Transcriber: Denise RQ Reviewer: Alexander Kertser
At the age of 4 I was diagnosed with leukemia, blood cancer.
And that's how it looks.
14 years later, I won the 4th prize in physics at the Intel ISEF
one of the biggest international science, and engineering fairs
(Applause) out of 1,500 people.
That's how that looks.
(Music plays in the video)
This presentation is about my journey
from here
to here.
So let's start a little bit back.
This is me, a happy and healthy 4-year-old child.
That was a month before I was diagnosed.
Then I went through half a year of chemo,
and I was recovered and went back home.
By then the future looked bright, and I almost forgot about it.
Four years later, I was diagnosed with a relapse.
I had leukemia for the second time.
By then, it was pretty obvious
that I would need a bone marrow transplantation
in order to increase my chances of recovery.
So, in order to help me to find a donor,
I participated in a bone marrow transplantation donation campaign.
As the poster boy.
Which means that these posters with my face
were shown all over the country and I was also in prime time TV shows
and pretty much everybody knew me.
And it was annoying, because everybody knew me
and I didn't know them... Awkward!
(Laughter)
That campaign was very successful.
Four children who needed a donor found one.
Unfortunately, I wasn't one of them.
But I managed to recover without a transplantation.
I was healthy once more.
One year later, I had good news and bad news.
The bad news was that I was diagnosed with another relapse.
I had leukemia for the third time.
By then I needed that transplantation desperately.
The good news were that one day before it,
my mom, who was pregnant by then, went to a medical examination
where we found out that my future brother is a full match donor for me.
All I had to do now, is to survive those next four months
until he will be born.
Guess what? I made it!
(Applause)
When my brother was born,
my father rushed from the delivery room to the hospital
to deliver the cord blood and to prepare the transplantation.
And a few days later I entered the operation
which was very successful, but sadly, due to some complications,
left me in a wheelchair.
You can probably guess by now, that I missed a little bit of school.
About two years.
And I had to catch up somehow.
Luckily, I have amazing parents who came out with a solution for me:
video conference.
We installed one part on a TV at our home and another part on a TV at school
and by that I could almost physically be in class.
I had to raise my hand in order to participate in the discussions
and even to be excused to the bathroom.
But there are also some positive sides to the sickness.
Because it gave me a chance to develop a passion I had from early age: science.
I had a lot of time and a direction, biology,
because of all the doctors, and medicine, and diseases,
and figuring out what's happening around me.
And also I had unlimited access to doctors,
and medicine, and knowledge in biology.
It's like a whole university just for me.
(Laughter)
So, I got into biology.
I started learning anatomy and how the organs function.
But it didn't satisfy me.
And that's because I want to understand why does it behave like it does.
And I didn't find my answers by then,
but I learnt that everything in biology is made out of chemistry.
So, I moved into chemistry.
But, I only found more gaps because I wanted to understand,
why there is one stuff which is red,
and the other is green, and the other is liquid.
But I learnt that everything in chemistry is made out of physics.
So I moved into Physics.
And I just got more deeply into it until I got into particle physics.
I was about ten by then.
I was so excited about it, that when I had a science project at our school
to choose a type of energy, research it and demonstrate it,
I chose for my group nuclear energy.
So we, three 10-year-old students,
started learning nuclear physics and nuclear energy.
And how does one study nuclear physics? Wikipedia!
So I opened the entry of nuclear physics in Wikipedia and started reading.
OK, I know that word, I know that word...
That word I don't know.
There's no connection between those two.
I think I need a break.
And that was the simple part,
because then we had to demonstrate that energy.
So, naturally, we chose to build a nuclear missile,
but because it is a little hard
for 10-year-old students to get uranium and rocket fuel,
we decided to replace uranium with soda powder
and the rocket fuel with vinegar.
And we decided to rehearse at one of my friend's house,
but he had none of them.
So, I decided to replace them with washing powder and lemon juice.
Can you guess the result?
It was a complete disaster. Nothing happened.
Luckily, that wasn't my last experiment.
Six years later, I participated in a prestigious program
run by the Davidson Institute of Science Education for young scientists.
That program consisted of two or three meetings a year for 2 days,
where we went through many lectures
and many fields of science,
went through some experiments and learnt a lot of things.
That's where I was exposed for the first time
to my subject of my project, the Higgs boson.
I think that right now is a good time to explain what is that Higgs boson.
So, in simple words, the Higgs boson is the particle,
that according to particle physics, is responsible for the existence of mass.
You are probably wondering right now why do we need a proof that mass exists?
I mean, look around us. I have mass, this chair has mass,
even you have mass!
So, why do we need a proof?
But apparently, it is not enough for particle physics.
Mainly because the most accepted particle physics theory today,
the Standard Model,
suggests that there shouldn't be any mass.
So, how could there be mass?
Nuclear physics scientists tried to bridge that gap.
Then, in the 60s,
many scientists, and among them Peter Higgs, proposed a model
that says there is a particle called the Higgs boson,
that's responsible for mass.
All they had to do now is to prove that this particle exists.
And here lies the problem.
The problem is that you can't find that particle normally
with a magnifying glass or even a microscope.
You'll need something much bigger that can detect much smaller things.
The ultimate solution today is one of the biggest structures ever built,
the LHC particle accelerator at CERN.
That solution is based on Einstein's famous theory
that states that mass and energy are equivalent.
That means that particles which have mass can turn into energy,
and that energy can turn back into new particles.
So, what's happening in that structure, is that particles are accelerated,
then collide together, and the results, which are the new particles, are detected,
in order to find new particles or new things in particle physics.
Now, in order to explain it in a simpler way,
let's use something we're more familiar with, fruits.
Let's say we have two grapes.
We accelerate them to unbelievable speed, about the speed of light.
And then we let them smash together.
Can you guess the result? Yummy grape juice!
But it's not over here, because from that fruit juice
new fruits are created, like a few grapes,
and a couple of bananas, and even a grapefruit.
And it's not over even here,
because those bananas and grapefruits are so heavy
that they themselves break apart into smaller fruits,
like smaller grapes, and bananas, and strawberries.
Now, all that fruit salad is pretty nice but you want to understand,
which fruits are in it?
And that's where enters the detector.
The detector has many components.
Each one of them has different capabilities
and a very specific purpose.
One of them can detect energy,
the other can detect the direction of movement,
and the other one can detect if there was a grape in our fruit salad.
Now, if that now looks simple, there are many challenges in it.
Because that red banana, which is our Higgs boson,
happens only one out of trillions of grapes that get smashed together.
And also, those detectors
only detect the small fruits that we get,
and they need to reconstruct the original fruits that were in our fruit salad.
So, it's pretty much like looking for a needle in a haystack.
And that's where enters another part.
A program that takes all the information from the detector,
analyzes it, and gives us the fruits in our fruit salad.
Now, if you got a little lost between the bananas and the grapes,
it's OK, I rather too.
So, in simple words, in my project, I developed one of those programs
that took the information from the detector,
and told us if there was a Higgs boson, a red banana, or not.
Through that project I encountered many challenges.
Some of them were hard, some of them were harder.
Some of them were over the physics nature, and some of them over the human nature.
And one of them happened to me,
about two months before I had to hand in my project.
You see, my mentor was supposed to leave for a post-doctorate,
about a month before I had to hand in my project.
And we got nearer and nearer to that date, and the project wasn't over yet,
and I got really stressed out.
And then I found myself writing one of the saddest emails ever,
about a week before he was scheduled to leave,
which I signed with the words that we started our project with,
"Until the bitter end."
Fortunately, he didn't leave, and we finished the project.
And then, I was advised to participate in some competitions.
So, I participated in three competitions.
The first one was at the Davidson Institute of Science Education,
where I won the second prize.
And there was another one, at the Jerusalem Museum of Science,
where I won the third one.
And from that competition, I also got into the Israeli group
that went to the Intel ISEF, which I mentioned at the beginning.
And that was our group.
For that competition we had to prepare two things:
a lecture of about 15 minutes about our project, and a poster.
After 15 intensive sessions with judges,
I was announced that I won the fourth prize,
in physics, in that competition.
It was amazing. It was an unbelievable experience.
I felt on top of the world.
When I was announced and everyone applauded me,
and I had to go to the stage... it was truly amazing!
(Applause)
I won the fourth prize, the third prize, and the second prize,
and for my parents I'm always number one.
(Laughter) (Applause)
This has been my journey so far.
Today, I am almost 19, and the future never looked brighter.
Maybe I'll go to the hi-tech, write software.
Maybe I'll continue researching. Maybe I'll even end up teaching.
I mean, I'm already a great lecturer. (Laughter)
But I know only one thing for sure:
no matter what hardships, challenges, and relapses life will throw upon you,
if you have strong will power, faith in yourself,
and people around you that love you, everything is possible.
(Applause)
Thank you.