Charles Karney, a theoretical physicist at Princeton Plasma
Physics Laboratory, will bring his computer animations to
the Science on Saturday Lecture Series at the lab this week.
Staff photo by Mark Czajkowski
By John P. McAlpin
Staff Writer
Charles Karney, a theoretical physicist at Princeton Plasma
Physics Laboratory, will bring his computer animations to
the Science on Saturday Lecture Series at the lab this week.
Staff photo by Mark Czajkowski
Swirl in a spoonful of cream and that friendly cup of morning coffee turns into a chaotic realm of collisions and disorder resembling the erratic behavior of ions in a magnetic plasma field.
Of course it helps to see that resemblance if a physicist does the swirling.
Charles Karney sees the chaos in both coffee and plasma fields. He also sees it in the breeding patterns of insects and behavior of computerized billiard balls.
A theoretical physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory since 1977. Dr. Karney studies “chaos,” the growing science of unpredictability.
“That's a very important piece of physics which explains why, when you swirl milk in coffee, the milk doesn't stay all together.” Dr. Karney said.
The spoon and the swirling action disturb the milk molecules. Up to that point they had been held together. Add that disturbance, Dr. Karney explained, and the milk flies apart randomly and violently — for milk, that is.
The same action results when a swift-running stream encounters a rock. The water swirls, jumps and dances in anything but predictable ways, said Dr. Karney, who will bring his descriptions and computer animations to the Science on Saturday Lecture series at the lab this week.
Chaos — first predicted by mathematicians in the early 18th century — disrupts the traditional attempts of scientists to predict and control the world, Dr. Karney said.
Scientists now can detail and model intricate systems “that you can tell almost by looking at them, they will turn chaotic.” the Prospect Avenue, Princeton Township, resident said.
In a chaotic system like the coffee mug, researchers cannot predict how a particular drop of milk will behave.
“You wind up trying to say things about the system.” Dr. Karney said. “You don't try to say where every atom inside a gas goes.”
But to predict that average behavior, researchers like Dr. Karney who are trying to model the super-heated plasma that creates nuclear fusion need to understand the system and its quirks as best they can.
And that leads Dr. Karney to his colorful computer models — maps of chaos that look like abstract art of the next century.
“People have a tendency to understand what they can illustrate.” said Dr. Karney, who professes a fondness for his Macintosh.
“But pretty pictures often tell you where to go. They don't tell you how to solve a problem; rather they tell where to look for the problem.” he said.
Dr. Karney pointed to a map of swirling ellipses. It could have been a map of the great storms on Jupiter. It was the paths of ions inside that magnetic field, he said.
The ellipses point to order. The jangly lines that look like the marks of tree branches on a frosted window pane point to disorder in the system.
“You have to know what kinds of questions to ask.” Dr. Karney said. “In research they just tell you to solve a problem. Half of it is coming up with the questions to ask to find the answers you need.”
PLAINSBORO — It started eight years ago — the byproduct of a group of physicists and a bull session at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
Now their attempts to draw youngsters to science draw capacity crowds each Saturday from January through March.
“When it first started eight years ago, we were not sure how many people would come out.” said PPPL's Anthony DeMeo.
“We would have 60 or 65 people,” he said.
“Now we've got 350 people on a regular basis. We have to set up closed-circuit TV so we can handle the overflow crowds.” Mr. DeMeo said.
Science on Saturdays is one program in the laboratory's science outreach efforts. Faculty, researchers and engineers speak regularly at area high schools about the facility's attempts to create fusion energy and about the challenges of science and engineering.
The laboratory now runs a partnership with the Trenton School District to foster science interest and education, Mr. DeMeo said.
“It's all part of the overall program,” he said.
Science on Saturday started with conversations among the laboratory's staff, Mr. DeMeo explained.
“They were recalling lectures that they attended when they were young. Many of them said that experience was something that excited them in science and in pursuing science.” Mr. DeMeo said. “We tried to recreate some of that for the kids, the parents and teachers.”
The lectures and demonstrations are designed to be anything but routine and dull.
Topics swing from the role of the brain's pleasure centers in drug abuse to technology that sends pictures and sounds with laser beams. Dinosaurs were also on this year's agenda.
One lecturer will discuss what is in the universe while another will tell students how to find what is out there themselves.
On Saturday at 9:30 a.m., Charles Karney is scheduled to present a “tour of chaos,” the science of finding predictability and order in the unpredictable world of nature.
Ruth Daly will end the program with her presentation on the evolution of galaxies in the universe.
Each week during the program, PPPL has offered a leading expert discussing new technologies and developments in language that informs and excites kids, Mr. DeMeo said.
“One of the things that's made this a success is we really have been able to attract the top people.” he said. “And that's made it exciting for everybody.”