so I'm in San Francisco and I'm actually
going to Berkeley at the moment
I'm gonna be doing a whole bunch of
amazing science videos there and quite
appropriately I'm being driven by Henry
from minutephysics I'm sure most of you
already watch his videos but Henry's
gonna drive me there drop me off and
then we're gonna have a look around and
show you some really cool stuff see
these signs here here at Berkeley
they have parking spaces reserved just
for Nobel laureates so how do you prove
you're a Nobel laureate you have to do
you have to put your medal on the
dashboard what sorts of call you've got
you put your metal to the pedal what do
you think darling go I'm gonna put you
on the spot here should science
buildings look like this I should there
be the modern glass ones I like them
like this that's nice isn't it that's
the way but
it's not efficient probably these days
let's go and have a look at it let's go
and have a look closer look
[Music]
this actually says 23 24 and seaboard
claims that it was a dark and stormy
night of February 21 when they did the
chemistry I'm out of breath
so they still probably had to do some
further experiments to substantiate it
and I suppose that's why they put the
23rd and fourth on here but he clearly
says it was a dark and stormy night of
February 21st late at night all good
experiments happen late at night when
you're ready to quit
is that just bad luck how do you think
there's a reason for that there's a
reason for that it's when you think you
just can't go on and you do the little
extra experiment or a little extra thing
that's necessary to pin it down and I've
found that many times professor this lab
is obviously a historic site we can see
from what's on the wall here is it still
used for science or is it like a museum
now
I think this answers the question it
says nomen lab research on
electrochemical systems what do you
think about that
it's Berkeley you don't rest on past
laurels
I had always wanted to look for heavier
elements because when I was at Los
Alamos the big us thermo nuclear test
was had just been tested in the South
Pacific
I had been at Oak Ridge sooner and came
to Los Alamos following my husband and
they lost my clearance between Oak Ridge
and Los Alamos so I missed being a
co-discoverer of einsteinium and fermium
and I've never ever gotten over it so he
visto I'm big a co-discoverer of those
elements because of administrative
mistake exactly in those days they
didn't track those things with computers
and one thing and another well we would
have radiate samples in the cyclotron
down there and then take the sample out
take the from the radiation area put it
in a red Pig and put it in the car and
then
drive all the way up here help it for
breakfast and bring it into our
laboratories in the building right
behind you what was the hurry why not
just do it leisurely after lunch oh well
because we wanted to look at things that
had minute half-lives or multiple
minutes that was about as good as we
could do with that method why didn't you
just put the chemistry lab closer to the
cyclotron well later on we did that's a
much better idea
you should have employed me I would have
been brilliant well we had to get him to
let us do that too and have the space
and I think maybe I told you when we
were down there we put a little
mezzanine right there above the
cyclotron and then we could run a helium
jet transfer to to take things into our
little mezzanine hood what's a LED Pig
LED pig is a container made of lead with
a hole in the middle of it that you drop
the sample in and then put a lid on it
and
to tell you the truth I've asked person
after person I have no idea of why they
were called pigs so this is like one of
the most sophisticated important
laboratories in the world and you were
making new elements and then you're
putting them in a car and rushing them
up the hill like a like a car chase well
I was not a party to the discover any
new elements but these were isotope new
isotopes we were looking for same idea
and they also did the same thing for
some of the elements who used to drive
the car who was the getaway driver
I was trying to remember I think
[Music]
maybe algae or salt sometimes and maybe
sometimes Gregg Chopin who was a
graduate student what's this you've come
to show me where are we standing so
we're on the hill above and opposite the
University of California campus this is
the Lawrence Hall of Science it's part
of University it's a sort of Museum
Science Museum for children they come in
here what's special about this is not
just something you look at but it's
hands-on you play with it this is a
facsimile of the first ion cyclotron
built by Ernest Orlando Lawrence he got
the Nobel Prize for that and it's this
acceleration of ions by alternating
magnetic fields that makes it possible
to get fast ions to do these nuclear
bombardment and through that mechanism
create new elements and that's something
that's caused Glenn Seaborg was deeply
involved in professor as a as a modern
scientist that now is still working in
an age where we have Large Hadron
colliders and some really large
accelerators how do you feel about
objects like this does this still excite
you and inspire you or does this seem
small to you now Oh from the contrary I
always go back to the origins I also go
back to the original and if you
understand relativity you read
einstein's paper on relativity of course
the things that come out of that
critical but going back to see how this
arose from nothing has to pose to the
sort of growth of the enormously
powerful things today that have really
probe nature to this extreme this is
exciting
scientifically creative wise and just as
an emotional thing it's absolutely
wonderful
Seaborg in later days didn't like to
drive all that well because he had
arthritis so badly and so he would ask
if I'd Drive him to campus yes what
could you got to have a Nobel Prize spot