Donna interviews Jennifer Oullette, author of Black Bodies and Quantum Cats

I’m very interested in the communication of science for one simple reason: I’m not a scientist but I love science. If my life had taken different turns, I may have become a scientist. But as it is, I got a life-experience PhD in American Christian Fundamentalism during the years when I sometimes think I’d have been better off getting a degree in biology or physics. Nevertheless, the experiences I gained have made me who I am, so I try not to hold onto any regrets. It was science, however, that finally led me away from the superstitions that I’d latched onto during my teens and twenties, and opened my eyes to a larger and more wondrous universe than I’d ever imagined before. For that reason, popular science books like Jennifer Ouellette’s Black Bodies and Quantum Cats hold a special place in my heart. If it weren’t for books like this, I might still be living in a dark and frightening world inhabited by spirits warring over my soul. Instead I am enjoying a life free from guilt and fear, in constant marvel over the workings of the universe around me.

SKEPLIT: You’ve said that you were a science-phobe before you started writing about science. A lot of girls start to hate science and math in high school. Do you remember when you first started to be afraid of science? What were you afraid of?

OUELLETTE: It started with my high school chemistry class. Up until then, I’d enjoyed science, done well in those classes, and had a particular affinity for astronomy in sixth grade/junior high. I also loved my high school biology class, which was very hands-on in terms of practical lab work to support the textbook and lectures. But things went horribly wrong when I took chemistry; there was, strangely, very little hands-on, practical lab work. Instead, it was mostly listening to lectures and crunching a lot of numbers, with no contextual framework provided at all to help us grasp the point of what we were doing. [I keep seeing all these cool chemistry demos and thinking, “Crap! Where were these when I took chemistry?!?”]

Ironically, I got an “A” in the class. I’ve been highly suspicious of the standard metrics used to measure academic achievement ever since, because it was a meaningless grade: I took no lasting knowledge with me out of that class (apart from some vague sense of what a “mole” is). I hated every minute of that stupid class. And I was told by my teacher that physics would be “even worse,” so if I didn’t like chemistry, I wouldn’t like physics either. That’s when the physics-phobia set in.

Nonetheless, I was planning on taking the dreaded physics my senior year. But then I was offered the opportunity of early admission to college, and I took it, thereby skipping out on physics entirely. For my college science requirement, I took an astronomy course, since I’d always loved that field. But again, I got a crappy professor; he made the subject boring – no small feat, because, c’mon, astronomy is pretty f$#@ing cool! Not only did he drone on and on in uninspired lectures, but he told the entire class on Day One that he didn’t give a damn about the course, or whether we learned anything. His attitude was that we were only there to meet some stupid requirement, we were never going to be science majors, so why he should he bother even trying? He failed to realize that this was a prime opportunity to ignite new students’ interest in his field. That contemptuous attitude was the last straw. I said goodbye to science for the remainder of my formal education.

I think it’s safe to say that I wouldn’t have revolutionized any field of science even if my early interests had been encouraged a bit more; at best I might have been competent. It was clear from a very early age that writing was where my true interests (and talent) lay. But is it ever a “waste” of an instructor’s time to foster a lifelong interest in any kind of science, regardless of whether those students make it their profession? I say no. There’s a huge gap between the scientifically literate and the general public that leads to embarrassing situations like thinking Intelligent Design is a valid counter-argument to evolution, or denial of global warming – regardless of tons of scientific evidence to the contrary in both those cases. That gap is only going to widen more unless we start paying attention to the people who keep falling through the cracks of the science education enterprise. And I think, increasingly, more science teachers/professors are beginning to realize this.

I definitely fell through the cracks. Fortunately, I found my way back into an appreciation of science through nontraditional means.

SKEPLIT: Your website says you “stumbled into” science writing. Can you tell us more about that? How and why did you start writing about science?

OUELLETTE: For awhile, I was a graduate student in literature at New York University, but within a year I dropped out, having realized academia really wasn’t my cup of tea. (I blame the impenetrable critical prose stylings of “the two Jacques”: Derrida and Lacan.) For a year or two, I kind of floundered a bit. I flirted with rock-n-roll journalism, but a horrific night spent following the well-known lead singer of a famous band through the rankest bars and shooting galleries (as in, heroin and crack) of the East Village nipped that in the bud. (You try getting coherent quotes out of a stoned and drooling rock musician after he’s thrown up all over your shoes. “BLARRGGHH GRFTNS…” was the most memorable bit he uttered before passing out. Physicists are eloquently clear in comparison. And I have yet to have a physicist throw up on my shoes.)

But a young person in NYC needs to earn a living wage, and in desperation I took a job at the American Physical Society (then based in Manhattan) through a friend who was working in the same building. It started out as an administrative job, but once they found out I could write well, I started writing short bits of Society news, first for an APS page in Physics Today, and then for the fledgling APS News. It kind of snowballed from there. Eventually I found myself working from home as a freelance science writer. I vastly prefer it to the 9-to-5 scene, even though I work far longer hours as a freelancer.

SKEPLIT: When did you realize you were having fun?

OUELLETTE: That’s hard to say, but I think it was when I attended my very first APS meeting. Meetings are a big part of how science is actually done, and watching physicists interact, argue, and debate the finer points of their research showed how passionate they were about the field. Anything that elicits strong emotions is bound to be interesting, right? Then I had the chance to visit an actual physics laboratory in connection with an article I was writing, and see the nuts and bolts aspect of scientists at work. Visualization is really important to me, in terms of understanding what’s going on, so a lot of previously unconnected pieces clicked into place once I could see firsthand what my subjects were talking about. It was the first of many laboratory visits over the years. One of my favorite moments was visiting Federico Capasso’s research group at Bell Labs and holding a quantum cascade laser – it fit perfectly on one fingertip!

SKEPLIT: I read that your earlier science writing was more technical and written for scientific trade publications. What made you decide you wanted to write popular science for a general audience?

OUELLETTE: There are so many different levels of science writing, and each has its own unique set of challenges. I enjoyed writing about applied physics for The Industrial Physicist magazine and other outlets. Deep down, though, I felt there had to be a “niche” where my unique background and viewpoint, combined with what I’d learned about the science, could make a greater impact. Plus, I felt betrayed by my early science teachers, a little angry about being told physics just wouldn’t interest me – because it did. At some point, I decided I wanted to try to help others like my former self who might have been told similar things, and therefore never bothered to give physics a chance either.

Then I started writing these little throwaway history columns for APS News. Literature is taught within the framework of its historical context; it helps a great deal in terms of illuminating the texts being studied – plus, there’s all this fascinating personal detail that can really bring the period alive. But the best parts of history often aren’t taught in high school history classes (at least not in mine). I found the same was true of physics: there were all these great anecdotes that I never knew about. Understanding the historical framework of the science helped me grasp the concepts and their significance a bit more clearly. Eventually it dawned on me – through the encouragement of my editor, Alan Chodos – that this would be an excellent tool to help other physics-phobic types overcome their reluctance and at least catch a glimpse of the beauty and fascination of the field.

SKEPLIT: Do you think your experience learning to love science can help other people learn to not fear, and even to come to appreciate and understand science?

OUELLETTE: Absolutely. That’s one of the reasons I chose to emphasize my background as an English major when the Black Bodies book came out, despite running the risk of not being taken seriously as a bona fide science writer. I wanted people to realize that it is possible to comprehend at least the basic concepts of physics – even the more advanced stuff. It’s a myth that people who are afraid of physics aren’t capable of understanding it. They just aren’t drawn to the way it’s traditionally taught. There are definitely different “styles” of learning, ways of communicating, and we need every tool and approach at our disposal to meet the challenge of public physics education and outreach.

SKEPLIT: You use a lot of pop culture examples in your writing, and you break the information down into bite size nuggets that anyone can understand. Do you ever get criticized for “dumbing down” science?

OUELLETTE: Hoo boy, do I get criticized. You’d think civilization as we know it was about to collapse, all because I glossed over the fine nuances of a technical point to make the science a bit more accessible to non-scientists. I’m as concerned about accuracy as any scientist. But as I said recently on my blog, there’s a kind of duality – akin to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle – that comes into play with science writing, indeed, with public communication of science in general. The more accurately one presents the science, the less interesting it is to a lay reader, and the more interesting one makes it for a lay reader, the less detail one can include about the science. That doesn’t make the science wrong, necessarily. I think of it as providing broad outlines in a sketch. Scientists might prefer a bit more detail, but often all a general audience needs (or can handle) is the barest minimum of detail. As they become more familiar with the science, they can start filling in those details bit by bit.

For some reason, there seems to be a real fear of allowing “misinformation” to propagate, to the point where some physicists get positively paranoid about the slightest nuance. Of course, we should be concerned about bad science. The best way to combat it, in my opinion, is to make science part of the broader cultural discourse. Part of the problem is that scientists are talking primarily amongst themselves; they are preaching to the converted, because they’ve forgotten how to relate to (for lack of a better term) “the common man.”

Physicists need to lighten up a bit when people make honest mistakes: how you choose to correct misconceptions will determine whether or not someone actually listens to what you have to say. They need to remember what it was like not to have a deep understanding of their subject, and give the layperson a little freedom to take risks, and possibly fail, on the road to greater knowledge, instead pouncing at the first sign of a misconception and shouting “WRONG!” (If people become terrified of being wrong, eventually they just stop trying. Or they start to resent it, and resist further input from scientists just on principle.) Peoples’ understanding might be imperfect at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it always will be. Ignite an appreciation, even a passion, for learning more about physics, and they will embark on their own lifelong journey. Those misconceptions will eventually be corrected.

SKEPLIT: Do you intentionally search for pop culture ideas that fit in with the science you are writing about, or do these ideas come to you naturally?

OUELLETTE: For the Black Bodies book, they were intentional, because by then I’d decided that was going to be my “bait” to hook the reader. I hoped it would make the science a bit more palatable. The Physics of the Buffyverse grew out of that when I realized I could think of an example from the Buffy and Angel series for virtually every topic covered in Black Bodies. It seemed only natural to follow that path to fruition. And now I guess it is becoming second nature to look for those kinds of links, because it’s proven so effective. I try to not just limit it to pop culture; the point is to link it to a broader human context, and that can be found almost anywhere.

SKEPLIT: I frequently read book reviews written by scientists about popular science books. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend where the scientist insults the author's credentials and chips away at the book’s ideas because the author is a writer, not a scientist. It makes it seem like scientists don’t want the general public to be excited about science, but I’m sure that’s not true. Have you ever experienced this?

OUELLETTE: Yes, it’s happened to me. Sometimes certain assumptions are made about writers who are not professional scientists, yet who dare to tackle the subject. Just ask Bill Bryson. I deliberately played up my English major background when the Black Bodies book came out, because I wanted to emphasize its accessibility and hopefully attract readers who otherwise wouldn’t touch a book about physics with a 10-foot pole. But I knew by doing so, I would be taken less seriously by some scientists. It wasn’t like I just woke up one day and decided to write about physics history; I’d been a science writer for 10 years by then. Yet I actually had a physicist call into a radio show I was on, and inform me that non-scientists should be content with merely copying down what we’re told by the physicists who actually know this stuff, rather than try to find innovative ways to present it to a broader audience.

I find this attitude unfathomable, and diametrically opposed to the entire philosophy behind scientific inquiry throughout history. Scientists criticize people all the time for blindly accepting on faith what their priests or ministers tell them about God, religion, or what have you. Why should people take their word entirely on faith? And if only physicists are “allowed” to talk or write about physics, eventually only physicists will care about it. Fortunately, I don’t think it’s a typical attitude. Most scientists I’ve met are wonderful people who are truly interested in sharing the excitement of their work with others; they just might not know the best way to go about it.

SKEPLIT: These days it seems like there is a lot of misunderstanding about what science is, how it works, and even about the way it uses language. The ideas that a theory is “just a guess” and that science is “just based on belief” come to mind. What can scientists, science writers, and regular people who realize the importance of science do to help minimize these misunderstandings?

OUELLETTE: I’m always amazed that so many people (including my former self) take all these “required” science classes, and yet take so little away from them in terms of lifelong knowledge. The mission of public outreach and education is never-ending, in that respect. We need to keep reaching out, keep re-emphasizing those basics, until it becomes impossible not to know about it – much like it’s impossible these days not to know who Jessica Simpson or Paris Hilton is, whether we’re celebrity watchers or not.

But it’s not just being vigilant about misperceptions when they come to light. It’s a matter of going about correcting them in a way that isn’t offensive or alienating. It’s not enough to be right; we also need to be heard. Scientists should be encouraging people to question and explore – even if at times they might make mistakes. As I said earlier, sometimes we get so uptight about the potential for error, that we forget to encourage a free spirit of inquiry – which is ultimately what all good science is about.

SKEPLIT: On your blog, Cocktail Party Physics, you talk about science communications quite a bit. A lot of skeptics and scientists seem to think that logical argument is the only way to talk about science. However, I believe that stories about personal experience and emotions are needed to get people excited about a topic. What can be done to improve this situation? Do you think scientists and science writers are getting better at talking to regular people?

OUELLETTE: Well, I think more scientists and science writers are realizing that they NEED to get better at talking to regular people, and that’s a start. The first step is admitting you have a problem. And absolutely, I think the best way to do this is to tell the stories, and evoke the passion and emotions that are undeniably present. So much of the “science communication machine” has been about doing business as usual. There’s certainly a place for that kind of communication. But it’s preaching to the converted. To reach the people who resist, you need to cast a wider net, and to do that, you need to humanize the field a bit more, and tie physics concepts into the things that interest your intended audience. Physicists are always saying theirs is the most fundamental science. If that’s true, then there should be no shortage of possible illustrative examples. I happen to think that’s true.

SKEPLIT: You covered so many topics in Black Bodies and Quantum Cats, that it seems like you’d have to do a decade of scientific and historical research. How did you do all of that research and how long did it take you?

OUELLETTE: Well, the Black Bodies book was kind of a culmination of my first 10 years as a science writer. In some respects, I was doing the “research” all along. I very much learned about physics on the job – which might be why I came to love it so much. But yes, it did require a tremendous amount of research, and I ended up hiring a research assistant to help me meet my deadline. I always tell people that I literally had no life while writing my two books; they think I’m exaggerating. But I’m not. I just decided it was a short-term sacrifice I needed to make, and that it would be worth it in the long run. And I think it has been.

SKEPLIT: Did you work with many physicists while writing Black Bodies and Quantum Cats and your next book, The Physics of the Buffyverse?

OUELLETTE: I’m very fortunate to count several physicists and science writers among my circle of friends and acquaintances, and I’m not above exploiting those connections. Seriously, they were all extremely helpful in answering the odd physics question, reviewing draft chapters, even crunching a few numbers for me on occasion. I’m especially grateful to Alan Chodos, who guilt-tripped me into learning the basics of the equations for special relativity. (“It’s only algebra, it’s not like it’s real math,” was his classic quote. Yes, I still have my math phobia, but basic algebra I can handle.) That really cemented my understanding of Einstein’s theory and brought it to a deeper level.

SKEPLIT: Do you ever feel confident that you totally understand the scientific topics you are covering, or do you worry that you may have misunderstood some fine point?

OUELLETTE: I always, always worry about having misunderstood some fine point… and sometimes I do misunderstand something. There’s always someone waiting in the wings to helpfully point this out to me. As long as they’re polite about it, I don’t mind. I consider it part of the lifelong learning process. I realized that it’s part of the culture of science. Understanding that helped me learn not to take the critiques personally (except for the rare occasion when it does become a personal attack). I would argue that no true scientist worth his/her salt would ever claim to “totally” understand a given topic; they continue to gain deeper and deeper knowledge and expertise on the road to greater understanding, just like me. They’re just a little further on down the road than I am. The whole point is the journey and the discoveries along the way, I’m fond of saying – not just in science, but in life.

SKEPLIT: What are you working on next?

OUELLETTE: After writing two books in two years – on top of my usual deadlines – I was a little burnt out, and resolved to spend this year recharging. Thus far “Operation Get A Life Already, You Loser” is going pretty well. I still work far too much, but the work is more fun and I pare down where I’m able. Plus, I’m loving the whole blogosphere adventure; it’s a perfect venue for my writerly effluvia, and I enjoy the sense of community and dialogue with the people who read it. So 2006 is very much the Year of Cocktail Party Physics. The blog also doubles as a kind of science writer’s laboratory for me: I experiment with tone, style, and play around with some of the ideas I encounter through my own Cyber-wanderings, conversations with physicists, sessions at meetings, etc.

But I do have a third book in mind, and come December or thereabouts, I’ll start working on it in earnest. There’ll be less of a pop culture aspect to that one – I’ve kind of beaten that particular horse into the ground – but it will still be lively, accessible, and chock-full of anecdotes and quirky details. That’s the idea, at least. Everything I learned writing Black Bodies fed into the Buffyverse book, and I fully expect the lessons learned from the latter will feed into the new book as well, making it just that much better. One should always seek to build and improve upon the knowledge one gains. That’s as true of writers as it is of scientists.