|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Murray Gell-Mann
Developer of the Quark Theory
I was able to create a chart of my theoretical scheme, and I noticed that there were holes in the chart. And I predicted the existence of the particles to fill the chart. And those all worked. But then the question was, was there some sub-unit out of which all of these particles were made. These strongly interacting particles. Well I tried it, and it came out that you could do it with a certain set of particles, and in a quite economical way. But they would have to have electrical charges, +2/3 and -1/3. And of course, all known particles had integral charges, in units of proton or electron charge. The proton is called +1, the electron is called -1. And all the known particles had charges of +1 or -1, or possibly +2 or -2, and so on. Nothing had a fractional charge. But these sub-units, that would give the most economical scheme for making what we saw out of hidden sub-units. These sub-units would have charges of +2/3 or -1/3. It was initially discouraged, but then I made a visit to Columbia University, and a colleague there, Bob Serber, asked me whether I had ever considered this economical way of making sub-units, considering what you then called triplet. And I said yes, I have considered it, but they come out to have fractional charges. And I showed him the fractional charges on a napkin in the faculty club in Columbia where we were having lunch. And then, thinking about it during the rest of the day, it occurred to me that if they were completely hidden, these particles, if they never came out, but they were permanently trapped inside the known particles, then it wouldn't cause any difficultly, any disagreement with observation or with any fundamental theoretical idea. And so I began to put it forward.
View Interview with Murray Gell-Mann
View Biography of Murray Gell-Mann
View Profile of Murray Gell-Mann
View Photo Gallery of Murray Gell-Mann
|
|
|
Murray Gell-Mann
Developer of the Quark Theory
Murray Gell-Mann: Just a slip of the tongue. That's how I figured out the explanation of strangeness. I had come up with an incorrect explanation, which had some features in common with the correct one, but which was wrong. And I knew why it was wrong. And another fellow had gotten the same idea, and figured out that it was wrong, and had written a letter about it, which was published. I hadn't published anything. But he had published the idea, plus the reason why it was wrong. But in a very confused manner, so that it was extremely hard to follow. I hadn't even read it, but I knew what it was, because I had the idea, and I knew why it was wrong. And when I visited the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, where I had been working a short time before, the theoretical physicist there asked me to explain how this worked, how the idea went and why it was wrong. And I said yes I can do that. So I went to the blackboard and I started explaining the idea, and explaining why it was wrong. Part way through I made a slip of the tongue and I realized that the slip of the tongue made it ok, the arguments against no longer were valid, and this was probably the right answer. That was how I found the strangeness theory.
View Interview with Murray Gell-Mann
View Biography of Murray Gell-Mann
View Profile of Murray Gell-Mann
View Photo Gallery of Murray Gell-Mann
|
|
|
Murray Gell-Mann
Developer of the Quark Theory
Murray Gell-Mann: The study of complex adaptive systems cuts across archeology and linguistics, economics, physics, chemistry, math, immunology, and so on and so forth. It just goes on and on. Computer science. That's the kind of thing we're doing at the Santa Fe Institute, which I helped organize. It is devoted to giving people from virtually all fields the opportunity to work together to understand how complex adaptive systems work, and other complex systems as well, but principally complex adaptive systems. And we bring people from all of these disciplines -- psychology, mathematics, chemistry, anthropology, and so on -- together for meetings, and we allow them, or encourage them, to form research networks. It's very exciting. I do a lot of the recruiting for the Santa Fe Institute, for the science board which supervises the program, and also for individual researchers. Every time I phone somebody in some distant field, some famous, busy person, I know that person is going to say, "Well, what you're doing sounds interesting, but I'm already fully committed, but don't call me, I'll call you." But instead, in almost every single case, the person says, "When can I come? I've been waiting for this! I've been waiting all my life for something like this!" It's very interesting. It's apparently a real felt need.
View Interview with Murray Gell-Mann
View Biography of Murray Gell-Mann
View Profile of Murray Gell-Mann
View Photo Gallery of Murray Gell-Mann
|
|
|
Vince Gill
Country Music Hall of Fame
Hank Williams used to write songs that were simple. There was great beauty in their simpleness. And to me, great songwriters tell stories where you hear those words and you see the pictures. The songwriters are like painters. They paint pictures in their words and in their songs. And that's generally what I think you're trying to do as a songwriter, is paint pictures. Because I've always -- you know, music's in my ears, it's not in my eyes. And so that's what I'm always trying to accomplish, is to get you to close your eyes and see in your own mind and your own heart what these words mean to you. I think that's the beauty of the written word. Everybody has their own interpretation of it. So I believe that there's -- as simplistic as songs are -- sometimes there's a great beauty in them.
View Interview with Vince Gill
View Biography of Vince Gill
View Profile of Vince Gill
View Photo Gallery of Vince Gill
|
|
|
Vince Gill
Country Music Hall of Fame
We had a lesson in church, Sunday school, it's been several years ago, and it really just stuck with me. There was a go-around question that everybody in the class would answer. They said, "Okay, you have to give up one of the following, what will you give up? Your ability to speak, your ability to see, or your ability to hear?" I was the only one on the whole class that said the ability to hear. Because they said, "Oh it's better to be silent, I'd rather not speak," or "I'd hate to not see, and the beauty of this and that." And I go, "It's a slam dunk for me. If I can't hear, I'm dead," because the world speaks to me through my ears more so than my eyes. And I think that your eyes will lie to you. Your eyes will judge something before you ever know what it is. But your ears won't. And if I have my eyes closed, I don't know whether a man's wearing a tuxedo or he's dressed in rags. I don't know if he's white, I don't know if he's black, I don't know anything about him. And I think that's why I love music so much, and I'm not sold on videos and the music becoming a visual entity. I liked it when I put on a record and I saw my own pictures, I saw the story. It spoke to me through my ears. And so my ears are -- they're kind of the center of it all. They're what tell me what to play. I try to play like I would sing, and then sing like I would play.
View Interview with Vince Gill
View Biography of Vince Gill
View Profile of Vince Gill
View Photo Gallery of Vince Gill
|
|
|
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I became interested in the law somewhere between the second and third year at Cornell University. It came about because my years at Cornell, 1950 to 1954, were not very good years for our country. There was a red scare. There were people in the House and Senate who saw a communist in every closet, and it was particularly hard for people in the entertainment industry. There was a blacklist of people who would not be hired, simply because in their youth they belonged to a socialist club. I had a professor, his name was Robert Cushman, and he taught constitutional law to undergraduates. I was his research assistant, and he wanted me to be aware that our country was estranged from its most basic values. And that there were brave lawyers who were standing up and defending people before the Senate Internal Security Committee and the House Un-American Activities Committee, and reminding legislators that this nation is great because we respect every person's right to think, speak and publish freely, without Big Brother government telling them what is the right way to think. So it was the notion that lawyers could earn a living at that business, but could also help make things a little better for their community, both local -- state, national -- and world. So it was that combination of a trade plus the ability to use your learning, your talent, to help make things a little better for others.
View Interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg
View Biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
View Profile of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
View Photo Gallery of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
|
|
|
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The hardest barrier to surmount for most women, I think it's no longer at the entry level of any job, no longer access to any educational facility. I think, for example, that Justice Kagan did not encounter any discrimination in admissions to college, law school, getting a job, getting a clerkship. But what is very hard for most women is what happens when children are born. Will men become equal parents, sharing the joys as well as the burdens of bringing up the next generation? But that's my dream for the world, for every child to have two loving parents who share in raising the child.
View Interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg
View Biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
View Profile of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
View Photo Gallery of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
|
| |
|
