UvA PhD student: “I hope to build a bridge between everyday life and physics”
Why do most newspapers have space for stock market prices but not for scientific research? That puzzles physicist Rasa Muller. On July 11, she received her doctorate on cosmic particles that fly through everything. “I want to show precisely that you can be amazed even if you don’t quite understand something.”
You did research at the National Institute for Subatomic Physics Nikhef on neutrinos: cosmic particles that can fly through anything. What can “the citizen” do with this information?
“If you ask how research on neutrinos changes daily life today or tomorrow, the answer is: it doesn’t! But history teaches us that investing in fundamental science pays off in the long run even if the applications are not foreseeable. To give an example: methods to detect and irradiate cancer came largely from knowledge and applications developed at the particle accelerator Cern in Geneva. As does the touch screen. These are techniques that have surely become permanent fixtures in our lives, and they emerged from very fundamental research.”
Particle physics seems like one of the most complicated fields to explain.
“When people hear that I do physics research I often get the reaction from the outset, “Oh, I don’t understand that,” or “I was very bad at physics in high school.” Instead, I want to show that you can be amazed even when you don’t quite understand something. I like to make people aware of the world of the very largest (the universe) and that of the smallest (elementary particles). And also that the world we know – like a table, glass of beer, or the air - consists of only three types of elementary particles: an electron, an upquark, and a downquark, which is fascinating. I enjoy thinking about that and sharing that wonder with others.
Where does your motivation for science communication come from?
“On the one hand I enjoy the research and get energy from sharing it, and because it’s a welcome change to be on a stage once in a while in addition to programming on the computer. It leads to very different conversations. On the other hand, I want to be a role model. Scientists are very often dismissed as an Einstein in a lab coat. That put me off quite a bit during my studies because I didn’t identify with that. I think I can play a role by showing that researchers can also be women and young people who are not always nerdy or unworldly.
“At the same time, more and more technology and science are woven into our daily lives. This is where citizens help decide: in politics, choices are made about major technical issues such as nuclear power plants, vaccinations, and quantum computers. I think it would be good if people understood a little better what they are making choices about. Knowledge can also allay fears. By explaining it, I hope to build a bridge between everyday life and deeper knowledge.”
There is much more science communication than, say, 20 years ago. Do you think it is enough?
“Scientists themselves communicate on science more often, but more can still be done. It is pretty crazy to think that the newspapers are full of stock quotes that are incomprehensible to many people, while there is no room for science. The thinking is that it would be too difficult for people to understand, whereas it is precisely the place to offer science in an accessible way. I assume that editors often employ people without a science background. That way, there is a bias in what people consider interesting and relevant news, and science gets less press coverage. And because people are not taught it, they also don’t practice it and it remains scary and abstract.
Do you ever have to defend to other scientists that so much time goes into science communication?
“Absolutely, and a lot of time does go into it, time you’re not spending on your research. I think it’s important to have science communication, but I certainly don’t think every scientist should do outreach. It’s better to work as a research group or institute as a team to share soft skills such as communication and leadership. That way one scientist doesn’t have to be able to do everything, which can be a pitfall of the new Recognize and Appreciate policy.
You wrote in the popular science anthology PromovendA tot Z that “It would be very nice if before the end of my PhD, we could demonstrate a source in the sky where lots of neutrinos come from.” Has that been achieved?
“In my analysis, no. That would have been nice, but perhaps not entirely expected. I analyzed 300 days of data from only a small part of the neutrino detector at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The remaining 90+ percent of the detector has yet to be constructed. Besides, neutrino research is only one piece of the puzzle of what is going on in the universe. You can also look at the universe with light, gravitational waves, or other particles. I am continuing this research, though, and moving to Italy this summer for a postdoc. Once I get to that point with the data analysis, I also want to know how this story continues.
Rasa Muller received her doctorate on July 11 at 2:00 p.m. for her dissertation “Getting to the point. First cosmic neutrino source search with the KM3NeT/ARCA detector.”
