Physics

Spongebob Squarepants Explains the Higgs Boson!

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Congratulations to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert on their Nobel Prize for their work on the Higgs Boson and the Higgs Field — yay, them!

In a nutshell, the Higgs Field and the Higgs Boson were born to rescue The Ultimate Theory Of How Twelve Particles And Their Interactions Can Explain Pretty Much Everything That Has Ever Happened and Probably Ever Will (Oh, Except For Gravity, That Is); or, as physicists called it, a little more prosaically, The Standard Model.

The Standard Model works really well except that, in its original form, it cannot explain the origin of mass. In other words, it cannot explain why some particles are heavy and others are light. The Higgs Field explains how this happens, and if there is a Higgs Field, there must be a special sort of particle called a Higgs Boson connected with it.

What follows is my attempt to explain some of these concepts in a manner suitable for school students. I call it the Spongebob Squarepants Analogy.

Our Spongebob Squarepants lives, not at the bottom of the sea, but on the steeply sloping side of a mountain (work with me on this!) and for the life of him cannot figure why things like sponges are heavy but un-spongelike things are light.

He comes up with a groundbreaking idea to explain this difference: it’s raining!!!

Its raining, all the time. Everywhere. Invisibly and imperceptibly. Neither Spongebob nor the spongepeople can see the rain, but it’s raining. And it never, ever stops raining.

Spongbob reckons that spongelike things are heavy because they absorb this mysterious, invisible stuff called water. Non-spongelike things do not absorb this water stuff and so they stay light.

The rain represents the Higgs Field.

Now, how can Spongebob tell if he’s right about this water that he cannot see directly?

He predicts that if he bangs two pieces of sponge together with enough energy then they will release enough water to form (sorry, more technical terms here) a puddle.

The puddle will not last a long time because it will start running downhill (remember that our Spongebob lives on the side of a mountain?) The puddle is not stable in Spongebob’s universe. But if Spongebob is very quick and very lucky he might be able to catch a glint of sunlight from the surface of the puddle, and this will prove that he’s right about the water and the rain.

In fact, Spongebob persuades the spongepeople to build what he calls the Large Sponge Collider…but that’s another story.

So, to sum up:

Spongebob Squarepants = Peter Higgs
Rain = Higgs Field
Water = Higgs Mechanism
Puddle = Higgs Boson

My dad would sometimes respond to my more strained and unlikely metaphors in a stern voice, saying: “Son, an analogy is only an analogy!” However, I like to think that he would have enjoyed this one.

The Power of Instruction

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“But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.”
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1, p.147.

And so, the A-level Physics results were announced. And . . . they weren’t too bad. Actually, I thought the A2 ones were pretty good. I was pleased. The AS ones were more mixed, but still they were “not too shabby” as Lenny from The Simpsons might say.

Like many other teachers, I spent the previous, fateful Wednesday night sleepless with worry. Mainly selfish worry in my case, I am sorry to confess. Would the results be such that I would be drawn slowly over hot coals by SLT? Thankfully, in the morning, some quick calculations on the back of an envelope helped me to dispel that worry, at least.

The Physics results stacked up well against Biology and Chemistry, and were comfortably above the school average. This is how our current “data driven culture” has affected the behaviour of a typical teacher on the ground. It sometimes seems that we worry more about our percentages than our pupils.

But this post isn’t about that. It’s about a thought that occurs whenever I am complimented on “my” examination results. How much of my students’ success (or failure, for that matter) is actually down to me?

I have helped. Of that I have no doubt. There is a small share of exam glory that belongs to us — we few, we happy few that dare to tread that strange, dazzlingly-lit space in front of the interactive whiteboard.

But I believe that it is a lesser share than is commonly supposed. I know that the public, many parents, most students — and perhaps even the majority of teachers — actually accept this myth of “it’s mainly down to the teacher” as an article of faith. And I think they’re wrong.

Let me suggest an analogy to explain what I mean: “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.” I believe that teachers are in a similar situation: you can lead students to knowledge but you cannot make them learn.

Does that mean that I’m a passive, inactive take-it-or-leave-it teacher? Hell, no! I bloody well am not! I am busy jumping up and down pointing out that the water in this here waterhole is ever so nice and cool and clear and I will happily serve it in a golden goblet with a paper umbrella and a cherry on top while singing the hallelujah chorus if only the skittish ponies in my care would just . . . drink. A little bit, please? On some days I’d even settle for a sip. On others, I might even be satisfied it they so much as glanced in the direction of the water.

But the point is: the ultimate decision to learn or not to learn is theirs, not mine. Oh, I can come up with all sorts of ingenious activities to keep them occupied and busy, but busy does not equate to learning. In fact, it is my considered opinion based upon both my experience as an A-level student (many, many moons ago) and as a teacher that, particularily at A-level, the most important learning often takes place outside the classroom.

What we do in the classroom is encourage, signpost and help students overcome the occasional obstacle or misunderstanding. For the most part, the magic of genuine learning happens out of our sight.

A while back, an ex-student sent me an email which I still read now and then when I am dispirited or discouraged. The student wrote: “Life at university has been great, but you can’t imagine the number of times that I’ve wished that learning in life was as easy as learning in your classes back then.”

I am touched and honoured that the student felt that way, but feel I must acknowledge that the student’s own efforts did the lion’s share of the heavy lifting. This student — amongst many others that I have had the privilege of teaching — had that “happy disposition” that meant (in my opinion) that my instruction was “almost superfluous”.

Almost superfluous. But not, by any means, completely superfluous. Just “almost.” And that makes me smile.

This was the feeling that made the opening quote from Edward Gibbon resonate with me. But I find some wise words from Machiavelli also carry weight: “God is not willing to do everything, and take away that share of glory that belongs to us.”

A small share of our students’ glory is a teacher’s portion, and for many of us, it’s actually the best part of the job.

Not The-Perfect-Sphere-Assumption-Chicken-Joke

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Farmer Jenkins was justly proud of his free-range chicken farm, and particularily of Griselda, his prize layer. So, it came as no surprise (at least to him) when he placed highly in the All-England Free Range Egg Taste Challenge. “Don’t you worry, lass,” he cooed to Griselda as his Range Rover purred through the warm summer night, “next year we’ll come first, I promise.”

Griselda continued sleeping in her carry case, seemingly comforted by the presence of the garish gold-painted plastic statue by her side, which featured a chicken contorted to form an approximation of the numeral 2.

On a whim, Farmer Jenkins locked the award in his office safe when he got home, and returned Griselda to her roost with reverential gratitude.

The next day he unlocked the safe to retreive the award. He had a fair bit of trouble opening the door. “That’s strange,” he murmured, bending down to examine the obstruction. It appeared that the award had somehow moved in the night and jammed part of the door mechanism. “H’mmm, how did that happen?” Farmer Jenkins shook his head. The award appeared . . . bigger, somehow. But surely that was impossible. However, what troubled Farmer Jenkins most of all was the fact that the plastic chicken, what he could see of it, at least, now appeared contorted into the shape of the numeral 3.

As he telephoned his friend Brian to share his puzzlement, he heard a metallic tearing. He stared dumbfounded at an apparition of a plastic chicken rearing above the torn remnants of his safe. And now the wings and body of the plastic fowl appeared to form the numeral 4.

“Did anyone touch it?” asked Brian urgently over the crackly landline connection

“No, no-one,” said Jenkins with certainty.

“Ah, that explains it,” said Brian.

“It does?”

“Oh yes,” concluded Brian. “You see, in an isolated system, hen trophy will always increase.”

Desert Island Graphs

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In Britain, being invited on the BBC radio programme “Desert Island Discs” is an accolade roughly equivalent to being knighted. Guests are invited to choose six records that they might take with them to a desert island.

The recent episode with Stephen Pinker reminded me of a variant that I’d pitched to the BBC’s Head of Light Entertainment not so long ago. In “Desert Island Graphs” a panel of notable scientists sit around and hold a no-holds-barred humorous roundrobin discussion of which six graphs they’d carry with them to a desert island.
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My own perennial favourite is of course the old Binding Energy per Nucleon against Nucleon Number because it is a wonderful illustration of how basic physics affects the unfolding of the universe: large red giant stars cook up each of the elements in turn up to iron before “sploding” (thank you Ricky Ricardo) as a supernova (“Wha’ ‘appen?!?”).

To say that my overtures were brutally rejected would be an understatement. As a matter of fact, the then Head of Light Entertainment threatened not only to have me hunted down and killed, but to have my hometown napalmed and the ground sown with salt.

There’s just no pleasing some people….