"Every event must have space and time"

AT the height of World War II, Philips Morrison, a bright young physicist was approached by the American government to work with a team of scientists associated with J. Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project to make the first nuclear bomb. The devastation wrought by the bomb had such an emotional impact on the young man that he quit the project, and devoted his time to physics, astrophysics, astronomy, archaeology, etc.

For the last 50 years or so, he has devoted all his energies contemplating the answers to those eternal question that keep nagging us. Professor Morrison has spent years trying to understand the universe, looking for life elsewhere; trying to understand the nature of stars by radio spectroscopy. He has authored a number of books, one of them being Reason Enough to Hope, co-authored with Kosta Tsipy. In spite of being extremely busy with research work, Professor Morrison finds time to submit papers to science journals. He also reviews books for the Scientific American. Professor Yashpal, eminent scientist and ex-chairman of UGC, says, "Professor Morrison’s reviews are sometimes more interesting than the books themselves."

Prof Philips Morrison teachers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was in Chandigarh, along with his wife Philis Morrison, who is an artist as well as a scientist. She wonders why people make a distinction between the two. Both of them presented a series of thought-provoking lectures at the Punjab University. Kuldip Dhiman met them for an exclusive interview. Excerpts:

You were one of the physicists who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer on the atom bomb that was dropped in 1945. Were you handpicked for the Manhattan Project?

Well, I was a young physicist, and I remember very well the day in 1942 when my fellow student, a very clam and quiet man called Bob Christy, called me up and said, "Don’t fail to come and see me at the University of Chicago. It is very important; I count on you." I didn’t know what was going on. I had a vague idea, of course. Everybody had a good idea. I went there and discovered indeed that it was like any other physics department. Bob Cristy looked at me and said, "Do you know what we are doing?" I said not exactly, but I think it has something to do with that uranium business. "Yes," he said, "We are making bombs!"

This astonished me because I didn’t realise that they had a programme already with such specific objectives. And he said, "Shall I ask you something else? Do you see any way in which the Allies could lose the war except if the Germans got the uranium bomb first? I don’t think there is any other way. And we can not allow that do happen. There are not many people who can do something about that in the United States. You are one of them, and we are going to hire you. Consider it seriously."

Of course, it was a very bad time with the Germans and the Japanese attacking all over the world. It seemed like it was the right time to do something about it. In the end, of course, it played out rather differently, but that’s what wars are like; you don’t know what is going to happen when you start. You only know what you start and what happens is not in your hands.

At the time, did you think the bomb would cause so much destruction?

O, yeah! I thought it would be much worse. It is much worse than that now. You just know only the 1945 model; I can assure you that the 1985 model is much different.

Did the experience have any moral effect on you?

Of course. As soon as the war was over, I quit. One nuclear war was enough for me, more than enough. But I couldn’t change it — it was over. Every since I have been trying to say that it can’t continue; it is suicidal, and by now people are convinced about it.

Isn’t it comparatively easy to make the bomb now?

Yes. But not all make nuclear weapons. Argentina doesn’t make nuclear weapons, Sweden doesn’t, and Italy doesn’t. They all could: Why don’t have? Because they are smart. And India will find that out too, and so will the United State. We have far too many bombs, people don’t want them any more, but they don’t want say it — it is a strange situation. But I think in the next 35 years or so, the nuclear weapons will be seen to be obsolete.

A scientist propounds a theory and says that the universe is expanding, or says that a particular star is a hundred light years away. How can we verify his statement?

We have measured thousands of stars. It is all consistent. Anybody comes out with a different opinion and finds a defect in it, tries to improve it. I don’t think we are very accurate about that. When we say a hundred light years, it might turn out to be 120, or only 75, it doesn’t make any difference.

Do you believe that the universe is expanding ?

I do, certainly. The evidence is very good. Mind you it is only on a very big scale. This table here, for example, is not expanding. People misunderstand, they think that scale doesn’t matter, but scale makes a great difference. What happens in the large is not the same as what happens in the small.

At this rate, won’t it all come to an end one day?

No, we think it is going to go on expanding for a very long time, I think it will come to an end, but I am not sure.

Everything exists in space, but what does space exist in? Is the universe infinite, isn’t there an end to it?

(Professor Morrison points at his wife who is painting a globe). Look at the globe she is painting. Suppose you look at the surface of the globe — that it a finite surface, right? But you can go round and round, you will never go off. That’s the case of a space which can occupy a lot of travel and still be finite. And maybe the three-dimensional universe is like that, I don’t know that it is. It is one of the open possibilities, but I don’t think it is shown to be that way. So, maybe, space is just as infinite as anybody would like it to be.

Is there a fourth dimension?

Yes, there is a fourth dimension, there is no doubt about it. It is called time. Einstein made it very clear to us. Things happen in time, and if you don’t pay attention to how it works, you get into big trouble: not at ordinary speeds but if anything fast has to be done.

Is there a possibility of life on any of the planets?

We have no idea. We are trying to find out.

How do you explain these so-called UFO sighting all over the world?

The same very way they were explained a hundred years ago. People have big imaginations. A hundred years ago, there were airships flying around. They then hadn’t invented the name UFO, or flying saucer — they called them airships. And there were airships with bright lights in the sky, and they went back and forth. It was all just a make up of a few stories.

Could you tell us a little more about your investigations?

I can, but it is distressing. For example, there was a very well-known scientist in Arizona in the seventies. He investigated a man in Long Island. And this man his wife had encountered a great flying saucer. A great big one, occupying their whole ranch. So we said, it is very interesting, tell us more about it. The man who had supposedly seen the flying saucer had made a drawing of it. I said, let us see the drawing. The scientist then produced a blueprint that had every rivet head marked on it. I asked, did this man draw that by seeing it from his backyard? It transpired later, that he was an architectural draftsman in a shipyard. So, you see, he had actually drawn a ship. I have no idea if there are any flying saucers or not, but certainly I don’t believe that rivets they use are just like the US Navy rivets in the shipyard!

What about the findings of the Project Blue Book?

Yes, yes, I know those people, and I have studied the project, but there was nothing there.

It is widely believed that Pentagon has enough evidence about UFOs but it doesn’t want to tell us about them for various reasons. Some believe that the US government wants to keep it a secret because the aliens are far too advanced. People might panic with fear.

I don’t think that’s true, and I haven’t heard of government keeping a secret that well. I don’t believe that there are these little green men in the hospital in Ohio — there never were. And no one thought so, except someone who made a living writing about them.

You have done a lot of work on this subject, what is your method?

I gave up in 1978 when I heard these stories. Show me the evidence, let me take spectrographic, and I will believe it — not before. TV has made everything different. More people believe in the X-Files than anything in physics. But I know the man who writes X-Files; he doesn’t believe it! He just writes them to make money, he is clever, and he has made a fortune.

Let’s say we are looking at a planet that is a thousand light years away, and it suddenly dies; it means it died a thousand year ago. Now, if we could somehow see the inhabitants of this planet, we would be seeing people who lived a thousand years ago, am I right?

(At this stage Phylis Morrison stops painting her globe, and gives a beautiful example).Let me explain. When you look at the mirror, your image is a fraction of second younger than you actually are.

That because of time light takes to travel from me to the mirror and back to me.

Good! If you have followed that much, you have followed the rest.

Again, Professor Philips, if you got a signal from a planet that it, let’ say, a hundred light years away, and if we responded immediately, it would take a hundred years for them to receive our signal, and maybe another hundred years before we got a reply. That’s a long, long, time.

What’s the big hurry, young man?