Meeting the Gods

Meeting the Gods - Part I

by Adam Frank for McGraw-Hill

The door to the elevator slid open and there he was - thin, frail and small. He was an old, old man. His suit looked two sizes too big for him and there were but a few wisps of white hair on his wrinkled head. He stood with a cane and looked like he really needed it, gripping the handle with an intensity that told you gravity was working him pretty hard. Still, his diminutive frame, deep set wrinkles and bony hands didn't matter to me at all. I was intimidated. After all, what do you do if you suddenly find yourself riding to the thirteenth floor with the greatest astronomer of the 20th century? What do you say when you suddenly find yourself in the living presence of a hero?

Heroes, gods and giants in the field. They pop up in every domain of human activity. From Michael Jordan in basketball to Tiger Woods in golf, the world of sports has its gods. From Tupac Shukur to Jennifer Lopez the world of pop music certainly has its own heroes and superstars. Science, in its own strange way, is no different. The heroes of science are celebrated for their depth of analytical insight and creativity, not their "def" moves under the backboard or on stage. In science, heroes are men and women whose achievements echo so loudly down the halls of research that even the greenest student knows their names. There are, of course, figures like Newton, Darwin, Einstein and Hubble. Below that grand stature however, there also are lesser names of living scientists whose work casts a long shadow on colleagues and students. Now its unlikely that either you or I will ever bump into J-Lo at the lunch line. The strange aspect about working in science however is at some point you may actually meet one of your heroes. That is why I suddenly found myself speechless, sharing an elevator with the great Jan van Oort.

Oort (1900-1992) was a Dutch astronomer whose accomplishments are far too lengthy to list in these short paragraphs. A few highlights worth mentioning attach themselves to the various astronomical entities that bear his name. There are the "Oort Constants", numbers that determine the structure of the Milky Way galaxy (understanding the shape of our galaxy was definitely one of his Biggies!). There is also the famous "Oort Cloud", a spherical shell of frozen debris leftover from the birth of our solar system. In the 1950s, Oort proposed the existence of this debris cloud surrounding the Sun at a distance 10,000 to 100,000 times greater than the Earth's distance to the Sun. Most importantly, Oort showed that such a cloud would be the source of many of the comets we see diving toward the Sun. In essence, Oort discovered where comets come from. It was a way, way old question and he had found the definitive answer. That's better than a three-pointer in the last seconds of the Final Four.

Figuring out the source of comets, and unraveling the structure of the Galaxy, it was all in a days work for Oort. Me? I was a naīve young graduate student who was just learning to calculate my way out of a paper bag. Suddenly, I was in an elevator with him. What should I say? "Hey dude, nice comet clouds." I was desperate to say something. If you found yourself in an elevator with Michael Jordan, you wouldn't want to just stare at the floor numbers, would you? As the elevator rose upwards so did my anxiety. I almost hit the ceiling when he suddenly spoke to me.

"So, you are a visitor here at the Leiden?" he said with a voice tempered by age and kindness. Oort lived in the Dutch town of Leiden and had built the observatory there into a powerhouse of astronomical research. I explained that I was a student visiting for a summer working towards my Ph.D. with another Dutch astronomer. As the doors slid open we stepped out and he asked me about my research. He had a mind that was more incisive than most of my forty-year-old professors. Time was taking his body but not his curiosity or imagination. He was a very sharp old guy. We talked for about a half an hour. After that he always gave me a genuine smile as we passed in the hallway.

To meet a person who had contributed so much toward helping humanity understand its position in the Universe was a great thing. To meet someone who had seen so far and with such clarity is one aspect of what makes a life in science so extraordinary. Whatever field you end up in, I hope you have a chance to meet one of your Gods. There is inspiration in it that you cannot imagine.

Points to Ponder

Is fame different for a scientist then it is for other celebrities?
Can you name two famous living scientists? Are they male or female?

Check Out These Websites

The Oort Cloud

http://planetscapes.com/solar/eng/oort.htm

Comets

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/solar_system/asteroids_comets/comets_index.html