Joe DeGeorge makes up a song about his favorite physicist.

Science and Music

Joe DeGeorge rocks out with Harry and the Potters and in the lab.

30 Second Science with Joe DeGeorge

We give Joe DeGeorge 30 seconds to describe his science and he gets flustered.

10 Questions for Joe DeGeorge

We ask Joe DeGeorge 10 questions and he tells us to "get real."

Joe's Behind-the-Scenes Journal

Today’s post is from our rocker/scientist Joe DeGeorge.

First of all, this is an amazing project. I think that getting to know scientists as human beings and hearing them talk like regular people brings out the passion behind their scientific work. Growing up, I was always struck by the characters of fictitious scientists like Doc Brown from “Back to the Future,” “Beakman,” and some of the characters from Isaac Asimov’s books. These eccentric but completely logical characters were, subconsciously, a big part of my initial gravitation toward science. But I didn’t know very much about the personal lives of any real scientists. Here at SLoS you get to know real scientists, and I think that is valuable, especially if you’re a young person who is just beginning to become fascinated with science.

I was shocked when SLoS contacted me because it sounded like they were interviewing a bunch of accomplished scientists with cool hobbies. I am by no means an accomplished scientist, and sometimes it feels like science is more like my hobby since I spend a bunch of money to study it. And more people know me from my band about Harry Potter than from my scientific work. Still, I told my professor about the interview, and he said it seemed worthwhile to take a day off from the lab. Within weeks, I was on a train headed to NYC for the interview.

On the morning of the interview, I got to eat at Doughnut Plant. If you’re in New York, you should check it out. They have amazing new doughnut technology that can get cream filling in the ring of doughnut—cream filling in a doughnut with a hole in the middle. Welcome to the future!

Fueled up on doughnuts, I arrived at the studio and tried to write a SLoS theme song while I waited until Rich Robinson finished his interview with the crew. I didn’t wind up writing a theme song, but I did get interviewed. The camera setup was a little weird. The interviewer sits behind a curtain, and I could only see him on a screen where the camera lens was. They do this so you end up looking directly at the camera. It took awhile before I became more at ease with the man-behind-the-curtain scenario. I kept making a lot of Wizard of Oz jokes in between questions, which I thought was more than appropriate. They were just asking for it.

I hope you enjoy the interview. The editors on this project are really good. Props to them. Also, if you have questions, you can email me at joe.degeorge@gmail.com.

Rock Star

We were pretty excited when Joe DeGeorge came to our set. We’d met some other scientists who thought they were rock stars. But Joe really is one. In his SLoS videos, Joe talks about some similarities between rocking with his band, Harry and the Potters, and doing his science. In one of the pieces that got left on the cutting room floor, he also spoke about one of the differences:

“The sort of satisfaction I get out of music is that there’s almost this instant gratification of making something—when you play a show, people are there, and clapping for you, and excited for you. Whereas in science, if I’m just at my lab, mixing some stuff up, maybe I make a new compound—but nobody’s there, cheering for me. There aren’t a hundred people standing outside my lab, going ‘Yeah! Do it again! One more!’ I mean that would be great if that happened in science. But it’s hard to imagine a giant laboratory on stage with some guy mixing stuff together and not knowing what’s going to happen. Most of the time, people would just be like, ‘Oh—that didn’t work….’”

For better and for worse, what Joe says is true. In one of his videos, you can hear us clapping after he sings his impromptu composition, “Dick Feynman.” But we didn’t clap at all when Joe was telling us about growing crystals in the lab. Not even a little.

So if science is short on rock-star adulation, what’s in it for Joe?

“I get a great satisfaction in knowing that we as a species are looking for new things and exploring the universe we live in, to see what’s really out there, and trying to understand how it works, and where it’s going—and where it came from. It’s almost like it fulfills, that sort of religious nature people have, the need to explain the universe—that’s what science does for me. So, being able to explore the unexplored is—I imagine I get the same feeling that an ancient shaman would, working with magical materials. When I do science, I’m trying to do something no one’s ever done before.”

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.

Dumbledore would be proud.

Ask Joe Your Questions

He has been to Hogwarts. He has been to NASA. And he has been to the lab. A lot. So what do you want to ask him?

Q: You’ve already accomplished so much through music, so what do you hope to accomplish through your work with physics? (Might I recommend discovering that magic exists for all of us Potter fans?)

Joe DeGeorge (JD): Magic is just an explanation for inexplainable events. There are still many phenomenon even in science that could be considered ‘”magic.” What makes the brain think? What is the cause of gravity? Why is angular momentum always conserved in an atom? Why is the speed of light the same in all reference frames? Many of these questions cannot be answered with exact scientific proofs. There are certain axioms in physics that cannot be proved but are used in other proofs to accurately illustrate the mechanical workings of the Universe. Take Newton’s second law, (F=ma the relationship between a force, mass, and acceleration) for example. There is no rigorous proof of this relationship but it is taken to be a Universal truth from it we can derive the motion of almost any object. Magic is all around us in the Universe and it is the quest to figure out how Magic works, that is fundamental to science.

One of my favorite examples is in contemporary astronomy, where according to our calculations there must be in the Universe a large amount of undetectable matter, dark matter, to account for the observed gravitation forces. Dark matter is a magical place holder for something that is out there, and scientists (or you could call them wizards) right now are trying to figure out how that magic works.

It would be of great pleasure to me to work on one of these grand problems. However for the short term I am focused on completing my undergraduate research with Professor Chris Landee at Clark. I am studying the magnetic properties of new materials, organic-copper complexes – crystals – at near absolute zero temperatures. This work may have implications for superconducting technology.

Q: Who’s your favorite character in Harry Potter?

JD: That is a great question. I of course have an affinity for Harry Potter because he has a punk rock mentality about his role in the wizarding world. He is a little bit of a rogue and can really stick it to the man. Remember Umbridge and Dumbledore’s Army? That was so punk rock.

As much as I like Harry Potter, I must say that Dumbledore is my favorite character. He always has the best and funniest lines, and is subtly the most powerful figure in the book. My favorite scenes in the books were always the last chapters where Dumbledore would casually and wittingly explain what had been going on for the whole book. He is cool. He has style, and he has an awesome weirdo brother.

Q: When did you start to think that “science is the new magic”? as you sometimes put it.

JD: I guess it must have been sometime while I was studying history. When learning the history of Western Civilization you see that science, as we know it, is a very recent development. From the dawn of humanity wisdom concerning medicinal plants, weather, was in control of local shamans who were experienced with the magic of nature. There was a direct association of knowledge about the Universe with magic, and science is ultimately knowledge about the Universe.

Much of what we know about chemistry came out of the experiments of alchemists during the late middle ages. Alchemists like Nicholas Flamel (a wizard you may know from HP) who tried to manipulate matter, were the first modern chemists.

Science is the new magic. It is how we explain the Universe.

Q: What would you say to someone who was interested in science, but feels their inability to do math holds them from achieving a major in it?

JD: I would say that this person should not worry too much about being unable to do math. Math can be learned, and in many areas of science the math used is minimal. One can be a successful macrobiologist using mostly simple methods of data analysis of quantitative experiments, which is mostly addition and multiplication and the occasional square root.

There are many unexplored areas of biology that can be investigated with simple methods. It is a wonderful field of study and does not require billions of dollars to build giant particle accelarators nor does it necessitate a strong math background compared to physics. Also there are a lot of biologists that get to travel around the world to looks at cool plants, animals, and fungi. I love looking at fungi actually. It is November in Massachusetts now and there are all sorts of edible mushrooms to look for.

Chemistry is great too. You’ll have to do some calculus eventually, but can get by with mostly just algebra and lots of memorization.

Calculus is not as scary as it sounds though. Just remember that when you do math in science usually it is a lot of the same type of calculation so you get a lot of practice at it, and it is not like math class where they try to teach as much math as possible and you don’t get enough time to work on a section that you want.

Q: How did you become interested in Physics and what do you plan to do with it after you graduate?

JD: I had taken two years of physics in high school because I liked it so much. However, I was still interested in pursuing paths in other areas of science. I originally was considering going into a molecular biology program, but when I took the intro to biology course at school I got discouraged because it was big class and it seemed like we were only scratching the surface of the material and blasting through it real fast without much discussion. Which, I guess makes sense, because it is such a broad field of study. However, when I took an intro physics course that same year I had an amazing professor and I got to spend a lot of time with particular problems examining the fundamental behavior of particles in the universe. I felt like I was working on an actual skill rather than memorizing a bunch of things, which seemed kind of pointless to me. If I was going to memorize a bunch of stuff I could do that on my own. But if I was going to spend money to be in school I’d want to develop a skill, and spend time working with other people on it, and that is what physics did for me.

Q: Have you learned any ways to mix science and music? Like do you hum ” gryffindor rocks” when you do a lab?

JD: It’s funny that you mention it. All summer I kept whistling the beginning to Beethoven’s 5th symphony all around the lab. I don’t know why, sometihng about the lab just made me think dun dun dun duuuuun. dun dun dun duuuuuuuuuuun. One of the guys in the lab I think started to get upset.
So that is one way to mix it.

After that Dick Feynman song, people have been saying that I should start a band about scientists. I guess that would be a good way to mix those two together.

Let me know if you think of any other good ways. They are two of my favorite things!

Q: I have wanted to be a Mechanical or Computer Engineer for about 4 years and I entered in to the Engineering Magnet Program at my school as well as the robotics program, so I’ve worked with engineering and physics first hand. However, I’ve also been making videos on YouTube for about 2 years and I have built a love for film and the YouTube community that I had never expected. Now I had to make the choice between my love for engineering and film, and I chose film.

Did you have a similar issue or did you always know you would study physics and music would always be a hobby for you?

JD: I know exactly how you feel! I took a year off after high school before I went to college so I could pursue the Potters project with my brother. Now I am almost done with school and in a position where I could go get a job working for someone else doing their work, go back to school and do someone else’s research or go on to pursue other artistic projects.

I always knew I wanted to go to school to get a degree in the sciences. But as I’ve been doing it, I feel like it’s almost more like science is my hobby and my artistic projects are what people really know me for. All and all, I am just an amateur physicist right now, but you could also call me a professional musician. I really enjoyed being in school for science while working on music at the same time in a non academic setting. I feel like it is much easier to pursue music in a non academic setting than it is to do science, unless you are an incredibly driven individual. I just thought it made sense for me to go to school for science, while simultaneously having a career in the arts.

My brother used to say “I never stopped listening to the advice they gave me when I was applying for college. They kept telling me to do a lot of stuff and be well rounded.” I sort of think like I am applying to college constantly. Gotta be well rounded.

However, my Classical Mechanics professor this year keeps telling me that in order to be successful at physics you can’t have a life.

So… we’ll see what the future brings.

Do what you love.