Guerrilla physicist By Ninotchka Rosca Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 15:41:00 04/07/2008
NEW YORK—Gas canisters, valves, pipes, meters—worth $12,000—were strewn on chairs and the dining table, crowding out chocolate tidbits, cookies and coffee cups in the home of Dr. Amador Muriel, astrophysicist. He and Jonathan Battat of Columbia University stared intently at a laptop screen, as the hiss of gas drew lines on a virtual chart. Onlookers held their breath, expecting an elegant truth—timeless and universal—to shatter the winter gloom.
The renowned scientist was again testing his hypothesis: that mixed gases each became turbulent on their own, in what he called “a superposition principle of laminar-turbulent transitions.”
The phrase showed how alien Dr. Muriel’s concerns were to the usual paradigm of the Filipino immigrants’ constant struggle in this society. For nearly all his life, he has been in search of a quantum theory of turbulence—that unpredictable phenomenon often felt as wind shears, storms and rampaging waters.
Revolutionary discovery
By classical physics, independent turbulence in a mixture of gases does not happen. But the Muriel team, which includes Columbia University’s research physicist Dr. Jerry Dadap, verified that it does—a revolutionary discovery in the quiet world of physics. Dr. Muriel holds that the embedded equations of the governing mathematics of turbulence – the Navier-Stokes equation – can never be found, despite a million-dollar prize offer for a solution or solutions. Never—because turbulence deforms molecules and hence has quantum aspects. The hypothesis tickles and irritates scientists the world over.
Dr. Muriel has spent a lifetime searching for proof of his theory. French and Russian laboratories have tested it. The results could be unexpected; photos of gaseous emissions from one experiment couldn’t be published as they threatened the security of stealth weapons.
Conversely, the charts born of his experiments gave rise to art work. He had the lines of his charts recreated, first in wood, then in metal in France, as Lissajous sculptures—airy and cryptic, far from equations that could unmask stealth planes, predict wind shears or save a space shuttle or two from disintegrating.
Systems of calculation
But what was a mini lab doing on his dining table? Well, since he wasn’t connected with academe, he didn’t have a laboratory. “I used to teach but that was so much work, I couldn’t do physics anyway,” he explained. “I decided to do guerrilla physics.”
So Dr. Muriel spent time developing systems of calculation to “foretell” all kinds of stuff—from the value of a baseball player to fluctuations in currency exchange. These helped establish his business acumen and gave him financial independence.
His life being eclectic even for an intellectual, strange events gravitate around this astrophysicist. His home on 62nd Street, Manhattan, became a focal point for a gathering of a dozen or two Filipinos who wanted to talk about everything. Thus was the 62nd Street Forum born, an Internet discussion group which meets face-to-face from time to time.
A classical guitarist plays and lectures on the banduria; a doctor speaks about geriatrics. In cyberspace, the listgroup’s discussion ranges from gun control to the recent broadband scandal in the Philippines. Around six men carry on lengthy discussions, with about three women weighing in occasionally.
It is an attempt to have a voice in a society where Filipinos are largely invisible.
Toxic mold
Dr. Muriel keeps his sang-froid through turbulence big and small, the latest being the dismantling of his and his wife’s living quarters when toxic mold was found in the walls and ceilings. He was cool when, in the midst of an experiment, he and Jonathan had to go all over Manhattan looking for a straight glass pipe of a certain dimension, to check whether results would be the same for it as with a fluted gas pipe.
“It was an artist who finally cut the glass for us,” said Dr. Muriel, apparently tickled that science and art are never far apart. When the pipe cracked after one experiment, his only comment was more would have to be ordered.
The pleasures of guerrilla physics notwithstanding, Dr. Muriel’s days as a maverick scientist are coming to an end. The Mac Planck Institute for Complex Systems in Dresden, Germany, has just appointed him senior visiting researcher. His reaction was characteristic: “I’m so happy my back hurts!”
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