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Competitive instincts

Physics World September 2021

Physics World

 
Comment: Critical Point Physics World  September 2021

Competitive instincts

Physicists are competitive, but that doesn’t make them cut-throat, argues Robert P Crease 

For the greater good Competition in physics, as with sport, raises your performance and that of your opponents. (Courtesy: iStock/Dmytro Aksonovk)

Ted Williams used to give away his secrets. The Boston Red Sox baseball player, who was one of the greatest hitters of all time, would call members of opposing teams to give them tips; he even gave advice to opposing pitchers. Williams, who died in 2002 aged 83, eventually published all his advice in a book, The Science of Hitting, a copy of which sits on my shelves. 

I was reminded of Williams by a letter in response to my May column about physics teachers and students who participate in BattleBots, a TV show about robots that compete to smash each other up (May 2021). “Do we have to glorify destruction,” the author wrote, “to get people interested in physics?”

It was a very good question. The answer, I think, has to do with the nature of the competition, and the role of the destruction.

Duelling accelerators

Science can be as competitive as sport. In the 1950s, for example, scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and CERN were each building a new, more powerful kind of accelerator based on the principle of alternating gradient magnetic fields. Each wanted their machine online first, thereby getting a head start in exploring a new energy region, which could mean prizes, prestige and further funding.

But did the Brookhaven and CERN teams each work under a cone of silence? No. Like Williams, they shared all their tricks, including blueprints, plans and strategies. They exchanged personnel, each lab sending a prominent physicist to the other to help, learn and report back. Brookhaven scientists, in fact, had discovered the alternating gradient principle while brainstorming for ideas to help their CERN colleagues, and promptly handed it over.

Outsiders often paint accelerator-building contests as cut-throat races driven by a thirst for Nobel prizes and personal ambition. From the inside, though, I’ve found it different. Sure, prizes are nice, but moving physics forward is the thing. In fact, these two examples from baseball and accelerator construction illustrate the difference between what I call “political” and “performance” competition.

In political competition, the aim is simply to win – an election, say, or a military encounter. The stronger your opponent, the weaker you are. In performance competition – the kind I generally see in sports and physics – the aim is to improve both your performance and that of the entire community. The stronger your opponent, the stronger you can become. 

Build, fail, rebuild

Back to BattleBots. If you only watch it on the Discovery channel you can easily come away with the impression that it’s a political competition. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” the crowd roars. “I’m going to pulverize you!” screams Martin Mason, the physics teacher whose students built the Mad Catter robot, at his opponents. It’s true that he shouts and looks mean, but that’s only posturing for the TV audience – for those who pay the bills. 

If you go backstage and roam around the BattleBots “pit area”, you find an utterly different atmosphere. Members of one team are making parts for another, fixing each other’s robots, lending instruments and sharing information. BattleBots veterans help newcomers with their drive trains, wheels, weapons and software. When you ask the men and women what brought them there, nobody says “I like to tear things apart!” They’ll tell you they came not to win but to learn.

Build, fail, learn, rebuild – that’s a powerful learning experience for future engineers and experimental physicists. The goal’s a good fight. It’s not exciting if the other robot doesn’t work; the thrill is taking on a robot that’s equal to or better than yours. Your opponent’s robot is less an antagonist than the acid test of your own skills. Defeat means that you can learn more.

Mason teaches in an engineering department at Mt San Antonio Community College, outside Los Angeles, which serves tens of thousands of minority and lower-income students. Most will take only one physics course, and he needs a quick and effective way to engage his students, focus their attention on physics, and teach how to implement its basic principles. Combat robotics, he found, is what he needs.

“Learning how stuff breaks is just as valuable an engineering exercise as learning how stuff works,” Greg Munson, a co-creator of BattleBots told me. “We see BattleBots as more Apollo 13 than Mars rover. It’s not a task-based engineering exercise. It’s more ‘Our spaceship is on fire and we’re going to die – SURVIVE!’ ”

At the end of each season (this year’s is due to be broadcast on the Discovery channel in late November or early December) the show hands out awards. The prize for “Most destructive robot” is a giant bolt made of aluminium, while for the overall winner it’s a giant nut. Bolt and nut – symbols for structure and stability. No wonder NASA has praised BattleBots for inspiring students to get into STEM education.

At its best, competition serves self-knowledge – who you are, and what you can do and know

The critical point

The word “competition” comes from the Latin com + petere, to “seek together”. Competition is about individuals and groups engaging with each other to achieve things that they could not achieve solo. Not always, of course. The dark side of competition is that it can degenerate into selfishness, me-first and cheating, and it often seems that way to outsiders. But at its best, competition serves self-knowledge – who you are, and what you can do and know. 

Vince Lombardi, coach for the Green Bay Packers’ American football team, is famous for saying “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” That may seem like a “macho”, alienated view of competition, but I read Lombardi’s frequently repeated slogan as a commanding call for his players: not to cheat, but to double down on performance abilities. The simple desire to win does nothing to improve your ability to play.

Ted would have understood.