February 26, 2025 • 53 mins
What causes a quantum jump? Aarati tells the story of Dr. Elmer Imes, a Harlem Renaissance man who proved that the rotation and vibration of molecules is quantized.
For more information and sources for this episode, visit https://www.smartteapodcast.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Arpita (00:11):
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Smart Tea
Podcast, where we talk about thelives of scientists and
innovators who shape the world.
How are you, Aarati?
Aarati (00:19):
I'm doing pretty well, Arpita.
How are you?
Arpita (00:22):
I'm doing okay.
You know, the days are gettinglonger and the sun is setting
later and my mood is improving.
Aarati (00:30):
Yes, we're getting out of that seasonal depression.
Arpita (00:34):
Oh, it's so true.
I got home from work today rightaround 5.
20 and it was still so brightoutside and I was like amazing.
This is all I needed was justsome sunshine.
Aarati (00:45):
Yes.
I've been having that too, like,every time I go out around 530,
I'm like, it's still bright out.
Yes, amazing.
We still have at least anotherhalf hour, 45 minutes of
sunshine before it goes down.
That's great.
Arpita (00:58):
Oh, I know.
It is so nice.
Yeah, what do you have going onthis week?
Aarati (01:02):
Not much.
I was, you know, checking thenews.
I was, I've been trying not toread the actual news, you know,
because it's just so depressingand I can't.
And so I was like, let me readscience news because it gives me
some hope.
And I found out that This yearis apparently the international
(01:24):
year of Quantum Science andTechnology, because it's been
like, I have no idea, but I waslike, so into it.
Apparently it's been 100 yearssince like quantum theory like
really came into its own.
Arpita (01:40):
What does that mean"came into its own"?
Aarati (01:42):
Like, you know, all the people who all the big
scientists who are like studyingquantum theory, like Albert
Einstein and Schrodinger and MaxPlanck and all these like really
big names in quantum theory wereall doing their work like right
around this time period.
And that's when I see it wastheorized that, you know,
quantum theory was a thing.
(02:03):
And so everybody was like doingexperiments around that trying
to prove it.
And so they chose 1925 as theyear that it like was first put
forth or like quantum theory,like we are now accepting
quantum theory.
Arpita (02:17):
And now it's been hundred years.
Aarati (02:18):
And now it's been a hundred years, so the powers
that be, I guess, have decidedthat this year is the
International Year of QuantumScience and Technology.
And I was like, this is great.
Arpita (02:28):
Sounds real nerdy.
Aarati (02:30):
Fantastic.
Yeah.
And so that's.
You know, I know you're going tohate me for this, but that's
kind of what inspired the storytoday.
I know.
Arpita (02:42):
We will just see what my mental bandwidth is today,
Aarati for quantum physics.
Aarati (02:47):
Yes.
But I was just like, you knowhow I love a theme and it's just
so on theme, you know, I'm I wasactually going to do a different
person for today and then I gotjust completely sidelined by
this news and then I was like,Oh my gosh, like something
shiny.
I have to go follow it.
And so I just, you know, endedup totally changing my story.
Arpita (03:09):
So okay, brave faces on.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
Aarati (03:12):
Okay, so for this story, we are traveling back to the
1800s and it is 18 years afterthe Civil War on October 12th,
1883, and Elmer Iams was born inMemphis, Tennessee.
His father, Benjamin AlbertImes, was from a family of free
(03:35):
Black farmers in Pennsylvania,and Benjamin went to college at
Oberlin Theological Seminary,where he was studying for his
divinity degree.
Arpita (03:44):
Wait, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Back up.
He's Black?
Aarati (03:47):
He is Black.
Yes.
Arpita (03:49):
And he went to divinity school, and this is, like, just
post Civil War?
Aarati (03:55):
Just post Civil War, his father went to Divinity School.
Arpita (03:58):
I'm just impressed that he went to college in this time
frame.
That's crazy.
Aarati (04:04):
That is a very good point, yeah.
That it is a huge deal that he'sgoing to college.
Arpita (04:10):
It's a huge deal.
Aarati (04:11):
Yes.
Arpita (04:11):
Yeah, that seems like not what I would have expected
for this time period at all, butokay.
Aarati (04:16):
Absolutely.
But here's an even bigger deal,that at this college is where he
met Elmer's mother, Elizabeth,who is a black woman who is also
going to college in this timeperiod.
Arpita (04:29):
We love this for them Wait, so they live in Tennessee
also on top of that.
Aarati (04:33):
No, sorry.
So they're going to college inOberlin, Ohio right now.
Arpita (04:37):
Okay.
Okay.
Aarati (04:38):
Yeah, so his mother and father are going to college in
Oberlin, Ohio, and they're bothstudying theology, basically.
Arpita (04:47):
Okay.
Aarati (04:48):
So Benjamin, who's the father, was from a family of
free black farmers inPennsylvania, but Elizabeth, the
mother, was born into slavery inMississippi, and then she was
emancipated after the Civil War.
Arpita (05:01):
And then she went to college.
That's insane.
Aarati (05:03):
Yeah, so she's also a theology student at Oberlin, and
they met each other.
And then in 1880, Elizabeth andBenjamin graduated and got
married, and then the two ofthem started their lives as
missionaries teachingChristianity to former slaves in
the South.
Arpita (05:20):
Wow.
Aarati (05:21):
Yeah.
Arpita (05:21):
So impressive.
Aarati (05:22):
So as missionaries, the family moved around a little
bit.
And so Elmer, like I said, wasborn in Memphis, Tennessee, but
then he grew up and attendedgrammar school in Oberlin, Ohio.
And then he attended theAgricultural and Mechanical
College High School in Normal,Alabama.
And it sounded to me like thatwas a little bit more of like a
(05:44):
vocational school that wasgeared towards training Black
people to work in specifictrades.
But since Elmer's father wascollege educated, he
supplemented his education byteaching him classics like
literature and history.
Arpita (06:00):
Cool.
Aarati (06:01):
And Elmer was also the eldest of three brothers, and
all of them grew up to be, like,amazing people.
So, the middle son, Albert,became a successful businessman,
and the youngest brother,William, followed in his parents
footsteps and became a renownedtheologian and civil rights
activist.
So, all three brothers, amazing.
Arpita (06:21):
This is already so impressive.
Aarati (06:23):
Yeah, so there weren't a lot of, like, really specific
details about Elmer's childhood,but, like, given the time period
and the fact that he's growingup in the South, it's pretty
safe to say he was probablygrowing up around many very
recently freed slaves who werenow facing, like, a ton of
discriminatory Jim Crow laws,but, like, you kind of hit upon,
(06:46):
he's in this very uniqueposition because both of his
parents are college educated, soand they had the means and the
ability to give their kids goodeducations and like kind of open
them up to opportunities thatmany others in the Black
community didn't have at thetime.
So, as far as Black people postCivil War go, he's very, very
(07:07):
lucky.
Arpita (07:08):
Totally.
Like, I can't imagine anythingabout this is easy but it does
seem just I mean, beating allodds for not only him and this
time frame to go to college andall of his brothers, but also
both parents and his mom wasborn a slave.
Like that is...
Aarati (07:26):
Yes.
Arpita (07:26):
You know?
Aarati (07:27):
They're doing really well from, for themselves, this
family.
So, thanks to his well roundededucation, after high school,
Elmer got into Fisk Universityin Nashville, Tennessee, which
is a historically Black college.
And he studied for hisbachelor's degree in physics
there.
But he also took a number ofclassics classes, including
(07:48):
English literature, Greek,Latin, Spanish, Ethics, and
Sociology.
So, very, very well roundededucation.
Arpita (07:57):
I tried to get out of all my GEs, so can't relate.
Aarati (07:59):
Oh, really?
I think my GEs were the onlything that made me pass college.
Honestly.
It's like, I mean, only thingkeeping my grade point average
up.
Arpita (08:10):
Oh, I think that's definitely true for me.
I definitely padded myself.
Aarati (08:14):
Yes, absolutely.
So after college, Elmer wantedto pursue a higher degree, but
that was easier said than done.
A, he didn't have enough money.
B, very few Black collegesoffered higher degrees in
science because they didn't havethe funding or science equipment
and labs.
And C, again, there's like, alot of discrimination against
(08:37):
him because he's Black and so hecan't just apply to any
university and get in based onmerit.
So, um, it's not an easy thing.
So first things first, he got aposition teaching physics and
math at the Albany Normal Schoolin Georgia to start saving
money.
And this was the first time I'dheard of a Normal school.
(09:00):
I was like, what is a normalschool?
But basically it's a schoolthat's meant to train public
school teachers.
So today we just call them liketeaching colleges.
But I guess back then it wascalled a Normal school.
Arpita (09:11):
That's so funny.
Why was that the adjective?
Aarati (09:14):
I was looking into this.
I think it's like something todo with it, like, the word came
from a French word that meant,like, standardized or like the
standard way of, yeah,
Arpita (09:27):
It's like a normalization of like education,
because I imagine that like preteaching colleges, like teachers
were teaching whatever theywanted, so I imagine that it was
almost like a like some, like,standardization.
Aarati (09:39):
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
So I think that's where, like,the etymology of that word came
from, but I just thought it wasreally funny that it's called a
normal school.
Yeah.
So then in 1908, Elmer's fatherdied, and so Elmer went to
Alabama to support and care forhis mother.
And at this point, she was adirector at the Industrial
(10:00):
Missionary Association School inAlabama.
So, he moved to Alabama to bewith her, and he started
teaching at the EmersonInstitute to keep earning money.
And it took him nearly a decadeof teaching, but after like 10
years, he went back to FiskUniversity to teach science and
math and pursue his Master'sdegree at the same time.
Arpita (10:23):
So he did end up going to, get a higher degree and he
was able to get in.
Aarati (10:27):
Yeah, but it took him 10 years between his bachelor's and
his master's, so.
However, Fisk only offered up toa Master's degree and he just
wanted to do more.
He wanted to get his PhD.
Um, so he was not satisfied.
Yes.
He's not satisfied.
(10:48):
And the U.
S.
is still heavily segregated.
So Elmer's options for highereducation in the South were
pretty much non existent.
But there were moreopportunities in the North and
the University of Michigan atAnn Arbor was a little bit more
open minded.
and more inclusive.
There was a catch though, theyrequired Black students to do a
(11:09):
probationary year where they hadto complete the University of
Michigan's senior yearundergraduate curriculum before
they were allowed to do anygraduate studies.
Arpita (11:19):
Oh, interesting.
Aarati (11:20):
Yeah, and I think this was actually pretty common for
like northern schools becauseWhen a Black person said they
had gone to college, that didn'treally mean anything because
there's, again, like, nostandardization, really,
especially with, like, Blackcolleges or, like, predominantly
Black colleges.
It's like, well, what does thatmean?
What do you, what do you meanyou have an education?
Arpita (11:41):
Yeah.
I guess post GRE they had to, orsorry, pre GRE, they had to
figure out a, figure out a wayto get everyone on the same
level.
Aarati (11:50):
Yes.
So in 1915, Elmer was able totransfer schools.
He had to complete thatprobationary year of
undergraduate school, and thenhe was chosen as a graduate
fellow under Professor HarrisonRandall.
So Harrison Randall was a leaderin spectroscopy.
And so Elmer's thesis was todesign and build higher
(12:12):
resolution infraredspectrometers.
Okay, so here's where we'regoing to spend some time
breaking down the science.
So spectroscopy is basicallywhen scientists study the
interaction between light andmatter.
And when I say light, that lightcan come from anywhere on the
electromagnetic spectrum.
So anything from like long waveswith low energy, like radio
(12:37):
waves and infrared light tovisible light, which is all the
color wavelengths that we cansee, and then waves with much
shorter wavelengths and higherenergies like ultraviolet and x
rays.
So in really simple terms, whatspectroscopists are doing is
they're choosing a specificwavelength of light from this
spectrum, shooting them at asample of some matter that they
(13:00):
want to analyze.
And that matter can be like amineral or biological tissue or
chemical or something.
And they study the interactionbetween the light and that
sample of matter.
And different things can happenwhen they do that.
So the light can either beabsorbed by the matter, it can
be transmitted through it, Or itcan be reflected off of it.
Arpita (13:22):
Okay.
Aarati (13:23):
And so if you remember our like episode on Wilhelm
Röntgen from last year, this iswhat basically he was seeing
when he put his hand in front ofx rays.
Most of the x rays were beingtransmitted through the soft
tissue because it had a lowerdensity, but then it would be
absorbed by higher densitymatter like calcium in his
bones.
Arpita (13:43):
Okay.
That makes sense.
My eyes haven't glazed over ityet.
Okay.
Aarati (13:45):
Great.
We're doing well.
So simultaneously, this is allhappening right at the very
beginning of all these householdname scientists like Albert
Einstein and Niels Bohr andWerner Heisenberg and all these
others are starting to piecetogether quantum theory, which
turned many concepts fromclassical physics kind of on
(14:08):
their heads.
So normally in physics.
When you think about an objecthaving a certain amount of
energy, you can graph thatenergy in a continuous line.
So, if you go back to physics,like, you have a ball rolling on
a surface, and if the ball isrolling with a certain speed and
energy at point A, you canmeasure that, right?
(14:30):
And then, if you add energy tothe system by pushing the ball,
for example, it will speed up,and now you can measure the
energy again at point B.
Point B after you've pushed theball and you can make a graph of
what the energy looked like atpoint A to point B.
Arpita (14:47):
Yeah.
Aarati (14:47):
And between A and B.
There's a continuous line.
So if you pick any point betweenA and B You'll be able to
calculate the energy anywherealong that line
Arpita (14:57):
Because at any point there is some energy.
Aarati (14:59):
There's something going on.
Yeah, so you can look at it atthe ball at any point and you'll
be able to calculate what'shappening with the ball at that
point in terms of energy.
But physicists were starting torealize that subatomic particles
didn't behave like that.
So, now, if you imagine anelectron, it's orbiting around a
(15:20):
nucleus in an atom.
It has a very specificrotational and vibrational
energy that it's at.
But now, if you add energy tothe system by shining a light
wave at it, if the light wavehas the correct frequency, the
electrons can absorb that energyand jump to a higher energy
state.
(15:41):
And this is called a quantumjump, because unlike the ball,
there's no in between.
When the electron goes from oneenergy state to the next, you
can't, like, measure what'shappening between that jump.
It's just Level 1, level 2.
That's it.
There's no level 1.
5.
There's no level 1.
623.
Arpita (15:59):
It's not continuous.
Aarati (16:00):
It's not continuous.
They're discrete levels.
Arpita (16:02):
Is this orbitals or no?
These are like the electrons arein each of their orbitals and
they jump, right?
Aarati (16:09):
Yes.
So orbitals is one thing.
Yeah.
Orbitals is definitely one thingthat they jump from orbital to
orbital.
Arpita (16:15):
I'm doing so well right now.
Aarati (16:17):
You're doing really great.
You're on it.
So, this is actually whatspectroscopists were trying to
observe.
So, if they used x rays to shinelight at molecules, they could
observe that at certainwavelengths or certain light
energies, the electrons wouldabsorb the energy and jump from
one orbital to the next.
(16:38):
But this was like with x raysspecifically.
So if you look at this on anabsorbance spectrum, like the
graph readout that you see whenyou do this, the line is flat
where the electron is notabsorbing much energy because
the wavelength of light isn't atthe correct frequency.
But once you hit the rightwavelength there's like this
(16:59):
huge spike in the absorbentspectrum where the electron is
absorbing all that energy.
Arpita (17:03):
Yeah.
Aarati (17:04):
So that's kind of a really important point like the
wavelength of light that youshoot at the molecule has to be
the right frequency Otherwise,it's not going to make that
quantum leap.
And so I was like talking to mybrother about this and he was
saying that you could explain itkind of like you're pushing
someone on a swing.
So if you push your handsforward really fast, like push,
(17:26):
push, push, push, push, push,push, the person isn't really
going to go anywhere becauseyou're pushing too fast.
But if you push one time andthen you wait five minutes and
then you push a second time likethe person's still not going to
go anywhere because you'repushing too slow now, so you
have to kind of get this rhythmgoing in order to get the person
(17:47):
to actually swing higher andhigher and higher and that's
what's happening, kind of, withthese molecules and subatomic
particles.
Arpita (17:54):
That's a good metaphor.
I like that.
Aarati (17:56):
Yeah, you have to get the right wavelength and then
they kind of start resonatingtogether and then there's a
quantum jump into a differentorbital with a different energy.
So that's kind of the theorythat people are kind of coming
up with, but it's stilltheoretical, like it makes sense
mathematically, but it's justsuch a departure from how people
(18:17):
thought about how energy andmatter react.
Like most people were stillthinking of the ball example and
that energy is this continuousthing.
So for things to be making leapslike this where you can't
measure what's going on betweenthe two energy states is really
like, like, it's just madness,you know, like that doesn't, but
(18:38):
it's working out mathematically,but now they're trying to show
it experimentally, basically.
Arpita (18:43):
Okay.
Which really are separatethings.
Aarati (18:46):
Yes.
So, they've been able to showthat if they shined x rays on
atoms, they could see theelectrons would absorb the
wavelengths at certainfrequencies, and the x ray
absorbance spectrum would showthese big, discrete spikes in
absorbance, which meant that theelectrons orbital energy was
changing in a way that wasconsistent with quantum theory.
(19:09):
But again, that was like reallyspecific to x rays and electrons
orbital energy.
But quantum theory alsopredicted that changes to a
molecule or electronsvibrational and rotational
energies might also be quantizedthe same way.
But x rays weren't really theway to go about looking at that.
(19:31):
In order to look at rotationaland vibrational energy, you
needed to use infrared light.
And so that's when we circleback to what Elmer was doing for
his PhD.
He was working on optimizinginfrared spectrometers to the
point that we could actually seewhether when we shot infrared
light at molecules, did theyhave this big discrete spike
(19:52):
that correlated with quantumchanges in vibrational and
rotational energy?
Arpita (19:57):
Relative to x-rays for orbital changes, because that we
already knew at this point.
Aarati (20:03):
Yeah.
So X-rays with orbital changes,we had already been able to
show.
Arpita (20:07):
Right.
We would like, and he's tryingto show infrared for vibration.
Aarati (20:10):
Mm-hmm
Arpita (20:11):
And rotation.
Aarati (20:12):
Yeah.
Arpita (20:13):
Okay.
Aarati (20:13):
So infrared light is what you need to excite
rotational and vibrationalenergies.
X-rays is what you need in orderto excite the different changes
in orbital energy.
So it's like the differentwavelengths are doing different
things to the molecules.
Arpita (20:30):
How did he know that it was x rays
Aarati (20:33):
What scientists had been able to do was they were seeing
that when they shot x rays atmolecules, the orbital energy
was changing, and they knew thatthese subatomical particles had
rotational and vibrationalenergies associated with them,
but when they shot x rays at it,the rotational and vibrational
energies were not changing.
(20:54):
But they were like, hey, there'sother wavelengths of light.
Maybe it's a differentwavelength.
Like maybe we're not hitting theatom with the correct frequency
of light in order to excite thevibrational and rotational
energy.
So they're trying differentwavelengths of light and they
are seeing something withinfrared light, but it's like
this fuzzy band that they're notreally able to tell what's
(21:17):
happening.
So they're like maybe it'sinfrared, but we're not sure.
So that's kind of like the pointthat we're at.
Arpita (21:24):
Okay.
Aarati (21:24):
So that's why he's working on infrared
spectrometers specificallybecause people are like, we
think it might be infraredbecause we're seeing something.
Arpita (21:33):
Okay.
And he's probing that questiondeeper to try to understand.
Aarati (21:37):
Yeah, we don't have like high enough resolution to see
exactly what's happening.
We think it's there, but wedon't have the resolution.
Arpita (21:44):
Okay.
Aarati (21:45):
So Elmer was the first scientist to conduct these very
high precision experiments wherehe looked at three diatomic
molecules.
So he looked at hydrogenchloride, hydrogen bromide, and
hydrogen fluoride.
And for all of these molecules,you can imagine them kind of
like a dumbbell where one sideis bigger than the other, like
(22:07):
hydrogens on one side and thenfluoride or bromide or chloride
are on the other side.
And then the dumbbells weightsare either moving in and out
really fast and that's vibrationor the dumbbell is spinning and
over end and that's rotation.
So, for example, if you justlook at hydrogen chloride
previously when scientists hadshot infrared light at it and
(22:28):
looked at the spectrum, they sawthat something was going on at
wavelengths that were 1.
76 microns and then again atwavelengths that were 3.
46 microns.
But they just kind of lookedfuzzy, and they couldn't tell
what was happening.
Arpita (22:45):
When you say it looks fuzzy, is it on that output
where you can, you're chartingall the peaks?
Aarati (22:51):
Yeah, so you're instead of seeing peaks, they're just
kind of seeing like a lump, andthey're like, okay, okay,
something's happening.
Yeah.
Arpita (22:59):
Something is, but they haven't gotten all of the
parameters quite right to beable to get really crisp data.
Aarati (23:04):
Yeah, yeah, they're not seeing peaks.
They're seeing like this verybroad kind of curve or lump and
they're like, okay, something'shappening there.
We're not seeing peaks the sameway that we're seeing with the X
rays and orbital energies, butthere might be peaks.
We just don't have theresolution.
So in 1916, Elmer constructed aseries of infrared spectrometers
(23:28):
with constantly increasingresolutions in order to look at
these curves or these lumps inthe spectra more clearly, and
with his final spectrometer thathe built, he was able to see
that at 3.
46 microns, there were 12 pairsof peaks, which corresponded to
increasing vibrational androtational energy levels and the
(23:53):
band at 1.
76 microns resolved into eightpairs of absorbance peaks
corresponding to decreasingenergy levels.
Arpita (24:00):
Why are there pairs?
Aarati (24:02):
That's a good question.
He did not know at the time.
But someone figured it out.
So I will let you know.
But this was experimental prooffirst and foremost that
vibrational and rotationalenergy of the molecules was
indeed quantized.
So this was like the first proofof that.
Arpita (24:20):
Okay, so you could see some, you, he got peaks
basically.
Aarati (24:23):
Yeah, he got peaks.
Arpita (24:24):
We got peaks.
Aarati (24:25):
Yes.
And this was huge because it wasone of the first experimental
verifications of quantum theorythat showed that it could be
applied not only to x rays, butacross the entire
electromagnetic spectrum, andalso not only just to orbital
energy states, but vibrationaland rotational states of
(24:45):
molecules as well.
So it really opened up this,like, huge, like, wow, quantum
theory is this broad thing thatgoes across the electromagnetic
spectrum and also like all thesedifferent energy states that
these molecules have.
Hi everyone, Aarati here.
I hope you're enjoying thepodcast.
(25:07):
If so, and you wish someonewould tell your science story, I
founded a science communicationscompany called Sykom, that's S Y
K O M, that can help.
Sykom blends creativity withscientific accuracy to create
all types of sciencecommunications content including
explainer videos, slidepresentations, science writing,
(25:27):
and more.
We work with academicresearchers, tech companies, non
profits, or really any scientistto help simplify your science.
Check us out at sykommer.
com.
That's S Y K O M M E R dot com.
Okay, back to the story.
(25:48):
He published his work in theAstrophysical Journal in an
article called"Measurements onthe Near Infrared Absorption of
Some Diatomic Gases."
Arpita (25:58):
I will never stop cracking up at the titles of all
of their papers.
It's just so different from theway that we title things now and
it's like also just having likeone author on a paper cracks me
up.
There's just so much about...
I don't know, just the waypeople publish, not in the 21st
century even, and it just cracksme up every single time.
Aarati (26:19):
To be fair, I think Harrison Randall was also on
this paper, but it was like atwo authored paper.
Arpita (26:24):
Yeah, it's just so funny.
It's just so entertaining.
Aarati (26:28):
Okay, and this work laid the foundation for many
scientists to be able to studymolecular structure by
calculating things like the bonddistance between the hydrogen
atom and the chlorine or thebromine or whatever was on the
other side of the molecule.
But also you were asking aboutthe pairs of peaks.
Why are there pairs of peaks?
And he didn't know why, butanother scientist figured out
(26:50):
that it was because he wasstudying hydrogen chloride and
chloride actually has twoisotopes.
Arpita (26:56):
Two isotopes! Oh!
Aarati (26:58):
Yeah.
So the two different peaks werefor the two isotopes.
And so scientists were able tolike refer back to his graph and
be like,"Oh yeah, his graphshows that" like, it makes
sense.
Arpita (27:11):
That does make sense.
Aarati (27:12):
Yeah.
Arpita (27:14):
So in biological studies, even if they're really
basic science, you canunderstand why these discoveries
and mechanisms are important tothe world.
Why do we care about quantumphysics?
Aarati (27:30):
Yes, that is a good question, that I was also kind
of like, why do we care?
Arpita (27:37):
Because, okay, like in biological sciences, I can
understand this a lot, right?
Like there's a lot ofpharmaceutical implications,
understanding differentmechanisms can help us
understand different diseases,and like, even at a really small
level, even things that we likestumble upon from a molecular
perspective can help usunderstand lots of different
things about how life works.
Aarati (27:57):
Yeah.
Arpita (27:57):
I can understand that.
Even some bench research whereI'm just like, what are you guys
doing here?
Aarati (28:02):
Yes.
Arpita (28:03):
I can still understand the long term implications.
Yeah.
I'm having a hard timeunderstanding the implications
here.
Aarati (28:09):
Well, I think, I think there's a lot.
Like really the person to ask,or maybe not ask, is my brother,
because he will wax poetic aboutthis until the end of time.
Arpita (28:19):
I'm sure there's an answer.
I just want to know what it is.
Aarati (28:21):
No, absolutely.
Because I think with this kindof knowledge, you can, first of
all, figure out the structure ofa lot of chemicals.
And you can figure out how thesechemicals are interacting with,
like, what makes them excited.
Like things like electroncarriers, for example, like how
energy is transferred from oneplace to another place, um, like
(28:45):
NAD, NADPH, all of those thingsthat we learned in biochemistry
where like something is anelectron carrier and it goes
down this like electrontransport chain, like all of
this wouldn't have been able toreally been figured out without
knowing this kind of stuff, likeknowing that electrons could get
excited, they could gettransferred, like the electron
(29:05):
bounces from one orbital to thenext or has this certain
rotational energy.
Also like I don't know if thisis like falling into that
category, but like the reasonmicrowaves heat up food is
because the microwaves hit waterat the correct rotational energy
and that's like it's likeflipping the water back and
forth and that friction iscausing the heat so it's like
(29:29):
There's, I think, really, reallybroad implications for this.
Arpita (29:33):
So maybe the answer to my question is, what doesn't it
implicate?
Aarati (29:37):
Yes, yes, exactly.
It's like everything.
Arpita (29:41):
Okay, okay.
I buy that.
Aarati (29:43):
Yes.
And again, I'm like, not theright person to ask about this.
Like, like my brother's achemical engineer and he would
just be like, Oh my God, thatwas such a bad answer.
Like it has everything to dowith everything.
Like, okay.
Arpita (29:55):
Oh, I have another, I have another answer.
Didn't we, um, when we talkedabout Teflon and we talk about
all of the ways that a lot ofthese different chemicals
interact with each other andcreate new materials of like
material science.
Aarati (30:06):
Yes.
Arpita (30:06):
Or adhesives or....
Aarati (30:08):
yes.
Arpita (30:09):
Textiles.
Aarati (30:10):
And my brother works on catalysts right now.
So he's, he's doing like, how dowe, how can we break down
plastics with like bettercatalysts that, you know, help
reactions move forward faster.
So he's like really intochemical structure and like
these kinds of things.
He does spectroscopy all thetime.
So that's why I was asking himall this stuff.
Arpita (30:30):
I see.
Aarati (30:31):
Okay.
So after Elmer figured this out,he became really well known in
physics circles.
In addition, he became one ofthe first Black people to be
initiated into the Sigma XiHonor Society for Scientists and
Engineers.
And when he graduated in 1918with his PhD, he was only the
second Black man in America tohave done so.
Arpita (30:51):
I believe it.
Aarati (30:53):
Yeah, the first was Edward Bouchet who had gotten
his degree in physics also, butit had been over 40 years
earlier, in 1876.
Arpita (31:01):
Oh my god.
Aarati (31:02):
Yes.
Arpita (31:03):
Wait, when did the Civil War end?
Aarati (31:05):
What was it, like 1865 or something?
Somewhere around there.
Arpita (31:10):
1865.
So this person got his phD lessthan five years after the Civil
war ended?
That's crazy.
Aarati (31:19):
Yes, Edward Boucher got his in 18 76.
Yes.
However, despite theseaccomplishments, Elmer was still
met with a lot ofdiscrimination.
And so he had very limitedprofessional opportunities after
graduating.
By this time, he's 36 and he'slooking for work.
And he had heard that New Yorkhad a strong black professional
(31:42):
community.
So he moved there and he wasstarting to work first as an
engineering consultant.
And then he worked for someengineering firms where he was
able to obtain four patents fordevices or methods used to
improve measurements ofmagnetics properties.
But in the meantime, he startedbecoming acquainted with all of
(32:02):
these really amazing Blackscientists and artists who were
all part of the HarlemRenaissance that was going on at
the time.
Arpita (32:10):
Mm hmm.
You know, it's really funnybecause I'm like, not a history
buff.
And dates in my brain meannothing to me.
And so when we learn about allof these different scientists
being contemporaries with eachother, I'm like, Oh my gosh,
that's so cute.
You all live together.
You're talking about the HarlemRenaissance and the Harlem
Renaissance exists in a vacuum.
(32:31):
And I'm like, Oh, it actuallydoes exist on the continuum of
time.
And so it does...
I don't know.
That's a very silly point, butdates really just don't mean
anything in my brain.
And so when we talk about howeach scientist fits in with
these broader historicallandscapes, I'm always, like,
very fascinated.
Aarati (32:46):
Yes, I was, like, really excited when I started reading
this part, too.
Like, when I got to this point,this is where I kicked in.
Like, I was like, okay, bye,brother.
Thank you so much for yourscience.
This is where I shine, because Iwas like, ah, Harlem
Renaissance.
I remember learning about that.
Arpita (33:01):
Exactly.
Aarati (33:02):
Oh, my gosh, he was involved in that.
That's so cool.
Like, this is amazing.
Arpita (33:07):
Like art and the music....
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Aarati (33:09):
Yeah, all the, and I just love how it goes to show
that like, he's so influenced byit.
And so like part of it.
He is not existing in a vacuum,you know, he's part of this like
big movement that's happening inNew York.
Arpita (33:23):
Exactly.
Aarati (33:24):
And this is where he met Nella Larson.
And I love this because you knowhow we complain all the time
that there's like not a lot ofinformation about these
scientist's spouses or likefamilies, you know, because
like, so...
Arpita (33:39):
They just appear in the story.
Aarati (33:41):
Yeah, they just appear.
But like, this is not the casein Nella's case.
So Nella was a very well knownpoet and novelist.
So she has her own Wikipediapage and everything.
Like so many sources ofinformation about Nella Larson.
So I
Arpita (33:56):
Love that.
Aarati (33:57):
Yes.
So her work as an author hasbeen extensively studied and she
has been called, quote,"Not onlythe premier novelist of the
Harlem Renaissance, but also animportant figure in American
modernism," end quote.
Arpita (34:13):
Okay.
So this is like truly like noteven in a jokey way, power
couple.
Aarati (34:17):
No.
Yeah.
She's amazing.
Arpita (34:20):
Like she has her own power in her own right, because
I feel like a lot of times whathappens is they're either, I
think they're in one of twocamps.
The spouses are either theyappear, then disappear, or they
exist at the pleasure of themain character, like science
honeymoons, like assisting...
that sort of situation, which isnot...
(34:40):
I don't want to dismiss thatbecause there is a lot of value
in that in and of itself.
But very rarely do I feel likewe end up with two partners who
have really independent, richstories.
And I don't want to say thattheir stories don't exist.
It's more that their storiesdon't get documented in quite
the same way.
Aarati (35:00):
Yes, and especially in this time where I feel like it
was still kind of like the wifewas meant to be the homemaker
and kind of support her husband,but she's like, Nope, I've got
my own thing going.
I, I'm my own person.
So a little bit more aboutNella.
She was of mixed racial descent.
(35:20):
Her mother was a Danishimmigrant and her father was a
mixed race Afro Caribbeanimmigrant.
However, her father left hermother very early on, so then
her mother married anotherDanish immigrant and they had a
child together, so Nella's halfsister.
But now, Nella is in this weirdposition because she's not fully
(35:40):
Black, but she's not fully Whiteeither.
But her family's White, and sothey're trying to move around in
like White social circles.
Nella's kind of sticking out,you know, because she's not
White, but then she also doesn'treally belong to the Black
community either because herfamily's White.
So she's like really strugglingto find the sense of where she
(36:03):
belongs.
Nella also attended FiskUniversity for a year, but she
was expelled along with tenother women for violating Fisk's
strict dress code.
And to me that sounded very muchlike she was like fighting
against a double standard forwomen needing to dress much more
conservatively than men.
Arpita (36:21):
That still exists, but
Aarati (36:23):
Yes, absolutely still an argument today going on.
So after being expelled, shethen went to live in Denmark for
three years on her own andattended the University of
Copenhagen before returning tothe United States.
And here she went to nursingschool in New York and after a
brief stint working in Alabamaas a nurse she returned back to
(36:43):
New York and was hired by theBureau of Public Health.
Arpita (36:46):
Wait, so not only is she a novelist and a poet, but she
also is a whole ass nurse.
Okay.
Aarati (36:51):
Yeah this is when she meets Elmer.
Her writing career hasn't reallyquite taken off yet so she's
still a nurse working for theBureau of Public Health and she
meets Elmer, they get married,but her mixed race proved to be
a little bit of a hurdle againfor the couple, because although
she's now like rubbing shoulderswith all these like really
(37:12):
important people in the HarlemRenaissance, her husband is this
famous Black physicist andthey're like talking to W.
E.
B.
Du Bois and Walter White andJames Weldon Johnson, who are
all helping start the NAACP.
She wasn't really accepted intothis world because Elmer is like
(37:33):
this really high achievingscientist and he's in this
higher social class than she isbecause of her mixed race,
basically.
Arpita (37:40):
That's so interesting.
It's like, you would think thatif there was a clear class
divide that she would inherentlybelong to the lower class,
right?
Because she's like mixed.
Aarati (37:53):
Yeah.
Arpita (37:53):
But even in the lower class, she is seen as less than
because she has.
Do you know what I mean?
Aarati (37:59):
Yeah.
Arpita (38:00):
I'm almost imagining colorism coming into play here.
So for example, like people whoare fully black but light skin
have a higher status than thosewho are dark skin, right?
But she is truly mixed race butdoesn't get those benefits.
So I find that very interestingfrom almost a sociological, like
anthropological perspective.
Aarati (38:21):
Yes.
Yeah, definitely.
Arpita (38:23):
Or even just the general social landscape around her
makes this even moreinteresting.
There's like many layers here,is what you're saying.
It's like she's struck betweentwo worlds.
She isn't really reaping thebenefits of being half white.
If anything, she's being.
Aarati (38:36):
No.
Not at all.
Arpita (38:38):
Like, limited by her, by her being half white, which is
fascinating.
Aarati (38:42):
Yeah.
It's like, no one is acceptingher.
The White people aren'taccepting her, the Black people
aren't accepting her, and then
Arpita (38:48):
It's like outright rejection, it seems like, right?
Yeah.
It's not even acceptance, it'sjust outright rejection.
Anyway.
Aarati (38:53):
Yeah, and I thought that was interesting, too, because,
like, even when she marriedElmer, it's like, oh, great,
like, now she would be inElmer's social class, and she's,
but for some reason, that's notthe case.
Arpita (39:04):
Yeah, she's been accepted by someone, but it
doesn't seem to be the case.
Yeah.
Aarati (39:08):
Yeah, it's not the case.
She's still not really acceptedinto this.
Even the black middle classworld where Elmer was from,
she's not really being acceptedinto that either.
So.
I think that definitely comesout in her writing, which we
will get to in a minute.
Yeah she's a very interestingcharacter.
So I, I loved reading about her.
So by the late 1920s, Elmer wasitching to go back to academia
(39:32):
and he was offered theopportunity to go back to Fisk
University and become chair ofthe physics department.
And he was super excited bythis, but Nella didn't want to
move to Nashville and deal withall of the racial segregation in
the South.
And I can totally understandthat, like, for how bad it was
in New York, it probably waslike a hundred times worse in
(39:53):
Nashville, or would have beenfor her.
Not to mention, she had beenexpelled from Fisk, so not many
fond memories there.
She didn't want to go back.
And at this point, her writingcareer is finally starting to
really take off.
She had just published one ofher most well known novels
called Passing.
Which, by the way, was adaptedinto a movie in 2021 and is on
(40:17):
Netflix, if you're interested.
Um, it's about two friends, onewho lives fully as a black woman
in Harlem.
They're both black, but oneaccepts that and lives fully as
a black woman in Harlem, but theother one is able to pass as a
white woman and so she's marriedto a white man and she's kind of
(40:37):
living a white woman's lifeand..
Arpita (40:40):
Interesting.
Aarati (40:41):
They're both childhood friends and like the movies
about that.
Arpita (40:44):
So that is fascinating.
Aarati (40:46):
That's what I was saying that I can see Nella's life
really coming.
Yeah, the things that she wasstruggling with coming to life
in her writing.
Yeah, so Nella becomes the firstwoman of color to receive the
Guggenheim award.
So even when Elmer decided toaccept the position at Fisk and
move there, Nella was like, No,like I'm, I'm doing super well
(41:09):
here in New York.
And she continued to spend mostof her time there, you know,
running in the artist's circles.
Then in early 1930s, rumorsstarted to spread that Elmer was
having an affair with a womannamed Ethel Gilbert, who was a
White administrator at Fisk.
I was like, this is such a leftturn.
(41:31):
So random.
Arpita (41:33):
Oh no.
Aarati (41:35):
Yeah, like I can kind of see why they're separated and,
you know, but still.
Arpita (41:41):
Okay.
Aarati (41:42):
Yeah, it's like, it's hard to have a long distance
relationship, I guess, but man,she seemed like an amazing
person.
So, Nella had been planning totravel to Europe to do some
writing there, but before sheleft, she went to Nashville to
confront Elmer about the affair.
And he fessed up and initiallybegged her not to end the
(42:02):
marriage.
But by the time she came back,both she and Elmer realized that
the marriage couldn't be saved.
So they divorced in 1933.
Arpita (42:11):
Oh, that's so sad.
Aarati (42:13):
I know, I was really sad.
I was like, you guys were thepower couple though.
Arpita (42:19):
That's crazy.
Wait, but she was White.
That's kind of scandalous.
Aarati (42:23):
It is, right?
I was surprised by that too.
I was like, really?
And people were okay with this?
Arpita (42:29):
I don't think people were okay with that.
I would, I would venture a guessthat people were definitively
not okay with that.
Aarati (42:36):
But it doesn't seem like like he faced that many
repercussions for it.
Like just reading ahead andknowing his story.
It's like people didn't reallylike didn't..
Arpita (42:46):
They just glossed over that?
Aarati (42:47):
Yeah, they were just like, whatever.
Arpita (42:50):
I feel like he would have been in, you know, a lot of
like, potentially even legaltrouble, right?
Is that...
Aarati (42:55):
I know! I was like really surprised by it and like
people knew about it, but theyjust like were like, whatever we
don't care or like they justaccepted it.
And I'm just like, that's sostrange for the 1930s.
That's like, yeah, very weird.
Yeah, so now Elmer is working atFisk as the Chair of the Physics
(43:15):
Department, and he was workingon revising the whole
undergraduate and graduatecurriculums.
And he was really focused onthis for pretty much the rest of
his life.
He remained very active in theresearch community, but he
didn't publish any more papers.
So it was just the, like, coupleof papers that he published
during his PhD, and then thatwas it.
And instead, now he's focused ongiving students at Fisk
(43:38):
everything they would need tolearn physics.
So setting up labs and gettingequipment so that they could
actually conduct experiments.
But he also believed thatstudents should be given a more
well rounded education.
And this was probably in largepart due to his own upbringing,
where his parents had placed animportance on learning
literature and history.
(43:59):
As well as the time that he hadspent in Harlem with Nella and
all the other black artiststhere.
So he really thought that, youknow, being cultured was very
important.
And he borrowed a quote fromanother physicist, Wheeler Davy,
who said, quote,"The study ofmathematics and the fundamental
sciences must form the backboneof the formal college curriculum
(44:21):
of our ideal man.
If he is to be truly educatedman, he must not only have
culture, he must not only be agentleman, he must also know the
physical sciences and theirapplications, and he will find
too that the sciences have acultural value, at least equal
to that claimed for the classicsand humanities.
For he will be able to see thegreatest beauty ever revealed to
(44:44):
man, the beauty of the forces ofnature." End quote.
So it's super important to him.
Arpita (44:50):
I do feel like that matters a lot, especially for
this time period, because theparents went to school for
divinity, and like, truly, inthe majority of history, people
were going to pursue highereducation, they were priests, or
religious, like religiouslyaffiliated and things like
science didn't come until muchlater.
(45:11):
It was like literature, Latin,all of these things that were
considered more classiceducation.
And so I think that fits quitewell because people didn't
really think about science assomething that fit into higher
education, I think, until muchlater.
Which is funny in the way wethink about it now, where I feel
like science is almost like atthe top of that list.
Like science and math would behigher up at that relative to
(45:35):
English, for example, you knowwhat I mean?
Like the clout that it wouldconvey is really different.
And it's almost like thependulum has swung entirely in
the other direction.
Aarati (45:45):
Yeah.
I think because science hasgotten so complicated now, it's
just like, You know, every, it'slike, oh, you must be so smart
to be studying science and...
Arpita (45:57):
right.
Aarati (45:58):
Yeah, it's, it's really interesting.
And then everybody thinks, oh,if you're getting a science
degree that you're going tohave, go on and have a really
good career.
Whereas people joke about likethe arts major, or whatever, you
know, so..
Arpita (46:09):
No, I think that's right.
Aarati (46:10):
But Elmer like really thought that these two kind of
sides of like classics,humanities, English literature,
like the arts and then scienceand math and physics, they
needed to be kind of meldedtogether in order for people to
really have a good understandingand a good education and be
(46:33):
really thought of as educated.
You can't just learn one or theother.
You need to have both in orderto be considered educated.
So because of this, he developeda course called cultural
physics, which basically was ahistory of physics throughout
the ages, starting with ancientGreece and going all the way up
to the 20th century.
(46:53):
And he was also highly involvedwith Fisk's Annual Spring Arts
Festival and was in charge ofthe film equipment at the
university.
So...
Arpita (47:01):
That's like truly a Renaissance man.
Aarati (47:03):
A Harlem Renaissance man.
Arpita (47:08):
Yes, seems like someone who really did enjoy their GEs
in college.
Aarati (47:12):
He really did.
And in general, he developed areally good reputation for
himself.
Students started looking up tohim as almost a father figure,
and many of his students went onto earn their own doctorates.
His colleagues admired his calm,level headedness, and how many
different interests he had.
He was also part of manyprofessional societies,
(47:32):
including the American PhysicalSociety and the American
Institute of ElectricalEngineers.
And he became the first Blackman to be listed in the American
Men of Science.
Interestingly though, it soundslike he had a stronger
reputation abroad than in the U.
S.
Like more people knew him inEurope, and they called him"Imes
(47:54):
of the U.
S.
A." But even then, like, manyEuropeans were surprised to
learn that he was Black.
So, I think, like, despiteeverything, he wasn't really
getting the recognition that heshould have.
Arpita (48:09):
I wonder if it's the way that information was
transferred.
Like, if it was something theyjust read in a paper, right?
Like, his face wouldn't beattached to it.
Aarati (48:17):
Yeah.
Arpita (48:17):
And they wouldn't have really any way of knowing that
he was Black unless there wassome sort of press release
attached to it or something likethat.
But if they were just seeing hiswork and his name.
I imagine that there reallywould be nowhere to know, no way
to know, and then they wouldjust see his accomplishments at
absolute value as opposed toassociating it with his race.
Aarati (48:39):
Yeah, but I think also it's interesting because given
that he is like the first Blackman to be doing so much of this,
the fact that that informationwas not transmitted really feels
like they were kind of trying tosuppress that and be like, Oh
yeah, Elmer Imes figured thisout.
You don't need to know his racebecause it's almost, it was, I
(48:59):
feel like they were almostdeliberately omitting that
information.
Like any, any news articles thatwould have been about him or any
like coverage that he got.
American news outlets orAmerican articles just would
deliberately leave that pointout or something because they're
like, we don't want to letpeople know that a Black man was
(49:20):
able to achieve this.
So...
Arpita (49:22):
And then from like an international press perspective,
it's like you want to know thatAmerican did it, you know?
Aarati (49:27):
Yeah, exactly.
And so it.
And it doesn't cross your mindthat he might be Black because
so few Black educated peoplecould do that, that you just
assume that he's White.
And then no one bothers tocorrect you, even though that's
like, at the time, one of themost glaringly obvious things
about him, you know?
So I almost feel like the factthat that information was not
(49:49):
being relayed is like adeliberate suppression of that
fact.
I don't know.
That's how I read it.
Arpita (49:56):
I could buy that.
Aarati (49:57):
Yeah.
By the late 1930s, Elmer'shealth began to get worse.
In 1939, he moved back to NewYork to work at the physics
department at New YorkUniversity.
But shortly after, on September11th, 1941, he died of throat
cancer at the age of 58.
Arpita (50:15):
So young!
Aarati (50:17):
Yeah, 58.
He was buried in Fresh PondCrematory in New York.
So, as I said, like, I startedlooking into Elmer Imes story
because it is the InternationalYear of Quantum Science and
Technology and people are, like,celebrating these very early
scientists who first puttogether quantum theory.
(50:37):
But Elmer Imes is, like, not aname I've ever heard of.
And I think everyone's heard ofEinstein and, you know, Max
Planck and Schrodinger, allthese guys, I've never heard of
Imes and I think that was...
Arpita (50:53):
Had your brother heard of him?
Aarati (50:54):
No, he hadn't.
So...
Arpita (50:56):
That's interesting.
Aarati (50:57):
Yeah, he had never heard of Imes.
And I told my brother, like, Ithink this is who I want to do
for my next episode.
And he had to look him up.
And then he was like, Oh, yeah,that's a good guy.
Do him.
So he got excited.
But yeah,
Arpita (51:09):
Seal of approval.
Aarati (51:10):
Yeah, immediately.
He's like, yes...
spectroscopist! Do that guy.
But yeah, I think like we, likewe were just saying, like, I
think the fact that we haven'theard of him is because he was
Black and people were not givinghim the credit about or talking
about how great his work was,even though it was like clearly
so monumental.
(51:31):
And so we're only now juststarting to kind of backtrack
and try to shine light on peoplelike him.
And so in November 2024, just acouple months ago, the
University of Michigan installeda sculpture dedicated to Elmer
Imes called"Rotation isQuantized" and it looks pretty
cool.
It looks like an abstract workof art.
(51:53):
It's like almost like a silverfan that has a bunch of blades
to visually represent the ideathat rotation is like not a
continuous circle but has theselike discreet levels.
Arpita (52:06):
That's very cool.
Aarati (52:07):
Yeah.
And if you want, you can watchthe dedication ceremony on
YouTube.
So I'll have a link to that onthe website because it was
pretty cool to look at.
But yeah, that's his story.
That's you made it through.
Congratulations.
It wasn't that bad, right?
Arpita (52:22):
It wasn't that bad.
I am probably the most proud ofmyself.
So, yes.
Aarati (52:27):
You did it!
Arpita (52:28):
A great story though.
No, I really, I really liked it.
That was, that was reallyawesome.
Aarati (52:32):
Thank you.
Thanks for listening.
If you have a suggestion for astory we should cover or
thoughts you want to share aboutan episode, reach out to us at
smarttpodcast.
com.
You can follow us on Instagram,TikTok, and BlueSky at
smarttpodcast and listen to uson Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
(52:53):
YouTube, or wherever you getyour podcasts.
And leave us a rating orcomment.
It helps us grow.
Special thanks to our editor,James Fixx.
New episodes are released everyother Wednesday.
See you next time!
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Smart Tea
Podcast, where we talk about thelives of scientists and
innovators who shape the world.
How are you, Aarati?
Aarati (00:19):
I'm doing pretty well, Arpita.
How are you?
Arpita (00:22):
I'm doing okay.
You know, the days are gettinglonger and the sun is setting
later and my mood is improving.
Aarati (00:30):
Yes, we're getting out of that seasonal depression.
Arpita (00:34):
Oh, it's so true.
I got home from work today rightaround 5.
20 and it was still so brightoutside and I was like amazing.
This is all I needed was justsome sunshine.
Aarati (00:45):
Yes.
I've been having that too, like,every time I go out around 530,
I'm like, it's still bright out.
Yes, amazing.
We still have at least anotherhalf hour, 45 minutes of
sunshine before it goes down.
That's great.
Arpita (00:58):
Oh, I know.
It is so nice.
Yeah, what do you have going onthis week?
Aarati (01:02):
Not much.
I was, you know, checking thenews.
I was, I've been trying not toread the actual news, you know,
because it's just so depressingand I can't.
And so I was like, let me readscience news because it gives me
some hope.
And I found out that This yearis apparently the international
(01:24):
year of Quantum Science andTechnology, because it's been
like, I have no idea, but I waslike, so into it.
Apparently it's been 100 yearssince like quantum theory like
really came into its own.
Arpita (01:40):
What does that mean"came into its own"?
Aarati (01:42):
Like, you know, all the people who all the big
scientists who are like studyingquantum theory, like Albert
Einstein and Schrodinger and MaxPlanck and all these like really
big names in quantum theory wereall doing their work like right
around this time period.
And that's when I see it wastheorized that, you know,
quantum theory was a thing.
(02:03):
And so everybody was like doingexperiments around that trying
to prove it.
And so they chose 1925 as theyear that it like was first put
forth or like quantum theory,like we are now accepting
quantum theory.
Arpita (02:17):
And now it's been hundred years.
Aarati (02:18):
And now it's been a hundred years, so the powers
that be, I guess, have decidedthat this year is the
International Year of QuantumScience and Technology.
And I was like, this is great.
Arpita (02:28):
Sounds real nerdy.
Aarati (02:30):
Fantastic.
Yeah.
And so that's.
You know, I know you're going tohate me for this, but that's
kind of what inspired the storytoday.
I know.
Arpita (02:42):
We will just see what my mental bandwidth is today,
Aarati for quantum physics.
Aarati (02:47):
Yes.
But I was just like, you knowhow I love a theme and it's just
so on theme, you know, I'm I wasactually going to do a different
person for today and then I gotjust completely sidelined by
this news and then I was like,Oh my gosh, like something
shiny.
I have to go follow it.
And so I just, you know, endedup totally changing my story.
Arpita (03:09):
So okay, brave faces on.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
Aarati (03:12):
Okay, so for this story, we are traveling back to the
1800s and it is 18 years afterthe Civil War on October 12th,
1883, and Elmer Iams was born inMemphis, Tennessee.
His father, Benjamin AlbertImes, was from a family of free
(03:35):
Black farmers in Pennsylvania,and Benjamin went to college at
Oberlin Theological Seminary,where he was studying for his
divinity degree.
Arpita (03:44):
Wait, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Back up.
He's Black?
Aarati (03:47):
He is Black.
Yes.
Arpita (03:49):
And he went to divinity school, and this is, like, just
post Civil War?
Aarati (03:55):
Just post Civil War, his father went to Divinity School.
Arpita (03:58):
I'm just impressed that he went to college in this time
frame.
That's crazy.
Aarati (04:04):
That is a very good point, yeah.
That it is a huge deal that he'sgoing to college.
Arpita (04:10):
It's a huge deal.
Aarati (04:11):
Yes.
Arpita (04:11):
Yeah, that seems like not what I would have expected
for this time period at all, butokay.
Aarati (04:16):
Absolutely.
But here's an even bigger deal,that at this college is where he
met Elmer's mother, Elizabeth,who is a black woman who is also
going to college in this timeperiod.
Arpita (04:29):
We love this for them Wait, so they live in Tennessee
also on top of that.
Aarati (04:33):
No, sorry.
So they're going to college inOberlin, Ohio right now.
Arpita (04:37):
Okay.
Okay.
Aarati (04:38):
Yeah, so his mother and father are going to college in
Oberlin, Ohio, and they're bothstudying theology, basically.
Arpita (04:47):
Okay.
Aarati (04:48):
So Benjamin, who's the father, was from a family of
free black farmers inPennsylvania, but Elizabeth, the
mother, was born into slavery inMississippi, and then she was
emancipated after the Civil War.
Arpita (05:01):
And then she went to college.
That's insane.
Aarati (05:03):
Yeah, so she's also a theology student at Oberlin, and
they met each other.
And then in 1880, Elizabeth andBenjamin graduated and got
married, and then the two ofthem started their lives as
missionaries teachingChristianity to former slaves in
the South.
Arpita (05:20):
Wow.
Aarati (05:21):
Yeah.
Arpita (05:21):
So impressive.
Aarati (05:22):
So as missionaries, the family moved around a little
bit.
And so Elmer, like I said, wasborn in Memphis, Tennessee, but
then he grew up and attendedgrammar school in Oberlin, Ohio.
And then he attended theAgricultural and Mechanical
College High School in Normal,Alabama.
And it sounded to me like thatwas a little bit more of like a
(05:44):
vocational school that wasgeared towards training Black
people to work in specifictrades.
But since Elmer's father wascollege educated, he
supplemented his education byteaching him classics like
literature and history.
Arpita (06:00):
Cool.
Aarati (06:01):
And Elmer was also the eldest of three brothers, and
all of them grew up to be, like,amazing people.
So, the middle son, Albert,became a successful businessman,
and the youngest brother,William, followed in his parents
footsteps and became a renownedtheologian and civil rights
activist.
So, all three brothers, amazing.
Arpita (06:21):
This is already so impressive.
Aarati (06:23):
Yeah, so there weren't a lot of, like, really specific
details about Elmer's childhood,but, like, given the time period
and the fact that he's growingup in the South, it's pretty
safe to say he was probablygrowing up around many very
recently freed slaves who werenow facing, like, a ton of
discriminatory Jim Crow laws,but, like, you kind of hit upon,
(06:46):
he's in this very uniqueposition because both of his
parents are college educated, soand they had the means and the
ability to give their kids goodeducations and like kind of open
them up to opportunities thatmany others in the Black
community didn't have at thetime.
So, as far as Black people postCivil War go, he's very, very
(07:07):
lucky.
Arpita (07:08):
Totally.
Like, I can't imagine anythingabout this is easy but it does
seem just I mean, beating allodds for not only him and this
time frame to go to college andall of his brothers, but also
both parents and his mom wasborn a slave.
Like that is...
Aarati (07:26):
Yes.
Arpita (07:26):
You know?
Aarati (07:27):
They're doing really well from, for themselves, this
family.
So, thanks to his well roundededucation, after high school,
Elmer got into Fisk Universityin Nashville, Tennessee, which
is a historically Black college.
And he studied for hisbachelor's degree in physics
there.
But he also took a number ofclassics classes, including
(07:48):
English literature, Greek,Latin, Spanish, Ethics, and
Sociology.
So, very, very well roundededucation.
Arpita (07:57):
I tried to get out of all my GEs, so can't relate.
Aarati (07:59):
Oh, really?
I think my GEs were the onlything that made me pass college.
Honestly.
It's like, I mean, only thingkeeping my grade point average
up.
Arpita (08:10):
Oh, I think that's definitely true for me.
I definitely padded myself.
Aarati (08:14):
Yes, absolutely.
So after college, Elmer wantedto pursue a higher degree, but
that was easier said than done.
A, he didn't have enough money.
B, very few Black collegesoffered higher degrees in
science because they didn't havethe funding or science equipment
and labs.
And C, again, there's like, alot of discrimination against
(08:37):
him because he's Black and so hecan't just apply to any
university and get in based onmerit.
So, um, it's not an easy thing.
So first things first, he got aposition teaching physics and
math at the Albany Normal Schoolin Georgia to start saving
money.
And this was the first time I'dheard of a Normal school.
(09:00):
I was like, what is a normalschool?
But basically it's a schoolthat's meant to train public
school teachers.
So today we just call them liketeaching colleges.
But I guess back then it wascalled a Normal school.
Arpita (09:11):
That's so funny.
Why was that the adjective?
Aarati (09:14):
I was looking into this.
I think it's like something todo with it, like, the word came
from a French word that meant,like, standardized or like the
standard way of, yeah,
Arpita (09:27):
It's like a normalization of like education,
because I imagine that like preteaching colleges, like teachers
were teaching whatever theywanted, so I imagine that it was
almost like a like some, like,standardization.
Aarati (09:39):
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
So I think that's where, like,the etymology of that word came
from, but I just thought it wasreally funny that it's called a
normal school.
Yeah.
So then in 1908, Elmer's fatherdied, and so Elmer went to
Alabama to support and care forhis mother.
And at this point, she was adirector at the Industrial
(10:00):
Missionary Association School inAlabama.
So, he moved to Alabama to bewith her, and he started
teaching at the EmersonInstitute to keep earning money.
And it took him nearly a decadeof teaching, but after like 10
years, he went back to FiskUniversity to teach science and
math and pursue his Master'sdegree at the same time.
Arpita (10:23):
So he did end up going to, get a higher degree and he
was able to get in.
Aarati (10:27):
Yeah, but it took him 10 years between his bachelor's and
his master's, so.
However, Fisk only offered up toa Master's degree and he just
wanted to do more.
He wanted to get his PhD.
Um, so he was not satisfied.
Yes.
He's not satisfied.
(10:48):
And the U.
S.
is still heavily segregated.
So Elmer's options for highereducation in the South were
pretty much non existent.
But there were moreopportunities in the North and
the University of Michigan atAnn Arbor was a little bit more
open minded.
and more inclusive.
There was a catch though, theyrequired Black students to do a
(11:09):
probationary year where they hadto complete the University of
Michigan's senior yearundergraduate curriculum before
they were allowed to do anygraduate studies.
Arpita (11:19):
Oh, interesting.
Aarati (11:20):
Yeah, and I think this was actually pretty common for
like northern schools becauseWhen a Black person said they
had gone to college, that didn'treally mean anything because
there's, again, like, nostandardization, really,
especially with, like, Blackcolleges or, like, predominantly
Black colleges.
It's like, well, what does thatmean?
What do you, what do you meanyou have an education?
Arpita (11:41):
Yeah.
I guess post GRE they had to, orsorry, pre GRE, they had to
figure out a, figure out a wayto get everyone on the same
level.
Aarati (11:50):
Yes.
So in 1915, Elmer was able totransfer schools.
He had to complete thatprobationary year of
undergraduate school, and thenhe was chosen as a graduate
fellow under Professor HarrisonRandall.
So Harrison Randall was a leaderin spectroscopy.
And so Elmer's thesis was todesign and build higher
(12:12):
resolution infraredspectrometers.
Okay, so here's where we'regoing to spend some time
breaking down the science.
So spectroscopy is basicallywhen scientists study the
interaction between light andmatter.
And when I say light, that lightcan come from anywhere on the
electromagnetic spectrum.
So anything from like long waveswith low energy, like radio
(12:37):
waves and infrared light tovisible light, which is all the
color wavelengths that we cansee, and then waves with much
shorter wavelengths and higherenergies like ultraviolet and x
rays.
So in really simple terms, whatspectroscopists are doing is
they're choosing a specificwavelength of light from this
spectrum, shooting them at asample of some matter that they
(13:00):
want to analyze.
And that matter can be like amineral or biological tissue or
chemical or something.
And they study the interactionbetween the light and that
sample of matter.
And different things can happenwhen they do that.
So the light can either beabsorbed by the matter, it can
be transmitted through it, Or itcan be reflected off of it.
Arpita (13:22):
Okay.
Aarati (13:23):
And so if you remember our like episode on Wilhelm
Röntgen from last year, this iswhat basically he was seeing
when he put his hand in front ofx rays.
Most of the x rays were beingtransmitted through the soft
tissue because it had a lowerdensity, but then it would be
absorbed by higher densitymatter like calcium in his
bones.
Arpita (13:43):
Okay.
That makes sense.
My eyes haven't glazed over ityet.
Okay.
Aarati (13:45):
Great.
We're doing well.
So simultaneously, this is allhappening right at the very
beginning of all these householdname scientists like Albert
Einstein and Niels Bohr andWerner Heisenberg and all these
others are starting to piecetogether quantum theory, which
turned many concepts fromclassical physics kind of on
(14:08):
their heads.
So normally in physics.
When you think about an objecthaving a certain amount of
energy, you can graph thatenergy in a continuous line.
So, if you go back to physics,like, you have a ball rolling on
a surface, and if the ball isrolling with a certain speed and
energy at point A, you canmeasure that, right?
(14:30):
And then, if you add energy tothe system by pushing the ball,
for example, it will speed up,and now you can measure the
energy again at point B.
Point B after you've pushed theball and you can make a graph of
what the energy looked like atpoint A to point B.
Arpita (14:47):
Yeah.
Aarati (14:47):
And between A and B.
There's a continuous line.
So if you pick any point betweenA and B You'll be able to
calculate the energy anywherealong that line
Arpita (14:57):
Because at any point there is some energy.
Aarati (14:59):
There's something going on.
Yeah, so you can look at it atthe ball at any point and you'll
be able to calculate what'shappening with the ball at that
point in terms of energy.
But physicists were starting torealize that subatomic particles
didn't behave like that.
So, now, if you imagine anelectron, it's orbiting around a
(15:20):
nucleus in an atom.
It has a very specificrotational and vibrational
energy that it's at.
But now, if you add energy tothe system by shining a light
wave at it, if the light wavehas the correct frequency, the
electrons can absorb that energyand jump to a higher energy
state.
(15:41):
And this is called a quantumjump, because unlike the ball,
there's no in between.
When the electron goes from oneenergy state to the next, you
can't, like, measure what'shappening between that jump.
It's just Level 1, level 2.
That's it.
There's no level 1.
5.
There's no level 1.
623.
Arpita (15:59):
It's not continuous.
Aarati (16:00):
It's not continuous.
They're discrete levels.
Arpita (16:02):
Is this orbitals or no?
These are like the electrons arein each of their orbitals and
they jump, right?
Aarati (16:09):
Yes.
So orbitals is one thing.
Yeah.
Orbitals is definitely one thingthat they jump from orbital to
orbital.
Arpita (16:15):
I'm doing so well right now.
Aarati (16:17):
You're doing really great.
You're on it.
So, this is actually whatspectroscopists were trying to
observe.
So, if they used x rays to shinelight at molecules, they could
observe that at certainwavelengths or certain light
energies, the electrons wouldabsorb the energy and jump from
one orbital to the next.
(16:38):
But this was like with x raysspecifically.
So if you look at this on anabsorbance spectrum, like the
graph readout that you see whenyou do this, the line is flat
where the electron is notabsorbing much energy because
the wavelength of light isn't atthe correct frequency.
But once you hit the rightwavelength there's like this
(16:59):
huge spike in the absorbentspectrum where the electron is
absorbing all that energy.
Arpita (17:03):
Yeah.
Aarati (17:04):
So that's kind of a really important point like the
wavelength of light that youshoot at the molecule has to be
the right frequency Otherwise,it's not going to make that
quantum leap.
And so I was like talking to mybrother about this and he was
saying that you could explain itkind of like you're pushing
someone on a swing.
So if you push your handsforward really fast, like push,
(17:26):
push, push, push, push, push,push, the person isn't really
going to go anywhere becauseyou're pushing too fast.
But if you push one time andthen you wait five minutes and
then you push a second time likethe person's still not going to
go anywhere because you'repushing too slow now, so you
have to kind of get this rhythmgoing in order to get the person
(17:47):
to actually swing higher andhigher and higher and that's
what's happening, kind of, withthese molecules and subatomic
particles.
Arpita (17:54):
That's a good metaphor.
I like that.
Aarati (17:56):
Yeah, you have to get the right wavelength and then
they kind of start resonatingtogether and then there's a
quantum jump into a differentorbital with a different energy.
So that's kind of the theorythat people are kind of coming
up with, but it's stilltheoretical, like it makes sense
mathematically, but it's justsuch a departure from how people
(18:17):
thought about how energy andmatter react.
Like most people were stillthinking of the ball example and
that energy is this continuousthing.
So for things to be making leapslike this where you can't
measure what's going on betweenthe two energy states is really
like, like, it's just madness,you know, like that doesn't, but
(18:38):
it's working out mathematically,but now they're trying to show
it experimentally, basically.
Arpita (18:43):
Okay.
Which really are separatethings.
Aarati (18:46):
Yes.
So, they've been able to showthat if they shined x rays on
atoms, they could see theelectrons would absorb the
wavelengths at certainfrequencies, and the x ray
absorbance spectrum would showthese big, discrete spikes in
absorbance, which meant that theelectrons orbital energy was
changing in a way that wasconsistent with quantum theory.
(19:09):
But again, that was like reallyspecific to x rays and electrons
orbital energy.
But quantum theory alsopredicted that changes to a
molecule or electronsvibrational and rotational
energies might also be quantizedthe same way.
But x rays weren't really theway to go about looking at that.
(19:31):
In order to look at rotationaland vibrational energy, you
needed to use infrared light.
And so that's when we circleback to what Elmer was doing for
his PhD.
He was working on optimizinginfrared spectrometers to the
point that we could actually seewhether when we shot infrared
light at molecules, did theyhave this big discrete spike
(19:52):
that correlated with quantumchanges in vibrational and
rotational energy?
Arpita (19:57):
Relative to x-rays for orbital changes, because that we
already knew at this point.
Aarati (20:03):
Yeah.
So X-rays with orbital changes,we had already been able to
show.
Arpita (20:07):
Right.
We would like, and he's tryingto show infrared for vibration.
Aarati (20:10):
Mm-hmm
Arpita (20:11):
And rotation.
Aarati (20:12):
Yeah.
Arpita (20:13):
Okay.
Aarati (20:13):
So infrared light is what you need to excite
rotational and vibrationalenergies.
X-rays is what you need in orderto excite the different changes
in orbital energy.
So it's like the differentwavelengths are doing different
things to the molecules.
Arpita (20:30):
How did he know that it was x rays
Aarati (20:33):
What scientists had been able to do was they were seeing
that when they shot x rays atmolecules, the orbital energy
was changing, and they knew thatthese subatomical particles had
rotational and vibrationalenergies associated with them,
but when they shot x rays at it,the rotational and vibrational
energies were not changing.
(20:54):
But they were like, hey, there'sother wavelengths of light.
Maybe it's a differentwavelength.
Like maybe we're not hitting theatom with the correct frequency
of light in order to excite thevibrational and rotational
energy.
So they're trying differentwavelengths of light and they
are seeing something withinfrared light, but it's like
this fuzzy band that they're notreally able to tell what's
(21:17):
happening.
So they're like maybe it'sinfrared, but we're not sure.
So that's kind of like the pointthat we're at.
Arpita (21:24):
Okay.
Aarati (21:24):
So that's why he's working on infrared
spectrometers specificallybecause people are like, we
think it might be infraredbecause we're seeing something.
Arpita (21:33):
Okay.
And he's probing that questiondeeper to try to understand.
Aarati (21:37):
Yeah, we don't have like high enough resolution to see
exactly what's happening.
We think it's there, but wedon't have the resolution.
Arpita (21:44):
Okay.
Aarati (21:45):
So Elmer was the first scientist to conduct these very
high precision experiments wherehe looked at three diatomic
molecules.
So he looked at hydrogenchloride, hydrogen bromide, and
hydrogen fluoride.
And for all of these molecules,you can imagine them kind of
like a dumbbell where one sideis bigger than the other, like
(22:07):
hydrogens on one side and thenfluoride or bromide or chloride
are on the other side.
And then the dumbbells weightsare either moving in and out
really fast and that's vibrationor the dumbbell is spinning and
over end and that's rotation.
So, for example, if you justlook at hydrogen chloride
previously when scientists hadshot infrared light at it and
(22:28):
looked at the spectrum, they sawthat something was going on at
wavelengths that were 1.
76 microns and then again atwavelengths that were 3.
46 microns.
But they just kind of lookedfuzzy, and they couldn't tell
what was happening.
Arpita (22:45):
When you say it looks fuzzy, is it on that output
where you can, you're chartingall the peaks?
Aarati (22:51):
Yeah, so you're instead of seeing peaks, they're just
kind of seeing like a lump, andthey're like, okay, okay,
something's happening.
Yeah.
Arpita (22:59):
Something is, but they haven't gotten all of the
parameters quite right to beable to get really crisp data.
Aarati (23:04):
Yeah, yeah, they're not seeing peaks.
They're seeing like this verybroad kind of curve or lump and
they're like, okay, something'shappening there.
We're not seeing peaks the sameway that we're seeing with the X
rays and orbital energies, butthere might be peaks.
We just don't have theresolution.
So in 1916, Elmer constructed aseries of infrared spectrometers
(23:28):
with constantly increasingresolutions in order to look at
these curves or these lumps inthe spectra more clearly, and
with his final spectrometer thathe built, he was able to see
that at 3.
46 microns, there were 12 pairsof peaks, which corresponded to
increasing vibrational androtational energy levels and the
(23:53):
band at 1.
76 microns resolved into eightpairs of absorbance peaks
corresponding to decreasingenergy levels.
Arpita (24:00):
Why are there pairs?
Aarati (24:02):
That's a good question.
He did not know at the time.
But someone figured it out.
So I will let you know.
But this was experimental prooffirst and foremost that
vibrational and rotationalenergy of the molecules was
indeed quantized.
So this was like the first proofof that.
Arpita (24:20):
Okay, so you could see some, you, he got peaks
basically.
Aarati (24:23):
Yeah, he got peaks.
Arpita (24:24):
We got peaks.
Aarati (24:25):
Yes.
And this was huge because it wasone of the first experimental
verifications of quantum theorythat showed that it could be
applied not only to x rays, butacross the entire
electromagnetic spectrum, andalso not only just to orbital
energy states, but vibrationaland rotational states of
(24:45):
molecules as well.
So it really opened up this,like, huge, like, wow, quantum
theory is this broad thing thatgoes across the electromagnetic
spectrum and also like all thesedifferent energy states that
these molecules have.
Hi everyone, Aarati here.
I hope you're enjoying thepodcast.
(25:07):
If so, and you wish someonewould tell your science story, I
founded a science communicationscompany called Sykom, that's S Y
K O M, that can help.
Sykom blends creativity withscientific accuracy to create
all types of sciencecommunications content including
explainer videos, slidepresentations, science writing,
(25:27):
and more.
We work with academicresearchers, tech companies, non
profits, or really any scientistto help simplify your science.
Check us out at sykommer.
com.
That's S Y K O M M E R dot com.
Okay, back to the story.
(25:48):
He published his work in theAstrophysical Journal in an
article called"Measurements onthe Near Infrared Absorption of
Some Diatomic Gases."
Arpita (25:58):
I will never stop cracking up at the titles of all
of their papers.
It's just so different from theway that we title things now and
it's like also just having likeone author on a paper cracks me
up.
There's just so much about...
I don't know, just the waypeople publish, not in the 21st
century even, and it just cracksme up every single time.
Aarati (26:19):
To be fair, I think Harrison Randall was also on
this paper, but it was like atwo authored paper.
Arpita (26:24):
Yeah, it's just so funny.
It's just so entertaining.
Aarati (26:28):
Okay, and this work laid the foundation for many
scientists to be able to studymolecular structure by
calculating things like the bonddistance between the hydrogen
atom and the chlorine or thebromine or whatever was on the
other side of the molecule.
But also you were asking aboutthe pairs of peaks.
Why are there pairs of peaks?
And he didn't know why, butanother scientist figured out
(26:50):
that it was because he wasstudying hydrogen chloride and
chloride actually has twoisotopes.
Arpita (26:56):
Two isotopes! Oh!
Aarati (26:58):
Yeah.
So the two different peaks werefor the two isotopes.
And so scientists were able tolike refer back to his graph and
be like,"Oh yeah, his graphshows that" like, it makes
sense.
Arpita (27:11):
That does make sense.
Aarati (27:12):
Yeah.
Arpita (27:14):
So in biological studies, even if they're really
basic science, you canunderstand why these discoveries
and mechanisms are important tothe world.
Why do we care about quantumphysics?
Aarati (27:30):
Yes, that is a good question, that I was also kind
of like, why do we care?
Arpita (27:37):
Because, okay, like in biological sciences, I can
understand this a lot, right?
Like there's a lot ofpharmaceutical implications,
understanding differentmechanisms can help us
understand different diseases,and like, even at a really small
level, even things that we likestumble upon from a molecular
perspective can help usunderstand lots of different
things about how life works.
Aarati (27:57):
Yeah.
Arpita (27:57):
I can understand that.
Even some bench research whereI'm just like, what are you guys
doing here?
Aarati (28:02):
Yes.
Arpita (28:03):
I can still understand the long term implications.
Yeah.
I'm having a hard timeunderstanding the implications
here.
Aarati (28:09):
Well, I think, I think there's a lot.
Like really the person to ask,or maybe not ask, is my brother,
because he will wax poetic aboutthis until the end of time.
Arpita (28:19):
I'm sure there's an answer.
I just want to know what it is.
Aarati (28:21):
No, absolutely.
Because I think with this kindof knowledge, you can, first of
all, figure out the structure ofa lot of chemicals.
And you can figure out how thesechemicals are interacting with,
like, what makes them excited.
Like things like electroncarriers, for example, like how
energy is transferred from oneplace to another place, um, like
(28:45):
NAD, NADPH, all of those thingsthat we learned in biochemistry
where like something is anelectron carrier and it goes
down this like electrontransport chain, like all of
this wouldn't have been able toreally been figured out without
knowing this kind of stuff, likeknowing that electrons could get
excited, they could gettransferred, like the electron
(29:05):
bounces from one orbital to thenext or has this certain
rotational energy.
Also like I don't know if thisis like falling into that
category, but like the reasonmicrowaves heat up food is
because the microwaves hit waterat the correct rotational energy
and that's like it's likeflipping the water back and
forth and that friction iscausing the heat so it's like
(29:29):
There's, I think, really, reallybroad implications for this.
Arpita (29:33):
So maybe the answer to my question is, what doesn't it
implicate?
Aarati (29:37):
Yes, yes, exactly.
It's like everything.
Arpita (29:41):
Okay, okay.
I buy that.
Aarati (29:43):
Yes.
And again, I'm like, not theright person to ask about this.
Like, like my brother's achemical engineer and he would
just be like, Oh my God, thatwas such a bad answer.
Like it has everything to dowith everything.
Like, okay.
Arpita (29:55):
Oh, I have another, I have another answer.
Didn't we, um, when we talkedabout Teflon and we talk about
all of the ways that a lot ofthese different chemicals
interact with each other andcreate new materials of like
material science.
Aarati (30:06):
Yes.
Arpita (30:06):
Or adhesives or....
Aarati (30:08):
yes.
Arpita (30:09):
Textiles.
Aarati (30:10):
And my brother works on catalysts right now.
So he's, he's doing like, how dowe, how can we break down
plastics with like bettercatalysts that, you know, help
reactions move forward faster.
So he's like really intochemical structure and like
these kinds of things.
He does spectroscopy all thetime.
So that's why I was asking himall this stuff.
Arpita (30:30):
I see.
Aarati (30:31):
Okay.
So after Elmer figured this out,he became really well known in
physics circles.
In addition, he became one ofthe first Black people to be
initiated into the Sigma XiHonor Society for Scientists and
Engineers.
And when he graduated in 1918with his PhD, he was only the
second Black man in America tohave done so.
Arpita (30:51):
I believe it.
Aarati (30:53):
Yeah, the first was Edward Bouchet who had gotten
his degree in physics also, butit had been over 40 years
earlier, in 1876.
Arpita (31:01):
Oh my god.
Aarati (31:02):
Yes.
Arpita (31:03):
Wait, when did the Civil War end?
Aarati (31:05):
What was it, like 1865 or something?
Somewhere around there.
Arpita (31:10):
1865.
So this person got his phD lessthan five years after the Civil
war ended?
That's crazy.
Aarati (31:19):
Yes, Edward Boucher got his in 18 76.
Yes.
However, despite theseaccomplishments, Elmer was still
met with a lot ofdiscrimination.
And so he had very limitedprofessional opportunities after
graduating.
By this time, he's 36 and he'slooking for work.
And he had heard that New Yorkhad a strong black professional
(31:42):
community.
So he moved there and he wasstarting to work first as an
engineering consultant.
And then he worked for someengineering firms where he was
able to obtain four patents fordevices or methods used to
improve measurements ofmagnetics properties.
But in the meantime, he startedbecoming acquainted with all of
(32:02):
these really amazing Blackscientists and artists who were
all part of the HarlemRenaissance that was going on at
the time.
Arpita (32:10):
Mm hmm.
You know, it's really funnybecause I'm like, not a history
buff.
And dates in my brain meannothing to me.
And so when we learn about allof these different scientists
being contemporaries with eachother, I'm like, Oh my gosh,
that's so cute.
You all live together.
You're talking about the HarlemRenaissance and the Harlem
Renaissance exists in a vacuum.
(32:31):
And I'm like, Oh, it actuallydoes exist on the continuum of
time.
And so it does...
I don't know.
That's a very silly point, butdates really just don't mean
anything in my brain.
And so when we talk about howeach scientist fits in with
these broader historicallandscapes, I'm always, like,
very fascinated.
Aarati (32:46):
Yes, I was, like, really excited when I started reading
this part, too.
Like, when I got to this point,this is where I kicked in.
Like, I was like, okay, bye,brother.
Thank you so much for yourscience.
This is where I shine, because Iwas like, ah, Harlem
Renaissance.
I remember learning about that.
Arpita (33:01):
Exactly.
Aarati (33:02):
Oh, my gosh, he was involved in that.
That's so cool.
Like, this is amazing.
Arpita (33:07):
Like art and the music....
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Aarati (33:09):
Yeah, all the, and I just love how it goes to show
that like, he's so influenced byit.
And so like part of it.
He is not existing in a vacuum,you know, he's part of this like
big movement that's happening inNew York.
Arpita (33:23):
Exactly.
Aarati (33:24):
And this is where he met Nella Larson.
And I love this because you knowhow we complain all the time
that there's like not a lot ofinformation about these
scientist's spouses or likefamilies, you know, because
like, so...
Arpita (33:39):
They just appear in the story.
Aarati (33:41):
Yeah, they just appear.
But like, this is not the casein Nella's case.
So Nella was a very well knownpoet and novelist.
So she has her own Wikipediapage and everything.
Like so many sources ofinformation about Nella Larson.
So I
Arpita (33:56):
Love that.
Aarati (33:57):
Yes.
So her work as an author hasbeen extensively studied and she
has been called, quote,"Not onlythe premier novelist of the
Harlem Renaissance, but also animportant figure in American
modernism," end quote.
Arpita (34:13):
Okay.
So this is like truly like noteven in a jokey way, power
couple.
Aarati (34:17):
No.
Yeah.
She's amazing.
Arpita (34:20):
Like she has her own power in her own right, because
I feel like a lot of times whathappens is they're either, I
think they're in one of twocamps.
The spouses are either theyappear, then disappear, or they
exist at the pleasure of themain character, like science
honeymoons, like assisting...
that sort of situation, which isnot...
(34:40):
I don't want to dismiss thatbecause there is a lot of value
in that in and of itself.
But very rarely do I feel likewe end up with two partners who
have really independent, richstories.
And I don't want to say thattheir stories don't exist.
It's more that their storiesdon't get documented in quite
the same way.
Aarati (35:00):
Yes, and especially in this time where I feel like it
was still kind of like the wifewas meant to be the homemaker
and kind of support her husband,but she's like, Nope, I've got
my own thing going.
I, I'm my own person.
So a little bit more aboutNella.
She was of mixed racial descent.
(35:20):
Her mother was a Danishimmigrant and her father was a
mixed race Afro Caribbeanimmigrant.
However, her father left hermother very early on, so then
her mother married anotherDanish immigrant and they had a
child together, so Nella's halfsister.
But now, Nella is in this weirdposition because she's not fully
(35:40):
Black, but she's not fully Whiteeither.
But her family's White, and sothey're trying to move around in
like White social circles.
Nella's kind of sticking out,you know, because she's not
White, but then she also doesn'treally belong to the Black
community either because herfamily's White.
So she's like really strugglingto find the sense of where she
(36:03):
belongs.
Nella also attended FiskUniversity for a year, but she
was expelled along with tenother women for violating Fisk's
strict dress code.
And to me that sounded very muchlike she was like fighting
against a double standard forwomen needing to dress much more
conservatively than men.
Arpita (36:21):
That still exists, but
Aarati (36:23):
Yes, absolutely still an argument today going on.
So after being expelled, shethen went to live in Denmark for
three years on her own andattended the University of
Copenhagen before returning tothe United States.
And here she went to nursingschool in New York and after a
brief stint working in Alabamaas a nurse she returned back to
(36:43):
New York and was hired by theBureau of Public Health.
Arpita (36:46):
Wait, so not only is she a novelist and a poet, but she
also is a whole ass nurse.
Okay.
Aarati (36:51):
Yeah this is when she meets Elmer.
Her writing career hasn't reallyquite taken off yet so she's
still a nurse working for theBureau of Public Health and she
meets Elmer, they get married,but her mixed race proved to be
a little bit of a hurdle againfor the couple, because although
she's now like rubbing shoulderswith all these like really
(37:12):
important people in the HarlemRenaissance, her husband is this
famous Black physicist andthey're like talking to W.
E.
B.
Du Bois and Walter White andJames Weldon Johnson, who are
all helping start the NAACP.
She wasn't really accepted intothis world because Elmer is like
(37:33):
this really high achievingscientist and he's in this
higher social class than she isbecause of her mixed race,
basically.
Arpita (37:40):
That's so interesting.
It's like, you would think thatif there was a clear class
divide that she would inherentlybelong to the lower class,
right?
Because she's like mixed.
Aarati (37:53):
Yeah.
Arpita (37:53):
But even in the lower class, she is seen as less than
because she has.
Do you know what I mean?
Aarati (37:59):
Yeah.
Arpita (38:00):
I'm almost imagining colorism coming into play here.
So for example, like people whoare fully black but light skin
have a higher status than thosewho are dark skin, right?
But she is truly mixed race butdoesn't get those benefits.
So I find that very interestingfrom almost a sociological, like
anthropological perspective.
Aarati (38:21):
Yes.
Yeah, definitely.
Arpita (38:23):
Or even just the general social landscape around her
makes this even moreinteresting.
There's like many layers here,is what you're saying.
It's like she's struck betweentwo worlds.
She isn't really reaping thebenefits of being half white.
If anything, she's being.
Aarati (38:36):
No.
Not at all.
Arpita (38:38):
Like, limited by her, by her being half white, which is
fascinating.
Aarati (38:42):
Yeah.
It's like, no one is acceptingher.
The White people aren'taccepting her, the Black people
aren't accepting her, and then
Arpita (38:48):
It's like outright rejection, it seems like, right?
Yeah.
It's not even acceptance, it'sjust outright rejection.
Anyway.
Aarati (38:53):
Yeah, and I thought that was interesting, too, because,
like, even when she marriedElmer, it's like, oh, great,
like, now she would be inElmer's social class, and she's,
but for some reason, that's notthe case.
Arpita (39:04):
Yeah, she's been accepted by someone, but it
doesn't seem to be the case.
Yeah.
Aarati (39:08):
Yeah, it's not the case.
She's still not really acceptedinto this.
Even the black middle classworld where Elmer was from,
she's not really being acceptedinto that either.
So.
I think that definitely comesout in her writing, which we
will get to in a minute.
Yeah she's a very interestingcharacter.
So I, I loved reading about her.
So by the late 1920s, Elmer wasitching to go back to academia
(39:32):
and he was offered theopportunity to go back to Fisk
University and become chair ofthe physics department.
And he was super excited bythis, but Nella didn't want to
move to Nashville and deal withall of the racial segregation in
the South.
And I can totally understandthat, like, for how bad it was
in New York, it probably waslike a hundred times worse in
(39:53):
Nashville, or would have beenfor her.
Not to mention, she had beenexpelled from Fisk, so not many
fond memories there.
She didn't want to go back.
And at this point, her writingcareer is finally starting to
really take off.
She had just published one ofher most well known novels
called Passing.
Which, by the way, was adaptedinto a movie in 2021 and is on
(40:17):
Netflix, if you're interested.
Um, it's about two friends, onewho lives fully as a black woman
in Harlem.
They're both black, but oneaccepts that and lives fully as
a black woman in Harlem, but theother one is able to pass as a
white woman and so she's marriedto a white man and she's kind of
(40:37):
living a white woman's lifeand..
Arpita (40:40):
Interesting.
Aarati (40:41):
They're both childhood friends and like the movies
about that.
Arpita (40:44):
So that is fascinating.
Aarati (40:46):
That's what I was saying that I can see Nella's life
really coming.
Yeah, the things that she wasstruggling with coming to life
in her writing.
Yeah, so Nella becomes the firstwoman of color to receive the
Guggenheim award.
So even when Elmer decided toaccept the position at Fisk and
move there, Nella was like, No,like I'm, I'm doing super well
(41:09):
here in New York.
And she continued to spend mostof her time there, you know,
running in the artist's circles.
Then in early 1930s, rumorsstarted to spread that Elmer was
having an affair with a womannamed Ethel Gilbert, who was a
White administrator at Fisk.
I was like, this is such a leftturn.
(41:31):
So random.
Arpita (41:33):
Oh no.
Aarati (41:35):
Yeah, like I can kind of see why they're separated and,
you know, but still.
Arpita (41:41):
Okay.
Aarati (41:42):
Yeah, it's like, it's hard to have a long distance
relationship, I guess, but man,she seemed like an amazing
person.
So, Nella had been planning totravel to Europe to do some
writing there, but before sheleft, she went to Nashville to
confront Elmer about the affair.
And he fessed up and initiallybegged her not to end the
(42:02):
marriage.
But by the time she came back,both she and Elmer realized that
the marriage couldn't be saved.
So they divorced in 1933.
Arpita (42:11):
Oh, that's so sad.
Aarati (42:13):
I know, I was really sad.
I was like, you guys were thepower couple though.
Arpita (42:19):
That's crazy.
Wait, but she was White.
That's kind of scandalous.
Aarati (42:23):
It is, right?
I was surprised by that too.
I was like, really?
And people were okay with this?
Arpita (42:29):
I don't think people were okay with that.
I would, I would venture a guessthat people were definitively
not okay with that.
Aarati (42:36):
But it doesn't seem like like he faced that many
repercussions for it.
Like just reading ahead andknowing his story.
It's like people didn't reallylike didn't..
Arpita (42:46):
They just glossed over that?
Aarati (42:47):
Yeah, they were just like, whatever.
Arpita (42:50):
I feel like he would have been in, you know, a lot of
like, potentially even legaltrouble, right?
Is that...
Aarati (42:55):
I know! I was like really surprised by it and like
people knew about it, but theyjust like were like, whatever we
don't care or like they justaccepted it.
And I'm just like, that's sostrange for the 1930s.
That's like, yeah, very weird.
Yeah, so now Elmer is working atFisk as the Chair of the Physics
(43:15):
Department, and he was workingon revising the whole
undergraduate and graduatecurriculums.
And he was really focused onthis for pretty much the rest of
his life.
He remained very active in theresearch community, but he
didn't publish any more papers.
So it was just the, like, coupleof papers that he published
during his PhD, and then thatwas it.
And instead, now he's focused ongiving students at Fisk
(43:38):
everything they would need tolearn physics.
So setting up labs and gettingequipment so that they could
actually conduct experiments.
But he also believed thatstudents should be given a more
well rounded education.
And this was probably in largepart due to his own upbringing,
where his parents had placed animportance on learning
literature and history.
(43:59):
As well as the time that he hadspent in Harlem with Nella and
all the other black artiststhere.
So he really thought that, youknow, being cultured was very
important.
And he borrowed a quote fromanother physicist, Wheeler Davy,
who said, quote,"The study ofmathematics and the fundamental
sciences must form the backboneof the formal college curriculum
(44:21):
of our ideal man.
If he is to be truly educatedman, he must not only have
culture, he must not only be agentleman, he must also know the
physical sciences and theirapplications, and he will find
too that the sciences have acultural value, at least equal
to that claimed for the classicsand humanities.
For he will be able to see thegreatest beauty ever revealed to
(44:44):
man, the beauty of the forces ofnature." End quote.
So it's super important to him.
Arpita (44:50):
I do feel like that matters a lot, especially for
this time period, because theparents went to school for
divinity, and like, truly, inthe majority of history, people
were going to pursue highereducation, they were priests, or
religious, like religiouslyaffiliated and things like
science didn't come until muchlater.
(45:11):
It was like literature, Latin,all of these things that were
considered more classiceducation.
And so I think that fits quitewell because people didn't
really think about science assomething that fit into higher
education, I think, until muchlater.
Which is funny in the way wethink about it now, where I feel
like science is almost like atthe top of that list.
Like science and math would behigher up at that relative to
(45:35):
English, for example, you knowwhat I mean?
Like the clout that it wouldconvey is really different.
And it's almost like thependulum has swung entirely in
the other direction.
Aarati (45:45):
Yeah.
I think because science hasgotten so complicated now, it's
just like, You know, every, it'slike, oh, you must be so smart
to be studying science and...
Arpita (45:57):
right.
Aarati (45:58):
Yeah, it's, it's really interesting.
And then everybody thinks, oh,if you're getting a science
degree that you're going tohave, go on and have a really
good career.
Whereas people joke about likethe arts major, or whatever, you
know, so..
Arpita (46:09):
No, I think that's right.
Aarati (46:10):
But Elmer like really thought that these two kind of
sides of like classics,humanities, English literature,
like the arts and then scienceand math and physics, they
needed to be kind of meldedtogether in order for people to
really have a good understandingand a good education and be
(46:33):
really thought of as educated.
You can't just learn one or theother.
You need to have both in orderto be considered educated.
So because of this, he developeda course called cultural
physics, which basically was ahistory of physics throughout
the ages, starting with ancientGreece and going all the way up
to the 20th century.
(46:53):
And he was also highly involvedwith Fisk's Annual Spring Arts
Festival and was in charge ofthe film equipment at the
university.
So...
Arpita (47:01):
That's like truly a Renaissance man.
Aarati (47:03):
A Harlem Renaissance man.
Arpita (47:08):
Yes, seems like someone who really did enjoy their GEs
in college.
Aarati (47:12):
He really did.
And in general, he developed areally good reputation for
himself.
Students started looking up tohim as almost a father figure,
and many of his students went onto earn their own doctorates.
His colleagues admired his calm,level headedness, and how many
different interests he had.
He was also part of manyprofessional societies,
(47:32):
including the American PhysicalSociety and the American
Institute of ElectricalEngineers.
And he became the first Blackman to be listed in the American
Men of Science.
Interestingly though, it soundslike he had a stronger
reputation abroad than in the U.
S.
Like more people knew him inEurope, and they called him"Imes
(47:54):
of the U.
S.
A." But even then, like, manyEuropeans were surprised to
learn that he was Black.
So, I think, like, despiteeverything, he wasn't really
getting the recognition that heshould have.
Arpita (48:09):
I wonder if it's the way that information was
transferred.
Like, if it was something theyjust read in a paper, right?
Like, his face wouldn't beattached to it.
Aarati (48:17):
Yeah.
Arpita (48:17):
And they wouldn't have really any way of knowing that
he was Black unless there wassome sort of press release
attached to it or something likethat.
But if they were just seeing hiswork and his name.
I imagine that there reallywould be nowhere to know, no way
to know, and then they wouldjust see his accomplishments at
absolute value as opposed toassociating it with his race.
Aarati (48:39):
Yeah, but I think also it's interesting because given
that he is like the first Blackman to be doing so much of this,
the fact that that informationwas not transmitted really feels
like they were kind of trying tosuppress that and be like, Oh
yeah, Elmer Imes figured thisout.
You don't need to know his racebecause it's almost, it was, I
(48:59):
feel like they were almostdeliberately omitting that
information.
Like any, any news articles thatwould have been about him or any
like coverage that he got.
American news outlets orAmerican articles just would
deliberately leave that pointout or something because they're
like, we don't want to letpeople know that a Black man was
(49:20):
able to achieve this.
So...
Arpita (49:22):
And then from like an international press perspective,
it's like you want to know thatAmerican did it, you know?
Aarati (49:27):
Yeah, exactly.
And so it.
And it doesn't cross your mindthat he might be Black because
so few Black educated peoplecould do that, that you just
assume that he's White.
And then no one bothers tocorrect you, even though that's
like, at the time, one of themost glaringly obvious things
about him, you know?
So I almost feel like the factthat that information was not
(49:49):
being relayed is like adeliberate suppression of that
fact.
I don't know.
That's how I read it.
Arpita (49:56):
I could buy that.
Aarati (49:57):
Yeah.
By the late 1930s, Elmer'shealth began to get worse.
In 1939, he moved back to NewYork to work at the physics
department at New YorkUniversity.
But shortly after, on September11th, 1941, he died of throat
cancer at the age of 58.
Arpita (50:15):
So young!
Aarati (50:17):
Yeah, 58.
He was buried in Fresh PondCrematory in New York.
So, as I said, like, I startedlooking into Elmer Imes story
because it is the InternationalYear of Quantum Science and
Technology and people are, like,celebrating these very early
scientists who first puttogether quantum theory.
(50:37):
But Elmer Imes is, like, not aname I've ever heard of.
And I think everyone's heard ofEinstein and, you know, Max
Planck and Schrodinger, allthese guys, I've never heard of
Imes and I think that was...
Arpita (50:53):
Had your brother heard of him?
Aarati (50:54):
No, he hadn't.
So...
Arpita (50:56):
That's interesting.
Aarati (50:57):
Yeah, he had never heard of Imes.
And I told my brother, like, Ithink this is who I want to do
for my next episode.
And he had to look him up.
And then he was like, Oh, yeah,that's a good guy.
Do him.
So he got excited.
But yeah,
Arpita (51:09):
Seal of approval.
Aarati (51:10):
Yeah, immediately.
He's like, yes...
spectroscopist! Do that guy.
But yeah, I think like we, likewe were just saying, like, I
think the fact that we haven'theard of him is because he was
Black and people were not givinghim the credit about or talking
about how great his work was,even though it was like clearly
so monumental.
(51:31):
And so we're only now juststarting to kind of backtrack
and try to shine light on peoplelike him.
And so in November 2024, just acouple months ago, the
University of Michigan installeda sculpture dedicated to Elmer
Imes called"Rotation isQuantized" and it looks pretty
cool.
It looks like an abstract workof art.
(51:53):
It's like almost like a silverfan that has a bunch of blades
to visually represent the ideathat rotation is like not a
continuous circle but has theselike discreet levels.
Arpita (52:06):
That's very cool.
Aarati (52:07):
Yeah.
And if you want, you can watchthe dedication ceremony on
YouTube.
So I'll have a link to that onthe website because it was
pretty cool to look at.
But yeah, that's his story.
That's you made it through.
Congratulations.
It wasn't that bad, right?
Arpita (52:22):
It wasn't that bad.
I am probably the most proud ofmyself.
So, yes.
Aarati (52:27):
You did it!
Arpita (52:28):
A great story though.
No, I really, I really liked it.
That was, that was reallyawesome.
Aarati (52:32):
Thank you.
Thanks for listening.
If you have a suggestion for astory we should cover or
thoughts you want to share aboutan episode, reach out to us at
smarttpodcast.
com.
You can follow us on Instagram,TikTok, and BlueSky at
smarttpodcast and listen to uson Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
(52:53):
YouTube, or wherever you getyour podcasts.
And leave us a rating orcomment.
It helps us grow.
Special thanks to our editor,James Fixx.
New episodes are released everyother Wednesday.
See you next time!
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com