Arpita: 0:11 Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast, where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shape the world. How are you, Aarati? Aarati: 0:19 I'm doing pretty well, Arpita. How are you? Arpita: 0:22 I'm doing okay. You know, the days are getting longer and the sun is setting later and my mood is improving. Aarati: 0:30 Yes, we're getting out of that seasonal depression. Arpita: 0:34 Oh, it's so true. I got home from work today right around 5. 20 and it was still so bright outside and I was like amazing. This is all I needed was just some sunshine. Aarati: 0:45 Yes. I've been having that too, like, every time I go out around 530, I'm like, it's still bright out. Yes, amazing. We still have at least another half hour, 45 minutes of sunshine before it goes down. That's great. Arpita: 0:58 Oh, I know. It is so nice. Yeah, what do you have going on this week? Aarati: 1:02 Not much. I was, you know, checking the news. I was, I've been trying not to read the actual news, you know, because it's just so depressing and I can't. And so I was like, let me read science news because it gives me some hope. And I found out that This year is apparently the international year of Quantum Science and Technology, because it's been like, I have no idea, but I was like, so into it. Apparently it's been 100 years since like quantum theory like really came into its own. Arpita: 1:40 What does that mean"came into its own"? Aarati: 1:42 Like, you know, all the people who all the big scientists who are like studying quantum theory, like Albert Einstein and Schrodinger and Max Planck and all these like really big names in quantum theory were all doing their work like right around this time period. And that's when I see it was theorized that, you know, quantum theory was a thing. And so everybody was like doing experiments around that trying to prove it. And so they chose 1925 as the year that it like was first put forth or like quantum theory, like we are now accepting quantum theory. Arpita: 2:17 And now it's been hundred years. Aarati: 2:18 And now it's been a hundred years, so the powers that be, I guess, have decided that this year is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. And I was like, this is great. Arpita: 2:28 Sounds real nerdy. Aarati: 2:30 Fantastic. Yeah. And so that's. You know, I know you're going to hate me for this, but that's kind of what inspired the story today. I know. Arpita: 2:42 We will just see what my mental bandwidth is today, Aarati for quantum physics. Aarati: 2:47 Yes. But I was just like, you know how I love a theme and it's just so on theme, you know, I'm I was actually going to do a different person for today and then I got just completely sidelined by this news and then I was like, Oh my gosh, like something shiny. I have to go follow it. And so I just, you know, ended up totally changing my story. Arpita: 3:09 So okay, brave faces on. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. Aarati: 3:12 Okay, so for this story, we are traveling back to the 1800s and it is 18 years after the Civil War on October 12th, 1883, and Elmer Iams was born in Memphis, Tennessee. His father, Benjamin Albert Imes, was from a family of free Black farmers in Pennsylvania, and Benjamin went to college at Oberlin Theological Seminary, where he was studying for his divinity degree. Arpita: 3:44 Wait, sorry, sorry, sorry. Back up. He's Black? Aarati: 3:47 He is Black. Yes. Arpita: 3:49 And he went to divinity school, and this is, like, just post Civil War? Aarati: 3:55 Just post Civil War, his father went to Divinity School. Arpita: 3:58 I'm just impressed that he went to college in this time frame. That's crazy. Aarati: 4:04 That is a very good point, yeah. That it is a huge deal that he's going to college. Arpita: 4:10 It's a huge deal. Aarati: 4:11 Yes. Arpita: 4:11 Yeah, that seems like not what I would have expected for this time period at all, but okay. Aarati: 4:16 Absolutely. But here's an even bigger deal, that at this college is where he met Elmer's mother, Elizabeth, who is a black woman who is also going to college in this time period. Arpita: 4:29 We love this for them Wait, so they live in Tennessee also on top of that. Aarati: 4:33 No, sorry. So they're going to college in Oberlin, Ohio right now. Arpita: 4:37 Okay. Okay. Aarati: 4:38 Yeah, so his mother and father are going to college in Oberlin, Ohio, and they're both studying theology, basically. Arpita: 4:47 Okay. Aarati: 4:48 So Benjamin, who's the father, was from a family of free black farmers in Pennsylvania, but Elizabeth, the mother, was born into slavery in Mississippi, and then she was emancipated after the Civil War. Arpita: 5:01 And then she went to college. That's insane. Aarati: 5:03 Yeah, so she's also a theology student at Oberlin, and they met each other. And then in 1880, Elizabeth and Benjamin graduated and got married, and then the two of them started their lives as missionaries teaching Christianity to former slaves in the South. Arpita: 5:20 Wow. Aarati: 5:21 Yeah. Arpita: 5:21 So impressive. Aarati: 5:22 So as missionaries, the family moved around a little bit. And so Elmer, like I said, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but then he grew up and attended grammar school in Oberlin, Ohio. And then he attended the Agricultural and Mechanical College High School in Normal, Alabama. And it sounded to me like that was a little bit more of like a vocational school that was geared towards training Black people to work in specific trades. But since Elmer's father was college educated, he supplemented his education by teaching him classics like literature and history. Arpita: 6:00 Cool. Aarati: 6:01 And Elmer was also the eldest of three brothers, and all of them grew up to be, like, amazing people. So, the middle son, Albert, became a successful businessman, and the youngest brother, William, followed in his parents footsteps and became a renowned theologian and civil rights activist. So, all three brothers, amazing. Arpita: 6:21 This is already so impressive. Aarati: 6:23 Yeah, so there weren't a lot of, like, really specific details about Elmer's childhood, but, like, given the time period and the fact that he's growing up in the South, it's pretty safe to say he was probably growing up around many very recently freed slaves who were now facing, like, a ton of discriminatory Jim Crow laws, but, like, you kind of hit upon, he's in this very unique position because both of his parents are college educated, so and they had the means and the ability to give their kids good educations and like kind of open them up to opportunities that many others in the Black community didn't have at the time. So, as far as Black people post Civil War go, he's very, very lucky. Arpita: 7:08 Totally. Like, I can't imagine anything about this is easy but it does seem just I mean, beating all odds for not only him and this time frame to go to college and all of his brothers, but also both parents and his mom was born a slave. Like that is... Aarati: 7:26 Yes. Arpita: 7:26 You know? Aarati: 7:27 They're doing really well from, for themselves, this family. So, thanks to his well rounded education, after high school, Elmer got into Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, which is a historically Black college. And he studied for his bachelor's degree in physics there. But he also took a number of classics classes, including English literature, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Ethics, and Sociology. So, very, very well rounded education. Arpita: 7:57 I tried to get out of all my GEs, so can't relate. Aarati: 7:59 Oh, really? I think my GEs were the only thing that made me pass college. Honestly. It's like, I mean, only thing keeping my grade point average up. Arpita: 8:10 Oh, I think that's definitely true for me. I definitely padded myself. Aarati: 8:14 Yes, absolutely. So after college, Elmer wanted to pursue a higher degree, but that was easier said than done. A, he didn't have enough money. B, very few Black colleges offered higher degrees in science because they didn't have the funding or science equipment and labs. And C, again, there's like, a lot of discrimination against him because he's Black and so he can't just apply to any university and get in based on merit. So, um, it's not an easy thing. So first things first, he got a position teaching physics and math at the Albany Normal School in Georgia to start saving money. And this was the first time I'd heard of a Normal school. I was like, what is a normal school? But basically it's a school that's meant to train public school teachers. So today we just call them like teaching colleges. But I guess back then it was called a Normal school. Arpita: 9:11 That's so funny. Why was that the adjective? Aarati: 9:14 I was looking into this. I think it's like something to do with it, like, the word came from a French word that meant, like, standardized or like the standard way of, yeah, Arpita: 9:27 It's like a normalization of like education, because I imagine that like pre teaching colleges, like teachers were teaching whatever they wanted, so I imagine that it was almost like a like some, like, standardization. Aarati: 9:39 Yeah, exactly, yeah. So I think that's where, like, the etymology of that word came from, but I just thought it was really funny that it's called a normal school. Yeah. So then in 1908, Elmer's father died, and so Elmer went to Alabama to support and care for his mother. And at this point, she was a director at the Industrial Missionary Association School in Alabama. So, he moved to Alabama to be with her, and he started teaching at the Emerson Institute to keep earning money. And it took him nearly a decade of teaching, but after like 10 years, he went back to Fisk University to teach science and math and pursue his Master's degree at the same time. Arpita: 10:23 So he did end up going to, get a higher degree and he was able to get in. Aarati: 10:27 Yeah, but it took him 10 years between his bachelor's and his master's, so. However, Fisk only offered up to a Master's degree and he just wanted to do more. He wanted to get his PhD. Um, so he was not satisfied. Yes. He's not satisfied. And the U. S. is still heavily segregated. So Elmer's options for higher education in the South were pretty much non existent. But there were more opportunities in the North and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor was a little bit more open minded. and more inclusive. There was a catch though, they required Black students to do a probationary year where they had to complete the University of Michigan's senior year undergraduate curriculum before they were allowed to do any graduate studies. Arpita: 11:19 Oh, interesting. Aarati: 11:20 Yeah, and I think this was actually pretty common for like northern schools because When a Black person said they had gone to college, that didn't really mean anything because there's, again, like, no standardization, really, especially with, like, Black colleges or, like, predominantly Black colleges. It's like, well, what does that mean? What do you, what do you mean you have an education? Arpita: 11:41 Yeah. I guess post GRE they had to, or sorry, pre GRE, they had to figure out a, figure out a way to get everyone on the same level. Aarati: 11:50 Yes. So in 1915, Elmer was able to transfer schools. He had to complete that probationary year of undergraduate school, and then he was chosen as a graduate fellow under Professor Harrison Randall. So Harrison Randall was a leader in spectroscopy. And so Elmer's thesis was to design and build higher resolution infrared spectrometers. Okay, so here's where we're going to spend some time breaking down the science. So spectroscopy is basically when scientists study the interaction between light and matter. And when I say light, that light can come from anywhere on the electromagnetic spectrum. So anything from like long waves with low energy, like radio waves and infrared light to visible light, which is all the color wavelengths that we can see, and then waves with much shorter wavelengths and higher energies like ultraviolet and x rays. So in really simple terms, what spectroscopists are doing is they're choosing a specific wavelength of light from this spectrum, shooting them at a sample of some matter that they want to analyze. And that matter can be like a mineral or biological tissue or chemical or something. And they study the interaction between the light and that sample of matter. And different things can happen when they do that. So the light can either be absorbed by the matter, it can be transmitted through it, Or it can be reflected off of it. Arpita: 13:22 Okay. Aarati: 13:23 And so if you remember our like episode on Wilhelm Röntgen from last year, this is what basically he was seeing when he put his hand in front of x rays. Most of the x rays were being transmitted through the soft tissue because it had a lower density, but then it would be absorbed by higher density matter like calcium in his bones. Arpita: 13:43 Okay. That makes sense. My eyes haven't glazed over it yet. Okay. Aarati: 13:45 Great. We're doing well. So simultaneously, this is all happening right at the very beginning of all these household name scientists like Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and all these others are starting to piece together quantum theory, which turned many concepts from classical physics kind of on their heads. So normally in physics. When you think about an object having a certain amount of energy, you can graph that energy in a continuous line. So, if you go back to physics, like, you have a ball rolling on a surface, and if the ball is rolling with a certain speed and energy at point A, you can measure that, right? And then, if you add energy to the system by pushing the ball, for example, it will speed up, and now you can measure the energy again at point B. Point B after you've pushed the ball and you can make a graph of what the energy looked like at point A to point B. Arpita: 14:47 Yeah. Aarati: 14:47 And between A and B. There's a continuous line. So if you pick any point between A and B You'll be able to calculate the energy anywhere along that line Arpita: 14:57 Because at any point there is some energy. Aarati: 14:59 There's something going on. Yeah, so you can look at it at the ball at any point and you'll be able to calculate what's happening with the ball at that point in terms of energy. But physicists were starting to realize that subatomic particles didn't behave like that. So, now, if you imagine an electron, it's orbiting around a nucleus in an atom. It has a very specific rotational and vibrational energy that it's at. But now, if you add energy to the system by shining a light wave at it, if the light wave has the correct frequency, the electrons can absorb that energy and jump to a higher energy state. And this is called a quantum jump, because unlike the ball, there's no in between. When the electron goes from one energy state to the next, you can't, like, measure what's happening between that jump. It's just Level 1, level 2. That's it. There's no level 1. 5. There's no level 1. 623. Arpita: 15:59 It's not continuous. Aarati: 16:00 It's not continuous. They're discrete levels. Arpita: 16:02 Is this orbitals or no? These are like the electrons are in each of their orbitals and they jump, right? Aarati: 16:09 Yes. So orbitals is one thing. Yeah. Orbitals is definitely one thing that they jump from orbital to orbital. Arpita: 16:15 I'm doing so well right now. Aarati: 16:17 You're doing really great. You're on it. So, this is actually what spectroscopists were trying to observe. So, if they used x rays to shine light at molecules, they could observe that at certain wavelengths or certain light energies, the electrons would absorb the energy and jump from one orbital to the next. But this was like with x rays specifically. So if you look at this on an absorbance spectrum, like the graph readout that you see when you do this, the line is flat where the electron is not absorbing much energy because the wavelength of light isn't at the correct frequency. But once you hit the right wavelength there's like this huge spike in the absorbent spectrum where the electron is absorbing all that energy. Arpita: 17:03 Yeah. Aarati: 17:04 So that's kind of a really important point like the wavelength of light that you shoot at the molecule has to be the right frequency Otherwise, it's not going to make that quantum leap. And so I was like talking to my brother about this and he was saying that you could explain it kind of like you're pushing someone on a swing. So if you push your hands forward really fast, like push, push, push, push, push, push, push, the person isn't really going to go anywhere because you're pushing too fast. But if you push one time and then you wait five minutes and then you push a second time like the person's still not going to go anywhere because you're pushing too slow now, so you have to kind of get this rhythm going in order to get the person to actually swing higher and higher and higher and that's what's happening, kind of, with these molecules and subatomic particles. Arpita: 17:54 That's a good metaphor. I like that. Aarati: 17:56 Yeah, you have to get the right wavelength and then they kind of start resonating together and then there's a quantum jump into a different orbital with a different energy. So that's kind of the theory that people are kind of coming up with, but it's still theoretical, like it makes sense mathematically, but it's just such a departure from how people thought about how energy and matter react. Like most people were still thinking of the ball example and that energy is this continuous thing. So for things to be making leaps like this where you can't measure what's going on between the two energy states is really like, like, it's just madness, you know, like that doesn't, but it's working out mathematically, but now they're trying to show it experimentally, basically. Arpita: 18:43 Okay. Which really are separate things. Aarati: 18:46 Yes. So, they've been able to show that if they shined x rays on atoms, they could see the electrons would absorb the wavelengths at certain frequencies, and the x ray absorbance spectrum would show these big, discrete spikes in absorbance, which meant that the electrons orbital energy was changing in a way that was consistent with quantum theory. But again, that was like really specific to x rays and electrons orbital energy. But quantum theory also predicted that changes to a molecule or electrons vibrational and rotational energies might also be quantized the same way. But x rays weren't really the way to go about looking at that. In order to look at rotational and vibrational energy, you needed to use infrared light. And so that's when we circle back to what Elmer was doing for his PhD. He was working on optimizing infrared spectrometers to the point that we could actually see whether when we shot infrared light at molecules, did they have this big discrete spike that correlated with quantum changes in vibrational and rotational energy? Arpita: 19:57 Relative to x-rays for orbital changes, because that we already knew at this point. Aarati: 20:03 Yeah. So X-rays with orbital changes, we had already been able to show. Arpita: 20:07 Right. We would like, and he's trying to show infrared for vibration. Aarati: 20:10 Mm-hmm Arpita: 20:11 And rotation. Aarati: 20:12 Yeah. Arpita: 20:13 Okay. Aarati: 20:13 So infrared light is what you need to excite rotational and vibrational energies. X-rays is what you need in order to excite the different changes in orbital energy. So it's like the different wavelengths are doing different things to the molecules. Arpita: 20:30 How did he know that it was x rays Aarati: 20:33 What scientists had been able to do was they were seeing that when they shot x rays at molecules, the orbital energy was changing, and they knew that these subatomical particles had rotational and vibrational energies associated with them, but when they shot x rays at it, the rotational and vibrational energies were not changing. But they were like, hey, there's other wavelengths of light. Maybe it's a different wavelength. Like maybe we're not hitting the atom with the correct frequency of light in order to excite the vibrational and rotational energy. So they're trying different wavelengths of light and they are seeing something with infrared light, but it's like this fuzzy band that they're not really able to tell what's happening. So they're like maybe it's infrared, but we're not sure. So that's kind of like the point that we're at. Arpita: 21:24 Okay. Aarati: 21:24 So that's why he's working on infrared spectrometers specifically because people are like, we think it might be infrared because we're seeing something. Arpita: 21:33 Okay. And he's probing that question deeper to try to understand. Aarati: 21:37 Yeah, we don't have like high enough resolution to see exactly what's happening. We think it's there, but we don't have the resolution. Arpita: 21:44 Okay. Aarati: 21:45 So Elmer was the first scientist to conduct these very high precision experiments where he looked at three diatomic molecules. So he looked at hydrogen chloride, hydrogen bromide, and hydrogen fluoride. And for all of these molecules, you can imagine them kind of like a dumbbell where one side is bigger than the other, like hydrogens on one side and then fluoride or bromide or chloride are on the other side. And then the dumbbells weights are either moving in and out really fast and that's vibration or the dumbbell is spinning and over end and that's rotation. So, for example, if you just look at hydrogen chloride previously when scientists had shot infrared light at it and looked at the spectrum, they saw that something was going on at wavelengths that were 1. 76 microns and then again at wavelengths that were 3. 46 microns. But they just kind of looked fuzzy, and they couldn't tell what was happening. Arpita: 22:45 When you say it looks fuzzy, is it on that output where you can, you're charting all the peaks? Aarati: 22:51 Yeah, so you're instead of seeing peaks, they're just kind of seeing like a lump, and they're like, okay, okay, something's happening. Yeah. Arpita: 22:59 Something is, but they haven't gotten all of the parameters quite right to be able to get really crisp data. Aarati: 23:04 Yeah, yeah, they're not seeing peaks. They're seeing like this very broad kind of curve or lump and they're like, okay, something's happening there. We're not seeing peaks the same way that we're seeing with the X rays and orbital energies, but there might be peaks. We just don't have the resolution. So in 1916, Elmer constructed a series of infrared spectrometers with constantly increasing resolutions in order to look at these curves or these lumps in the spectra more clearly, and with his final spectrometer that he built, he was able to see that at 3. 46 microns, there were 12 pairs of peaks, which corresponded to increasing vibrational and rotational energy levels and the band at 1. 76 microns resolved into eight pairs of absorbance peaks corresponding to decreasing energy levels. Arpita: 24:00 Why are there pairs? Aarati: 24:02 That's a good question. He did not know at the time. But someone figured it out. So I will let you know. But this was experimental proof first and foremost that vibrational and rotational energy of the molecules was indeed quantized. So this was like the first proof of that. Arpita: 24:20 Okay, so you could see some, you, he got peaks basically. Aarati: 24:23 Yeah, he got peaks. Arpita: 24:24 We got peaks. Aarati: 24:25 Yes. And this was huge because it was one of the first experimental verifications of quantum theory that showed that it could be applied not only to x rays, but across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and also not only just to orbital energy states, but vibrational and rotational states of molecules as well. So it really opened up this, like, huge, like, wow, quantum theory is this broad thing that goes across the electromagnetic spectrum and also like all these different energy states that these molecules have. Hi everyone, Aarati here. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. If so, and you wish someone would tell your science story, I founded a science communications company called Sykom, that's S Y K O M, that can help. Sykom blends creativity with scientific accuracy to create all types of science communications content including explainer videos, slide presentations, science writing, and more. We work with academic researchers, tech companies, non profits, or really any scientist to help simplify your science. Check us out at sykommer. com. That's S Y K O M M E R dot com. Okay, back to the story. He published his work in the Astrophysical Journal in an article called"Measurements on the Near Infrared Absorption of Some Diatomic Gases." Arpita: 25:58 I will never stop cracking up at the titles of all of their papers. It's just so different from the way that we title things now and it's like also just having like one author on a paper cracks me up. There's just so much about... I don't know, just the way people publish, not in the 21st century even, and it just cracks me up every single time. Aarati: 26:19 To be fair, I think Harrison Randall was also on this paper, but it was like a two authored paper. Arpita: 26:24 Yeah, it's just so funny. It's just so entertaining. Aarati: 26:28 Okay, and this work laid the foundation for many scientists to be able to study molecular structure by calculating things like the bond distance between the hydrogen atom and the chlorine or the bromine or whatever was on the other side of the molecule. But also you were asking about the pairs of peaks. Why are there pairs of peaks? And he didn't know why, but another scientist figured out that it was because he was studying hydrogen chloride and chloride actually has two isotopes. Arpita: 26:56 Two isotopes! Oh! Aarati: 26:58 Yeah. So the two different peaks were for the two isotopes. And so scientists were able to like refer back to his graph and be like,"Oh yeah, his graph shows that" like, it makes sense. Arpita: 27:11 That does make sense. Aarati: 27:12 Yeah. Arpita: 27:14 So in biological studies, even if they're really basic science, you can understand why these discoveries and mechanisms are important to the world. Why do we care about quantum physics? Aarati: 27:30 Yes, that is a good question, that I was also kind of like, why do we care? Arpita: 27:37 Because, okay, like in biological sciences, I can understand this a lot, right? Like there's a lot of pharmaceutical implications, understanding different mechanisms can help us understand different diseases, and like, even at a really small level, even things that we like stumble upon from a molecular perspective can help us understand lots of different things about how life works. Aarati: 27:57 Yeah. Arpita: 27:57 I can understand that. Even some bench research where I'm just like, what are you guys doing here? Aarati: 28:02 Yes. Arpita: 28:03 I can still understand the long term implications. Yeah. I'm having a hard time understanding the implications here. Aarati: 28:09 Well, I think, I think there's a lot. Like really the person to ask, or maybe not ask, is my brother, because he will wax poetic about this until the end of time. Arpita: 28:19 I'm sure there's an answer. I just want to know what it is. Aarati: 28:21 No, absolutely. Because I think with this kind of knowledge, you can, first of all, figure out the structure of a lot of chemicals. And you can figure out how these chemicals are interacting with, like, what makes them excited. Like things like electron carriers, for example, like how energy is transferred from one place to another place, um, like NAD, NADPH, all of those things that we learned in biochemistry where like something is an electron carrier and it goes down this like electron transport chain, like all of this wouldn't have been able to really been figured out without knowing this kind of stuff, like knowing that electrons could get excited, they could get transferred, like the electron bounces from one orbital to the next or has this certain rotational energy. Also like I don't know if this is like falling into that category, but like the reason microwaves heat up food is because the microwaves hit water at the correct rotational energy and that's like it's like flipping the water back and forth and that friction is causing the heat so it's like There's, I think, really, really broad implications for this. Arpita: 29:33 So maybe the answer to my question is, what doesn't it implicate? Aarati: 29:37 Yes, yes, exactly. It's like everything. Arpita: 29:41 Okay, okay. I buy that. Aarati: 29:43 Yes. And again, I'm like, not the right person to ask about this. Like, like my brother's a chemical engineer and he would just be like, Oh my God, that was such a bad answer. Like it has everything to do with everything. Like, okay. Arpita: 29:55 Oh, I have another, I have another answer. Didn't we, um, when we talked about Teflon and we talk about all of the ways that a lot of these different chemicals interact with each other and create new materials of like material science. Aarati: 30:06 Yes. Arpita: 30:06 Or adhesives or.... Aarati: 30:08 yes. Arpita: 30:09 Textiles. Aarati: 30:10 And my brother works on catalysts right now. So he's, he's doing like, how do we, how can we break down plastics with like better catalysts that, you know, help reactions move forward faster. So he's like really into chemical structure and like these kinds of things. He does spectroscopy all the time. So that's why I was asking him all this stuff. Arpita: 30:30 I see. Aarati: 30:31 Okay. So after Elmer figured this out, he became really well known in physics circles. In addition, he became one of the first Black people to be initiated into the Sigma Xi Honor Society for Scientists and Engineers. And when he graduated in 1918 with his PhD, he was only the second Black man in America to have done so. Arpita: 30:51 I believe it. Aarati: 30:53 Yeah, the first was Edward Bouchet who had gotten his degree in physics also, but it had been over 40 years earlier, in 1876. Arpita: 31:01 Oh my god. Aarati: 31:02 Yes. Arpita: 31:03 Wait, when did the Civil War end? Aarati: 31:05 What was it, like 1865 or something? Somewhere around there. Arpita: 31:10 1865. So this person got his phD less than five years after the Civil war ended? That's crazy. Aarati: 31:19 Yes, Edward Boucher got his in 18 76. Yes. However, despite these accomplishments, Elmer was still met with a lot of discrimination. And so he had very limited professional opportunities after graduating. By this time, he's 36 and he's looking for work. And he had heard that New York had a strong black professional community. So he moved there and he was starting to work first as an engineering consultant. And then he worked for some engineering firms where he was able to obtain four patents for devices or methods used to improve measurements of magnetics properties. But in the meantime, he started becoming acquainted with all of these really amazing Black scientists and artists who were all part of the Harlem Renaissance that was going on at the time. Arpita: 32:10 Mm hmm. You know, it's really funny because I'm like, not a history buff. And dates in my brain mean nothing to me. And so when we learn about all of these different scientists being contemporaries with each other, I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's so cute. You all live together. You're talking about the Harlem Renaissance and the Harlem Renaissance exists in a vacuum. And I'm like, Oh, it actually does exist on the continuum of time. And so it does... I don't know. That's a very silly point, but dates really just don't mean anything in my brain. And so when we talk about how each scientist fits in with these broader historical landscapes, I'm always, like, very fascinated. Aarati: 32:46 Yes, I was, like, really excited when I started reading this part, too. Like, when I got to this point, this is where I kicked in. Like, I was like, okay, bye, brother. Thank you so much for your science. This is where I shine, because I was like, ah, Harlem Renaissance. I remember learning about that. Arpita: 33:01 Exactly. Aarati: 33:02 Oh, my gosh, he was involved in that. That's so cool. Like, this is amazing. Arpita: 33:07 Like art and the music.... Yeah, yeah, yeah, Aarati: 33:09 Yeah, all the, and I just love how it goes to show that like, he's so influenced by it. And so like part of it. He is not existing in a vacuum, you know, he's part of this like big movement that's happening in New York. Arpita: 33:23 Exactly. Aarati: 33:24 And this is where he met Nella Larson. And I love this because you know how we complain all the time that there's like not a lot of information about these scientist's spouses or like families, you know, because like, so... Arpita: 33:39 They just appear in the story. Aarati: 33:41 Yeah, they just appear. But like, this is not the case in Nella's case. So Nella was a very well known poet and novelist. So she has her own Wikipedia page and everything. Like so many sources of information about Nella Larson. So I Arpita: 33:56 Love that. Aarati: 33:57 Yes. So her work as an author has been extensively studied and she has been called, quote,"Not only the premier novelist of the Harlem Renaissance, but also an important figure in American modernism," end quote. Arpita: 34:13 Okay. So this is like truly like not even in a jokey way, power couple. Aarati: 34:17 No. Yeah. She's amazing. Arpita: 34:20 Like she has her own power in her own right, because I feel like a lot of times what happens is they're either, I think they're in one of two camps. The spouses are either they appear, then disappear, or they exist at the pleasure of the main character, like science honeymoons, like assisting... that sort of situation, which is not... I don't want to dismiss that because there is a lot of value in that in and of itself. But very rarely do I feel like we end up with two partners who have really independent, rich stories. And I don't want to say that their stories don't exist. It's more that their stories don't get documented in quite the same way. Aarati: 35:00 Yes, and especially in this time where I feel like it was still kind of like the wife was meant to be the homemaker and kind of support her husband, but she's like, Nope, I've got my own thing going. I, I'm my own person. So a little bit more about Nella. She was of mixed racial descent. Her mother was a Danish immigrant and her father was a mixed race Afro Caribbean immigrant. However, her father left her mother very early on, so then her mother married another Danish immigrant and they had a child together, so Nella's half sister. But now, Nella is in this weird position because she's not fully Black, but she's not fully White either. But her family's White, and so they're trying to move around in like White social circles. Nella's kind of sticking out, you know, because she's not White, but then she also doesn't really belong to the Black community either because her family's White. So she's like really struggling to find the sense of where she belongs. Nella also attended Fisk University for a year, but she was expelled along with ten other women for violating Fisk's strict dress code. And to me that sounded very much like she was like fighting against a double standard for women needing to dress much more conservatively than men. Arpita: 36:21 That still exists, but Aarati: 36:23 Yes, absolutely still an argument today going on. So after being expelled, she then went to live in Denmark for three years on her own and attended the University of Copenhagen before returning to the United States. And here she went to nursing school in New York and after a brief stint working in Alabama as a nurse she returned back to New York and was hired by the Bureau of Public Health. Arpita: 36:46 Wait, so not only is she a novelist and a poet, but she also is a whole ass nurse. Okay. Aarati: 36:51 Yeah this is when she meets Elmer. Her writing career hasn't really quite taken off yet so she's still a nurse working for the Bureau of Public Health and she meets Elmer, they get married, but her mixed race proved to be a little bit of a hurdle again for the couple, because although she's now like rubbing shoulders with all these like really important people in the Harlem Renaissance, her husband is this famous Black physicist and they're like talking to W. E. B. Du Bois and Walter White and James Weldon Johnson, who are all helping start the NAACP. She wasn't really accepted into this world because Elmer is like this really high achieving scientist and he's in this higher social class than she is because of her mixed race, basically. Arpita: 37:40 That's so interesting. It's like, you would think that if there was a clear class divide that she would inherently belong to the lower class, right? Because she's like mixed. Aarati: 37:53 Yeah. Arpita: 37:53 But even in the lower class, she is seen as less than because she has. Do you know what I mean? Aarati: 37:59 Yeah. Arpita: 38:00 I'm almost imagining colorism coming into play here. So for example, like people who are fully black but light skin have a higher status than those who are dark skin, right? But she is truly mixed race but doesn't get those benefits. So I find that very interesting from almost a sociological, like anthropological perspective. Aarati: 38:21 Yes. Yeah, definitely. Arpita: 38:23 Or even just the general social landscape around her makes this even more interesting. There's like many layers here, is what you're saying. It's like she's struck between two worlds. She isn't really reaping the benefits of being half white. If anything, she's being. Aarati: 38:36 No. Not at all. Arpita: 38:38 Like, limited by her, by her being half white, which is fascinating. Aarati: 38:42 Yeah. It's like, no one is accepting her. The White people aren't accepting her, the Black people aren't accepting her, and then Arpita: 38:48 It's like outright rejection, it seems like, right? Yeah. It's not even acceptance, it's just outright rejection. Anyway. Aarati: 38:53 Yeah, and I thought that was interesting, too, because, like, even when she married Elmer, it's like, oh, great, like, now she would be in Elmer's social class, and she's, but for some reason, that's not the case. Arpita: 39:04 Yeah, she's been accepted by someone, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Yeah. Aarati: 39:08 Yeah, it's not the case. She's still not really accepted into this. Even the black middle class world where Elmer was from, she's not really being accepted into that either. So. I think that definitely comes out in her writing, which we will get to in a minute. Yeah she's a very interesting character. So I, I loved reading about her. So by the late 1920s, Elmer was itching to go back to academia and he was offered the opportunity to go back to Fisk University and become chair of the physics department. And he was super excited by this, but Nella didn't want to move to Nashville and deal with all of the racial segregation in the South. And I can totally understand that, like, for how bad it was in New York, it probably was like a hundred times worse in Nashville, or would have been for her. Not to mention, she had been expelled from Fisk, so not many fond memories there. She didn't want to go back. And at this point, her writing career is finally starting to really take off. She had just published one of her most well known novels called Passing. Which, by the way, was adapted into a movie in 2021 and is on Netflix, if you're interested. Um, it's about two friends, one who lives fully as a black woman in Harlem. They're both black, but one accepts that and lives fully as a black woman in Harlem, but the other one is able to pass as a white woman and so she's married to a white man and she's kind of living a white woman's life and.. Arpita: 40:40 Interesting. Aarati: 40:41 They're both childhood friends and like the movies about that. Arpita: 40:44 So that is fascinating. Aarati: 40:46 That's what I was saying that I can see Nella's life really coming. Yeah, the things that she was struggling with coming to life in her writing. Yeah, so Nella becomes the first woman of color to receive the Guggenheim award. So even when Elmer decided to accept the position at Fisk and move there, Nella was like, No, like I'm, I'm doing super well here in New York. And she continued to spend most of her time there, you know, running in the artist's circles. Then in early 1930s, rumors started to spread that Elmer was having an affair with a woman named Ethel Gilbert, who was a White administrator at Fisk. I was like, this is such a left turn. So random. Arpita: 41:33 Oh no. Aarati: 41:35 Yeah, like I can kind of see why they're separated and, you know, but still. Arpita: 41:41 Okay. Aarati: 41:42 Yeah, it's like, it's hard to have a long distance relationship, I guess, but man, she seemed like an amazing person. So, Nella had been planning to travel to Europe to do some writing there, but before she left, she went to Nashville to confront Elmer about the affair. And he fessed up and initially begged her not to end the marriage. But by the time she came back, both she and Elmer realized that the marriage couldn't be saved. So they divorced in 1933. Arpita: 42:11 Oh, that's so sad. Aarati: 42:13 I know, I was really sad. I was like, you guys were the power couple though. Arpita: 42:19 That's crazy. Wait, but she was White. That's kind of scandalous. Aarati: 42:23 It is, right? I was surprised by that too. I was like, really? And people were okay with this? Arpita: 42:29 I don't think people were okay with that. I would, I would venture a guess that people were definitively not okay with that. Aarati: 42:36 But it doesn't seem like like he faced that many repercussions for it. Like just reading ahead and knowing his story. It's like people didn't really like didn't.. Arpita: 42:46 They just glossed over that? Aarati: 42:47 Yeah, they were just like, whatever. Arpita: 42:50 I feel like he would have been in, you know, a lot of like, potentially even legal trouble, right? Is that... Aarati: 42:55 I know! I was like really surprised by it and like people knew about it, but they just like were like, whatever we don't care or like they just accepted it. And I'm just like, that's so strange for the 1930s. That's like, yeah, very weird. Yeah, so now Elmer is working at Fisk as the Chair of the Physics Department, and he was working on revising the whole undergraduate and graduate curriculums. And he was really focused on this for pretty much the rest of his life. He remained very active in the research community, but he didn't publish any more papers. So it was just the, like, couple of papers that he published during his PhD, and then that was it. And instead, now he's focused on giving students at Fisk everything they would need to learn physics. So setting up labs and getting equipment so that they could actually conduct experiments. But he also believed that students should be given a more well rounded education. And this was probably in large part due to his own upbringing, where his parents had placed an importance on learning literature and history. As well as the time that he had spent in Harlem with Nella and all the other black artists there. So he really thought that, you know, being cultured was very important. And he borrowed a quote from another physicist, Wheeler Davy, who said, quote,"The study of mathematics and the fundamental sciences must form the backbone of the formal college curriculum of our ideal man. If he is to be truly educated man, he must not only have culture, he must not only be a gentleman, he must also know the physical sciences and their applications, and he will find too that the sciences have a cultural value, at least equal to that claimed for the classics and humanities. For he will be able to see the greatest beauty ever revealed to man, the beauty of the forces of nature." End quote. So it's super important to him. Arpita: 44:50 I do feel like that matters a lot, especially for this time period, because the parents went to school for divinity, and like, truly, in the majority of history, people were going to pursue higher education, they were priests, or religious, like religiously affiliated and things like science didn't come until much later. It was like literature, Latin, all of these things that were considered more classic education. And so I think that fits quite well because people didn't really think about science as something that fit into higher education, I think, until much later. Which is funny in the way we think about it now, where I feel like science is almost like at the top of that list. Like science and math would be higher up at that relative to English, for example, you know what I mean? Like the clout that it would convey is really different. And it's almost like the pendulum has swung entirely in the other direction. Aarati: 45:45 Yeah. I think because science has gotten so complicated now, it's just like, You know, every, it's like, oh, you must be so smart to be studying science and... Arpita: 45:57 right. Aarati: 45:58 Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. And then everybody thinks, oh, if you're getting a science degree that you're going to have, go on and have a really good career. Whereas people joke about like the arts major, or whatever, you know, so.. Arpita: 46:09 No, I think that's right. Aarati: 46:10 But Elmer like really thought that these two kind of sides of like classics, humanities, English literature, like the arts and then science and math and physics, they needed to be kind of melded together in order for people to really have a good understanding and a good education and be really thought of as educated. You can't just learn one or the other. You need to have both in order to be considered educated. So because of this, he developed a course called cultural physics, which basically was a history of physics throughout the ages, starting with ancient Greece and going all the way up to the 20th century. And he was also highly involved with Fisk's Annual Spring Arts Festival and was in charge of the film equipment at the university. So... Arpita: 47:01 That's like truly a Renaissance man. Aarati: 47:03 A Harlem Renaissance man. Arpita: 47:08 Yes, seems like someone who really did enjoy their GEs in college. Aarati: 47:12 He really did. And in general, he developed a really good reputation for himself. Students started looking up to him as almost a father figure, and many of his students went on to earn their own doctorates. His colleagues admired his calm, level headedness, and how many different interests he had. He was also part of many professional societies, including the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. And he became the first Black man to be listed in the American Men of Science. Interestingly though, it sounds like he had a stronger reputation abroad than in the U. S. Like more people knew him in Europe, and they called him"Imes of the U. S. A." But even then, like, many Europeans were surprised to learn that he was Black. So, I think, like, despite everything, he wasn't really getting the recognition that he should have. Arpita: 48:09 I wonder if it's the way that information was transferred. Like, if it was something they just read in a paper, right? Like, his face wouldn't be attached to it. Aarati: 48:17 Yeah. Arpita: 48:17 And they wouldn't have really any way of knowing that he was Black unless there was some sort of press release attached to it or something like that. But if they were just seeing his work and his name. I imagine that there really would be nowhere to know, no way to know, and then they would just see his accomplishments at absolute value as opposed to associating it with his race. Aarati: 48:39 Yeah, but I think also it's interesting because given that he is like the first Black man to be doing so much of this, the fact that that information was not transmitted really feels like they were kind of trying to suppress that and be like, Oh yeah, Elmer Imes figured this out. You don't need to know his race because it's almost, it was, I feel like they were almost deliberately omitting that information. Like any, any news articles that would have been about him or any like coverage that he got. American news outlets or American articles just would deliberately leave that point out or something because they're like, we don't want to let people know that a Black man was able to achieve this. So... Arpita: 49:22 And then from like an international press perspective, it's like you want to know that American did it, you know? Aarati: 49:27 Yeah, exactly. And so it. And it doesn't cross your mind that he might be Black because so few Black educated people could do that, that you just assume that he's White. And then no one bothers to correct you, even though that's like, at the time, one of the most glaringly obvious things about him, you know? So I almost feel like the fact that that information was not being relayed is like a deliberate suppression of that fact. I don't know. That's how I read it. Arpita: 49:56 I could buy that. Aarati: 49:57 Yeah. By the late 1930s, Elmer's health began to get worse. In 1939, he moved back to New York to work at the physics department at New York University. But shortly after, on September 11th, 1941, he died of throat cancer at the age of 58. Arpita: 50:15 So young! Aarati: 50:17 Yeah, 58. He was buried in Fresh Pond Crematory in New York. So, as I said, like, I started looking into Elmer Imes story because it is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology and people are, like, celebrating these very early scientists who first put together quantum theory. But Elmer Imes is, like, not a name I've ever heard of. And I think everyone's heard of Einstein and, you know, Max Planck and Schrodinger, all these guys, I've never heard of Imes and I think that was... Arpita: 50:53 Had your brother heard of him? Aarati: 50:54 No, he hadn't. So... Arpita: 50:56 That's interesting. Aarati: 50:57 Yeah, he had never heard of Imes. And I told my brother, like, I think this is who I want to do for my next episode. And he had to look him up. And then he was like, Oh, yeah, that's a good guy. Do him. So he got excited. But yeah, Arpita: 51:09 Seal of approval. Aarati: 51:10 Yeah, immediately. He's like, yes... spectroscopist! Do that guy. But yeah, I think like we, like we were just saying, like, I think the fact that we haven't heard of him is because he was Black and people were not giving him the credit about or talking about how great his work was, even though it was like clearly so monumental. And so we're only now just starting to kind of backtrack and try to shine light on people like him. And so in November 2024, just a couple months ago, the University of Michigan installed a sculpture dedicated to Elmer Imes called"Rotation is Quantized" and it looks pretty cool. It looks like an abstract work of art. It's like almost like a silver fan that has a bunch of blades to visually represent the idea that rotation is like not a continuous circle but has these like discreet levels. Arpita: 52:06 That's very cool. Aarati: 52:07 Yeah. And if you want, you can watch the dedication ceremony on YouTube. So I'll have a link to that on the website because it was pretty cool to look at. But yeah, that's his story. That's you made it through. Congratulations. It wasn't that bad, right? Arpita: 52:22 It wasn't that bad. I am probably the most proud of myself. So, yes. Aarati: 52:27 You did it! Arpita: 52:28 A great story though. No, I really, I really liked it. That was, that was really awesome. Aarati: 52:32 Thank you. Thanks for listening. 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