The Big Bang materials theory
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e live in a time in which skepticism of science, including its value as well as its conclusions, seem to be growing. While evolution (including human evolution), the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, global climate change, and cosmology featuring a universe that has billions of years of existence are all well established scientifically, many people don’t believe in them. Given what we know about the value of scientific research, it is hard for us as materials researchers to accept that. Such skepticism calls into question our understanding of all science, including materials research. We need some method to convey our values and our culture to the global community. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a widely viewed television show based upon our values and our culture? The show could be a comedy that transects the work and day-to-day lives of some of us. The focus of the show could be two materials researchers, a theorist and an experimentalist, at a major university somewhere in the world. Viewers would come to understand different threads of materials research and appreciate us as human beings with ordinary needs, such as friendship, love, outside interests, and all of the other things that make us human. This idea obviously plays off the tremendously popular American television comedy, The Big Bang Theory (TBBT), which recently closed production after a 12-year run.1 The title of the comedy is wonderfully evocative, playing off the cosmological concepts at the heart of the origin of the universe as well as the love lives of the protagonists. Even the theme music to the show connects us to all of this through the amazing lyrics created by the Canadian rock band Barenaked Ladies.2 One of the recurring themes from the show was the use of whiteboards in the background with equations and figures relevant
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to their scientific work. The producers worked exceptionally hard to get the science right. This was accomplished by hiring technical consultants, including David Saltzberg, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA. Later in the show’s run, Mayim Bialik, who plays the character Amy Farrah Fowler, joined the cast. Bialik has a PhD degree in neuroscience (a real scientist playing the role of a scientist for a change!) and provided guidance on issues in microbiology and neuroscience. I imagine whiteboards playing a key role in our materials show as well, with the two main protagonists studying quantum materials, big data in materials research, artificial intelligence in materials research, perovskites, biomaterials, nanomaterials, topological materials, electron microscopy, or a host of other topics generally covered by the MRS Fall and Spring Meetings.3,4 If our show leveraged California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as a home for our characters, such as TBBT, then the producers could use any of a number of brilliant materials researchers from the Los Angeles area as consultants. As a recurring theme, TBBT also had encounters
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