A Passion for Science - Sprott's Gateway

[Pages:273]A Passion for Science

c Julien Clinton Sprott1 December 31, 2015

1Nonexclusive rights are granted to any individual or organization wishing to reproduce or distribute this work in whole or in part provided its authorship is clearly indicated.

ii Dedicated to my parents without whom none of this would have happened.

Preface

Memoirs means when you put down the good things you ought to have done and leave out the bad ones you did do. --Will Rogers

When one spends seven decades consuming worldly resources and benefitting from the efforts and kindness of others, it seems fitting to give something back in the form of a written record of one's experiences and the wisdom gained over a lifetime. This book is my effort to do that. It is not an autobiography, nor even a conventional memoir, but rather a collection of short narratives recounting events that influenced the choices that I made in life and short essays describing some of my theories and ideas, arranged somewhat chronologically, but with considerable overlap. It is a work in progress and will be continually updated as time and inspiration permit.1

While I do not have biological descendants (to my knowledge) who would be a natural audience for this work, I have had the good fortune to spend a lifetime as a university professor working closely with about a hundred graduate and undergraduate research students, teaching about ten thousand physics undergraduates, and reaching at least a hundred thousand children and adults through live and recorded presentations of The Wonders of Physics. Add to that the readers of my books, publications, and website,2 my relatives, friends, and colleagues, as well as curious strangers and possible future historians, and I have reason to hope that this work will be read by others in addition to the considerable pleasure that its writing has given me.

There is always the danger that I have remembered things incorrectly or said things that are inaccurate or incomplete, and I welcome corrections or criticisms, especially if those things pertain to you. The index at the end includes the name of everyone mentioned here except for a few people who are mentioned only by first names to protect their privacy.

1The current version of this document is at . 2Sprott's Gateway is at .

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An underlying theme is the passion for science that I have had since my earliest days, and how this was nourished as a child, developed as a student, and exploited as a scientist. I hope to inspire some youngsters to follow in my footsteps, even as I followed those before me and perhaps avoid some of the mistakes I have made. My lasting contribution to society is most likely to be the research I have done, the things I have written, and the lives I have influenced. I hope you will take pleasure and inspiration in reading the words that follow.

Julien Clinton Sprott Madison, Wisconsin

December, 2015

Contents

Preface

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Contents

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1 The Memphis Belle

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2 Adventures of Two Young Hams

7

3 The Awkward Athlete

19

4 Forays into Physics

29

5 To God and Back

41

6 Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

49

7 Multipoles, Mirrors, and Microwaves

59

8 The Persistent Pilot

69

9 The Proud Professor

79

10 The Wonders of Physics

91

11 A Night at Sea

101

12 An Encounter with Chaos

107

13 Strange Attractors

117

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14 Eulogy to Donald Kerst 15 The Diligent Dancer 16 Romance and Relationships 17 Asperger's Syndrome 18 Mathematics of Love and Happiness 19 Competition and Creativity 20 Retirement 21 Return to Radio 22 Celebrating at Seventy 23 Lessons in Chaos and Complexity 24 Travels 25 Extraterrestrials & Future Technology 26 Immortality A Family Tree B Books Published

CONTENTS

129 135 143 159 169 179 191 201 211 219 229 237 243 249 255

Chapter 1

The Memphis Belle

We spend our years as a tale that is told. --Psalm xc.9

My parents must have enjoyed Christmas Eve in 1941. I surmise as much by subtracting 266 days from my birth date of September 16, 1942. I mention this not just because conception is a logical starting point for one's memoirs, but because it seems curious that my father, Frank Sprott, and his wife Ila (also called `Jimmie') would choose to have a child two weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. I suppose they had to do something while waiting for their other child, a ten-year-old son named Frank Jr., to fall asleep so that they could put the customary Christmas presents under the tree, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that my entrance into the world was something of an accident, although I never felt unwanted.

I suppose it is equally plausible that I am a result of my father's attempt at preserving his legacy in the event that he did not survive the War because he joined the Navy shortly after the US entered World War II. The other sailors called him `Pop' because he was married with children and at age 32 was somewhat older than most of them. His age probably kept him out of combat, instead working at a Naval base in North Carolina where he spent the first year of my life apart from the rest of the family who lived in Memphis.

For anyone who witnessed the sacrifices and suffering during the War or for one born a few decades later when wars were not so noble, it's hard to understand the feelings that children who were born during or shortly after World War II had about the military and about the scientists who developed the bomb that so abruptly ended the War. A favorite children's game was `playing war,' and by age six, I was dressing in my brother's high school

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CHAPTER 1. THE MEMPHIS BELLE

ROTC (Reserved Officer's Training Corps) uniform and marching around the yard.

A decade later, I followed the tradition of my father and brother by becoming an officer in high school ROTC, eventually reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. I might have had a military career had I not developed such a love for science. The four hundred M-1 rifles and firing range in the basement of our high school probably didn't last much beyond my graduation in 1960 when I entered MIT with a student deferment from the draft. My friend Clyde Wentz was a fellow ROTC officer who spent much time at the rifle range and carried his target rifle to school on the city bus most days, which vividly illustrates how different life was in those days and how embedded the military was in the culture.

Bob Burns and me as high school ROTC officers in 1960.

One of my earliest memories was when my brother used to take me to the National Guard Armory in Memphis where a B-17 bomber called the Memphis Belle sat outside on a pedestal. It was open for anyone to explore until it was eventually vandalized and closed to the public. I would crawl into every space inside that airplane and would sit in the cockpit pretending to be the pilot or in one of the gunner's positions pretending to shoot down enemy planes. I suppose I was seven or eight years old at the time. I didn't know

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