Prologue

When my daughter, Lori, began to study physics in high school, she very soon became frustrated and confused with the subject. My husband, who is a physicist and co-author of this book, spent many hours helping her with her studies and tried to impress upon her the importance and necessity of learning this fundamental subject. He tried patiently to explain the complicated formulas in a simplified manner. At the same time he included some pictorial and easy-to-remember comparisons with events of everyday life and some background history and ‘gossip’ in order to make the subject more captivating and comprehensible. I, myself, who had never studied physics, sympathized with her and could well understand her frustration and irritation as I watched them work out some lengthy and complicated problems on paper. Still, I found myself eavesdropping on his simple comparisons and amusing ‘gossip’. My first encounter with baffling terminology and complicated and

lengthy equations was when I was hired as an English typist at a research center. Later, when I became the secretary to the Plasma Physics Department, my husband, who was at that time the head of the department and my boss, spent many hours explaining some of the experiments and basic principles of physics to me. I was also fortunate to work with some very interesting and clever scientists who patiently explained their complicated research to me. Although they tried to stress to me the beauty, romance, excitement and importance of their work, I’m afraid that they failed to excite my curiosity and most of the time I felt excluded from their enthusiasm and involvement. When, a few years later, I married ‘my boss’, the head of the depart-

ment, he encouraged me to attend some popular physics lectures and to read some ‘easy’ material on the subject. We would later spend many evenings discussing the various topics. The more he explained, the more I pressed him for more, always insisting that he use ‘simple English’. I must admit that at times I monopolized his time and exhausted his stamina. But slowly I became more familiar with some of the terminology and found myself becoming involved in some discussions in which I would not have dared indulge in the past. I was often flattered when I

met some of my husband’s colleagues and, after an hour of discussion, they asked whether I, too, was a physicist. As secretary to the Plasma Physics Department, I was very surprised at

the response I receivedwhen I answered the telephone and gave the name of the department. Most of these callers were unaware that there exists a plasma in physics, though they had some basic knowledge of the plasma in blood. ‘What does blood have to do with physics?’ I was often asked. I sometimes wonder how the word secretary first originated. I presume

it comes from the word secret, as some dictionaries define the word secretary as ‘confidential clerk’. As the secretary to a scientific department of over 30 workers, mainly scientists, I was the center for complaints, confidences, advice and so on. Thusmany of my co-workers would come to cry on my shoulder. At times our center would arrange visits from prominent investors for certain research projects. These fund providers and senior official clerks seldom had a proper physics background and therefore did not speak ‘physics’. It was thus very difficult for the scientists who speak ‘physics’ to explain to these fund providers, who speak ‘English’, the importance of a certain piece of research which they feel is essential. I often heard complaints of frustration from my fellow co-workers who had their brilliant proposals rejected because the funder didn’t understand the importance of or necessity for such projects. Whilst on a home visit to Montreal, Canada, I spent some evenings with

my childhood friends. Their knowledge of physics was even less than mine. When I told them the name of the department in which I worked, they raised their eyebrows at ‘plasma physics’. I gave them my simple explanation of ‘plasma in physics’ in the following way: ‘Plasma in science is a gas. We know that there are three states of matter. This we learn in public school. These are solid, liquid and gas. But there is a fourth state, which is also in the form of a gas. This fourth state is called plasma. When you heat a solid (such as a cube of ice), it turns into a liquid (water). If the liquid is heated some more, it turns into a gas (steam), and by further heating up the gas, you get a different kind of gas (plasma).’ My friends were pleased with my very simple and primitive explanation and told me that they had finally learned something. I felt very proud of my ability to enlighten them, if only slightly, on this complex topic; but when I related my simple explanation to my husband and brother-in-law (who is an engineer and well read in physics), they both laughed. Today, my husband uses my simple introductory explanation whenever he lectures to people who don’t speak ‘physics’. The following week my sister hosted a small celebration in honor of my

homecoming and invited my friends. My husband decided to improve and elaborate on my previous explanation on plasma. He sought out my friends and began a ‘physics’ explanation of the ionization process involved in plasma. Before he was half-way through, my friends cried

off and told him that they preferred my explanation. ‘You see’, they told him, ‘we don’t speak ‘‘physics’’.’ I feel that it is important to stress the fact that physicists speak ‘physics’.

It is very hard for them to explain to the ordinary housewife or to a passerby some of the topics in physics, without going into their complicated terminology. Without their mathematical equations, without their sophisticated graphs, without their formulas, without their big and small numbers, they are lost for words. This is why the gap between the important administrator and fund provider and the scientist is so vast. This lack of communication not only causes frustration, but sometimes prevents discoveries or the development of very important research. Following our visit to Montreal, my husband and I and our four chil-

dren spent a sabbatical year in Austin, Texas. I had the opportunity to get together with many physicists’ wives. When I asked them how they coped with questions relating to their husbands’ work, most of them said that they would simply reply that they didn’t speak ‘physics’. During our sabbatical, I spent time reading popular books on physics. I

kept asking myself how this subject could be made more comprehensible to the average individual. I found that while reading some topics, I could easily write about them in rhyming verse. When I re-read those verses, I was amazed to learn that even I was able to understand these topics better. After I had compiled several poems (which were carefully ‘censored’ by my husband), my husband showed some of them to a few scientists who thought they were ‘very cute and charming’; to some passers-by who thought they were ‘very informative’; and to some intellectuals who thought they were ‘very good, indeed’. I remember one particular occasion while on sabbatical. We were

attending a reception. My husband was approached by a journalist who asked him to explain his field of work-the nature of plasma and how it is used in nuclear fusion, which is such a big issue with the public at large. At the end of a scientific explanation with some relevant numbers and exact formulations, I noticed that somehow my husband hadn’t been able to get through to him. I offered my simple English explanation and suddenly his face lit up and he exclaimed that he finally began to understand my husband’s explanation. Now, what has this long prologue to do with the writing of this book?

My husband and I decided to write a simple book in ‘English’ and not in ‘hard physics’ to ‘invade the inscrutable’ and to introduce the plasma in physics to the ordinary individual, to the scientist’s wife, her friends, some high school students and perhaps even to the funds provider, who all, like myself, do not speak ‘physics’. As the world progresses, some solution to the desperate energy crisis must be found. Scientists today believe that nuclear fusion could be the best solution. It is thus not only degrading, but also dangerous that plasma physics remains

unknown to the public at large. In our opinion, it is important that this subject be taught more in universities and introduced to the high schools. This book is the collaboration between a physicist who speaks ‘physics’

and a secretary who understands ‘English’. The physicist explains and the secretary writes, after ‘censorship’ of the mathematical formulas, sophisticated graphs and incomprehensible numbers. The end result should be understandable to anyone whose knowledge of physics is negligible. This book is not intended for the physicist. We chose those subjects in physics which are the fundamental ones

necessary to the goal of this book-to produce an understanding of plasma in physics and its application for the benefit of mankind. In the following chapters, we hope that, together with us, you will understand some of the basics in physics, topics which you have usually chosen to ignore in the past. Some rhyming verses appear in the appendix, hopefully to enable a better understanding of some of the complicated terminology and phenomena. The purpose of these rhyming verses is to put big ideas and complicated issues into a compact, simplified and sometimes easy-to-remember form. The rhyming verses are by no means intended as poetry, nor do they follow any specific parameters, patterns or metrical forms. We have omitted the complicated equations, the incomprehensible big

and small numbers and the sophisticated graphs. Instead, we have inserted some simple graphs and pictures. We have tried to include some comparisons with everyday life which we hope will facilitate in translating the hard physics into simple English. We believe that these simple, imaginative and picturesque examples will help to make the reading relaxing and will at the same time not only be informative, but will provide a good atmosphere for ‘invading the fourth state of matter’.