Nick Halmagyi: Why I do Science

I’m pleased to introduce a guest blogger today. It’s Nick Halmagyi, who you might have seen comment here from time to time. Nick is a postdoctoral researcher in Theoretical Physics, currently at the Enrico Fermi Institute in Chicago. Before that, he was a graduate student in our High Energy Physics group at USC, which is where I met him. Nick wrote his reflections below for Seed, and he reproduces a version of it (with permission – see details below*) here. I hope you enjoy it.

-cvj

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Theoretical physics is a tough subject. Just one example of how hard things can get is when you ramp up the energy density of a system, the physics used to describe the system itself starts to change. At first it may be a small tweak in the parameters that appear in the equations (the electric charge for example), but then there can be large, abrupt transitions.

The biggest system we study is the universe, and immediately after the big bang all of its energy occupied a tiny region of space. Back then, the energy density was enormous, and as the universe grew over time it underwent several transitions before it became what we now observe.

I’m a theoretical physicist, in part, because I relish the challenge of studying the entire universe. But what I’ve come to realize is that the best part of what I do is collaborating with remarkably creative people. Understanding the tiny tweaks and unexpected transitions in the universe’s evolution requires prodigious amounts of rigor, originality, and personality. It reminds me of the ingredients for a good jazz ensemble.

I first experienced the pleasure of intense collaboration in grad school: endless hours filling up a blackboard, getting smothered in chalk dust, barging into peoples’ offices with questions and jokes. Together, we worked out some incredibly contorted problems. But what really struck me was that when we came to key conceptual or technical bottlenecks, our personal façades would dissolve. Our strengths and weakness became immediately clear to one another, and our true personalities came to the fore.

We are open and honest when we collaborate, but that doesn’t stop us from making fanciful claims that cannot immediately be buttressed by logical argument. Long threads of conversation can be based on a poorly understood assumption, just to see where the idea will lead us. We improvise and strike out in different directions, following whichever note sounds most promising. Over time different voices float to the top. We hear both bravura solo performances and wrong notes. But ultimately, there comes a singular moment when the right chord of an elegant solution reveals itself, and we reach the essential resonance of our collaboration.

We don’t typically perform in smoke-filled lounges, but in private our work together can be just as loud and captivating as a public performance. And when I’m eighty-five and sitting on my porch, the memories I will have with me, I imagine, will feel much the same as a jazz musician’s after a lifetime of beautiful collaboration.

-Nick Halmagyi

*This is a revision of an article that originally appeared in Seed magazine, Volume 2, Issue 14, January/February 2008. Included here by permission.