Julian Schwinger – 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics
Julian Schwinger had a particular perspective on lecture-giving. When he taught physics at Harvard, he often spent hours the night before preparing his lectures, down to the wording and movement, and considered the lecture as a self-contained piece of art. Rather than merely conveying material, Schwinger viewed the lecture as a presentation of a story, a self-contained cohesive experience that shone like artwork. One advantage of this is was the artistry in and of itself – students and faculty from neighboring colleges such as MIT would clamor into Harvard to sit through Schwinger’s lectures. The second advantage is that Schwinger would rephrase the same concept in multiple ways, allowing students to better retain the information. Yet, this approach had its problems. Questions from the audience were never welcomed, and his answers to them were rather terse and unsatisfactory. According to Mehra and Milton,
“[If] a questioner grew more and more persistent, [it] …drew no response from Schwinger except for him ‘getting quieter and quieter and looking down at his feet,’ until the questioner gave up in embarrassment.”
Some students complained of Schwinger making very big logical jumps in the spirit of his flow, logical conclusions that were difficult for students to follow. Yet, the students who were able to follow praised his lecture style for its rigor and artistic flow.
For the full paper, click here:
https://files.eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4530/2014/10/16034510/Schwinger-The-Lecturer-The-Researcher-and-The-Winner1.pdf
Did his accomplishments have an impact on any new technologies?
All of the technology we use today is certainly reliant on the workings of QED (quantum electrodynamics). However, that is not the point of QED. It is simply a theory to explain phenomenons in nature, and as such, it’s an amazing way to think of the way the world operates. I do not know of any physical applications, but the knowledge itself is what QED is known for. Of course, there is work on quantum related technologies, but at the moment, I don’t believe there is any widespread revolution in it.
what affect did his research on quantum electrode dynamics have on the public’s daily life?
This question is sort of connected to Fadi’s question. In our regular world, this theory probably will not heavily influence our life. It deals with phenomenon in nature such as how a mirror reflects light (it turns out the mirror itself does not actually do any reflecting, but rather it is the electrons scattered throughout that emit photons, which we perceive to be a reflection). As interesting as the workings of nature are, this doesn’t affect the way we use mirrors. As a result, I would argue that public life is not heavily affected, but for those interested, this revolutionizes the way we think about things.
Did any of his research impact the work of his mentees who also won the Nobel Prize?
Schwinger mentored a number of PhD students in his time at Harvard. Several of them did get Nobel Prizes in Physics, but their topics branched out from quantum electrodynamics. So, Julian Schwinger’s work, although it was what the PhD student initially worked on and gathered inspiration from, didn’t really affect the work of his students, who branched off into other areas of physics.
What kind of obstacles did Julian Schwinger face?
The main obstacles in Schwinger’s life most likely was the mathematical difficulties that arose in his work. However, he faced many challenges towards the end of his life when he began research in other fields besides quantum electrodynamics. He faced heavy criticism in his research of source theory and cold fusion, which were controversial.
Did Schwinger’s distinct and eccentric personality affect his professional reputation and career opportunities?
Schwinger had a distinctive personality, very reserved, but that never really affected his career opportunities. Due to the sheer amount of work he did, he was always well-regarded as a physicist. However, his reclusiveness did affect some of his collegues’ opinions about him negatively, especially in UCLA, where he spent the last few years of his lfe. Despite this, many of his student found that whenever he was in the mood to communicate, he was very helpful and clear in explaining physics concepts. In conclusion, Schwinger’s reserved nature had mixed affects on his reputation, but little affect on his career.
It’s pretty commendable that he was so dedicated to his lectures. It seems like some professors, if engaged in their research, could easily put lectures to the side.
I agree. However, as smart as he was, it was sometimes hard for him to connect with his students. Oftentimes, his dedication to his lectures was not to make them understandable, but to cram as much content into them as possible. Thus, his lectures were very dense, and it was pretty hard for even physics students to follow. This was something we didn’t cover in the interview but it’s interesting to note.
What do you guys think were the cons to his behavior with his students? I would wonder whether people would regret taking his class or just enjoy his class; I feel like there might be no middle ground to how students felt about him, perhaps.
Schwinger was never characterized as a terrible teacher, so there was really no one who completely disliked his lectures. However, his lectures were not entirely student friendly either. I feel that the middle ground of how his students felt about his lectures would be that even though the material was hard, he chose his words well to convey the concepts very effectively. He would often repeat the same concept in three different ways within the same lecture for students to grasp. However, he would almost never tolerate questions asked abruptly in the middle of his lecture. In short, his students felt that the lectures made sense but they couldn’t communicate with him when he spoke.
Why was the science of cold fusion seen as so bizarre?
Well, fusion naturally occurs in temperatures of the sun, so it seemed bizarre when the possibility of cold fusion came into the picture. However, the experiment that claimed to have shown cold fusion was unable to be replicated. It was suspected that there was some error in the original experiment. Eventually, cold fusion lost all credibility and was treated as pseudo-science.
How does Schwinger credit CUNY for his success?
We couldn’t find any primary sources where Julian Schwinger references his education at City College directly, but since he did name City College as his alma mater, its obvious that he credits some proportion of his success to the his education at a CUNY school. It was in City College where he wrote his first physics paper (because of which he was stolen by Columbia).
How did Schwinger interact with the other professors while he was teaching?
That is an interesting question. Schwinger was reserved even among his collegues, so many people did not know him very closely. So most of what other people thought of him was based mostly on his work. And as we mentioned in the video, his work, especially the reseach he did later in his life, was controversial, and it caused several other physicists to dislike him (Conflicts with other physicists was one of the reasons Schwinger moved from Harvard to UCLA).
How are Schwinger’s discoveries still relevant today?
Schwinger’s discoveries are still relevant today as it’s still a widely accepted ongoing theory! It’s one of the best theories we have to describe pretty much every phenomena in nature except for gravity and nuclear forces.
Do you think if many more complex scientific ideas were explained to students using the same amount of effort, artistry, and care that Schwinger used, then these ideas could be accessible to a wider scope of people? Why do you think he cared so much about teaching the information just right?