Konrad Gelbke
Faculty
Director, National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory
Director, Facility for Rare Isotope Beams
University Distinguished Professor of physics
Williamston, Michigan

The key issue which we are dealing with in the laboratory is finding ways to produce and study rare isotopes. Rare isotopes are species of atomic nuclei which normally don’t exist on Earth because they only live for a very short second—sometimes less than a hundredth of a second. But they, nevertheless, play a very important role in the evolution of the universe—how the stars are cooking up the elements of which the Earth is made. So they are a key issue in understanding the basic properties of matter in the universe. 

If you look at the history of how mankind and science evolved, you always find that at the beginning, most of the time at least, there were some curious scientists who just wanted to understand how nature works. Once they unraveled the laws of nature—or some people call it facetiously the secrets of nature—then, of course, they could think about applications or other people could think about applications.

There are many applications in nuclear physics. Nuclear medicine is a huge business in treating cancer. Energy, nuclear energy is a very important aspect, especially since nuclear energy does not create greenhouse gases. So it is becoming more and more important as we realize that we are heating our planet with too much carbon dioxide emissions.

What is important is that we are—that we are doing something which is unique and world-class. Okay, that resonates with me well. If you talk about scientific enterprise, there is a relentless endeavor to be the best in virtually anything we want to do. Mediocrity is not tolerated.

I ask a lot from my collaborators and from my colleagues. We are pushing the envelope extremely hard, and people are working very hard. They are applying themselves very hard. In general, it is very painstaking—sometimes tedious—and sometimes you are sort of stressing your mind to the limits of what you can actually do.

Yet at the same time, when hundreds of scientists are doing this, some of the discoveries will be forgotten, some of them will be archived, and some of them will be breakthroughs. Before you start the process, you really don’t know it; otherwise, everybody would just focus on the breakthroughs.

When I came to Michigan State University, I wanted to give it a trial. I really didn’t know how well it would work out. In terms of the science, I told the director that I will probably be done within four years, if I could think of doing it at the facility. That was 33 years ago. I thought things could happen much, much faster than they really do in life.

I always feel we are driven by the sense of discovery. A lot of things which are difficult which you try to undertake. If you would have known all the difficulties that lie ahead, you probably would not have dared to take it on.

I always tell people it is a lot of fun what we are doing. And I never tell them about all the sleepless nights which you are suffering through when you are agonizing whether your decisions are right, whether pushing your people too hard, whether you are taking undue risks. You don’t know whether you are successful. The art of moving things forward is realizing what you can do and not going so far that at the end you will fail and not do anything.

The work will stand on its own. I think a lot of this will enter the textbooks. Perhaps the people who did the work will not be remembered for long, but the facts and the knowledge we created, I think that will go into the textbooks of mankind.

Somebody asked me a different question: Are you satisfied? And I said that is a question which is really not in my vocabulary very much.

What is much more important, I am always asking, what is the next step? And when I have done that step, actually sometimes I get depressed because it is done. Okay, what’s there to do? So you have to think about what else can we do.

So you always have to be pushing the envelope. And I sure hope that I continue to do this until I say, all right, I’ve done enough. Then I will disappear in the sunset and do my own things in my private life, which nobody has to worry about then anymore.