “our work” in letters to Mileva.

6. Women of the Einsteinian Revolution Cont’d • In 1905, Marie Currie won 2 Nobel Prizes for her research on radioactivity. • She participated with Einstein at the Solvay Conferences in the early 20th century. • Currie’s daughter, Irene Joliot-Currie won her share of a Nobel a decade later.

7. Woman Scientist Downsides • Over the decades, women have had to cope with social stereotypes and discrimination which made it hard for them to advance to higher halls of research. • The tides started to turn only as recently as in the past generation.

8. Women Scientist Statistics • There is still a huge gender gap in academia • Only 7% of the tenured and tenure-track positions are filled by women in the top 50 research universities. • Women are more likely to make the next scientific breakthrough. • Because of the collaborative nature of scientific research, the next breakthrough paper will list female as well as male names.

9. Einstein’s Female Successors • Presumptuous to just label candidate as “another Einstein.” • Pioneers in particle physics and cosmology • A couple are from Harvard

10. Lene Vestergaard Hau • Danish-born • Studies Bose-Einstein condensates which are clouds of ultra-cold atoms whose behavior was predicted by Einstein’s theories. • The clouds act like one big atom • Clouds created in a lab only a decade ago • Using lasers, Hau has been able to slow pulses of light in the atom cloud to a dead stop then start it up again

11. Deborah Jin • Received MacArthur in 2003 for her work with ultra-cold condensates • Figured out how to create a “super atom” from a class of quantum particles known as fermions • This class contains the subatomic particles: protons, neutrons, electrons • The process works with “ordinary stuff” meaning that it could lead toward breakthrough technologies ranging from better atomic clocks to superconducting circuitry

12. Janet Conrad • Physics professor at Columbia University in New York who commutes to Fermilab in Chicago to work on experiments relating to neutrinos. • Might hold key to mysteries of dark matter and dark energy • Focus of work is a 40-foot-round, oil-filled metal sphere designed to detect the oscillations between different “flavors” of neutrinos. • Results could help physicists readjust their calculations for the universe’s matter content; the standard model

13. Ann Nelson • Nelson concentrates on theories that go beyond the standard model at the University of Washington • Proposed an explanation that links dark energy interactions between neutrinos and particles called accelerons. • The expansion of the universe should slow down to crawl in a billion years.

14. Marcela Carena • Has worked on at least six mysteries of modern physics including dark matter, supersymmetry, extra dimensions, matter-antimatter imbalance, Higgs boson, and the grand unified theory • Key question has to do with finding the energy level that marks the transition between ordinary particles and supersymmetric particles

15. Maria Spiropulu • Looking into supersymmetric particles and other phenomena beyond the standard model • Could point to extra dimensions • Gearing up for the 2007 startup of the greatest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider • Promises that the LHC experiments will stun the world and realize some of Einstein’s dreams about bridging the gaps in theories relating to particle physics, gravity, and cosmology

16. Lisa Randall • Trying to figure out how to make out of string theory • Possible dimension rolled up into compact scales that can’t be measured • Possible infinite dimension that blends in with others but in very small scales • Five-dimensional theory could answer the question, Why is gravity so much weaker than the other fundamental forces of physics?

17. Licia Verde • Behind the highest-resolution picture ever made of the Big Bang’s microwave afterglow, produced WMAP • University of Pennsylvania cosmologist trying to build on results and figure out how the universe’s rate of expansion has changed over time • Using the light observed in certain kinds of galaxies as “cosmic chronometers,” matching up their ages with outward velocity • Could show how dark energy’s effect has changed over the course of billions of years

18. Eva Silverstein • 1999 MacArthur Fellow and a string theorist at Stanford • Studying subjects ranging from dark energy and the accelerating universe to cosmic and the fabric of space-time • Concepts include references to donut-hole “handles” in space continuum that can appear and decay dynamically-fundamental questions go back to Einstein’s day

19. Fotini Markopoulou-Kalamara • Played a key role in developing LQG, an alternative to string theory • LQG seeks to fulfill Einstein’s dream of unifying quantum theory and general relativity • LQG doesn’t dwell on extra rolled-up dimensions of space • Lays out a mathematical system of loops that interact to form “spin networks,” the quantum foundations for the realities that each of us perceive

20. Wendy Freedman • Led the effort to calculate the Hubble constant, which describes the universe’s expansion rate • Concluded that the universe is expanding at a rate of 74 kilometers per second per megaparsec with a 10% error margin • Astronomers used the number to estimate that the universe is 13 to 14 billion years old

21. Angela Olinto • Working with the biggest particle accelerator of them all: the flux of high-energy cosmic rays from far-flung regions of space • The University of Chicago astrophysicist studies particle phenomena that can reach energies 100 million times than those achieved by the Large Hadron Collider

22. Relations to Einstein • Lene Vestergaard Hau worked on theoretical physics and was able to slow down and stop a beam of light • Deborah Jin won a genius grant award and was named researcher of the year • Also born in Europe and having worked in Switzerland, Maria Spiropulu has some of the most far-reaching ideas just like Einstein

23. Relations to Einstein Cont’d • Lisa Randall was the first tenured female physicist at Princeton and she worked on particle theories and space-time just like Einstein • Eva Silverstein is working on string theory and space-time • Fotini Kalamara is a theoretical physicist in mathematics and quantum mechanics

24. Summary • Despite what one may think, women are just as competent in the various fields of science as men are • They are the pioneers of many of today’s scientific breakthroughs • There is a higher probability that a woman will write the next big scientific paper. • The twelve female scientists mentioned are just a few of the ones who could become Einstein’s successer. • Many of the females have things that connect them to Einstein

25. Sources • A Century of Einstein: Women on the Frontier: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7374458/page/1/