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Back to Diffraction Limit, Microscopy, and Cell Biology | Eric Betzig on Super-Resolution Microscopy, with Eric Betzig.

Is Copying Bell Labs Impossible?

Eric Betzig says copying Bell Labs is literally impossible. Full immersion is an immutable law of how the human brain works. Any distraction pulls the mind off the problem it is supposed to work on. Putting up a building like Bell Labs and having people work even 50-hour weeks is not enough.

In his era most of the men had stay-at-home wives and worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Eric Betzig says the wives deserve Nobel Prizes as much as the men who received them, because the work would not have happened without the wives. The arrangement is a unicorn now. People are not expected to have a stay-at-home wife and work 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Most people do not want to work even 50 hours. There is no substitute for full immersion, and you cannot do full immersion when you have a family. The price is the family.

A co-host asks whether nonstop work matters enough that Bell Labs would be hard to repeat without it. Eric Betzig answers absolutely. You cannot. It is literally impossible.

Grokipedia·Eric Betzig·Bell Labs

Transcript

Diffraction Limit, Microscopy, and Cell Biology | Eric Betzig on Super-Resolution Microscopy ·

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More from this episode

  1. Why Did Eric Betzig Pivot From Super-resolution?Eric Betzig pivoted from super-resolution because chemical fixation makes nanoscale structure artificial. Regular optical resolution can tolerate the damage.
  2. Why Did Eric Betzig Leave Science for His Dad?Eric Betzig says the scales fell off his eyes early. He did not just leave Bell Labs, and he did not just leave Nearfield.
  3. How Did Eric Betzig See Single Molecules?Eric Betzig says one of the two experiments he did at Bell, which led to the idea for the Nobel Prize, made him the first person to see single molecules at…
  4. Why Did Eric Betzig's Part Inspector Get Turned Off?Eric Betzig built an inspector with about 30 cheap CCD cameras set all around a part.
  5. Why Did Eric Betzig Leave His Father's Company?Eric Betzig says he is a good scientist, a horrible businessman, and an even worse salesman. He cannot make people feel comfortable.
  6. Why Did Eric Betzig Want Back Into Science?Eric Betzig hated science and hated academia, then realized he missed doing science and wanted a way back.
  7. How Did Eric Betzig Get the Science Data So Fast?Eric Betzig says the method was obvious the moment violet light switched the molecules on. He and the other experimenter knew it worked, then raced.
  8. Why Did Eric Betzig Call the 2014 Nobel Premature?Eric Betzig argues that most single-molecule super-resolution has not revealed much of anything, and that most super-resolution in general has not either.
  9. What Comes First From a Cell Observatory?Eric Betzig says the first thing from the cell observatory is robust segmentation, and segmentation would be valuable in many contexts.
  10. Why Does Eric Betzig Watch for New Microscopes?Eric Betzig says microscopes get better all the time, and he keeps an ear out for anything new that comes along.
  11. Why Can't Dyes Show a Thousand Proteins at Once?Eric Betzig says a label with a truly narrow emission line would let a microscope watch a thousand proteins at once, because each spectrum would stay narrow.
  12. What Is the Right Long-term Energy Source?Eric Betzig says the right long-term answer on energy is nuclear, and he has no doubt about it. Nuclear will be scalable.
  13. Why Did Bell Labs Line Every Lab Down One Hall?Eric Betzig says Bell Labs turned out 12 Nobel Prizes from one institution because scientists were left to do science all the time. Shannon worked that way.
  14. Is Biology the Last Frontier?Eric Betzig says biology is the last frontier. He studies it at the last stage of his career and says he is never going to be a biologist.

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