Nobel Prize Winner on Good Government

00:00:00:01 – 00:00:03:08
David Martin
This is the good government show.

00:00:03:13 – 00:00:15:02
William Philips
I think that my reaction when I was first told about the Nobel Prize was probably something on the order of.

00:00:15:07 – 00:00:36:03
William Philips
I felt that what I was doing was serving my country, and for me, that’s an important thing to do. I love my country and serving my country in this kind of way, in a way that uses the talents that I have, is something that’s been really important to me.

00:00:36:08 – 00:00:50:58
William Philips
Somebody once said the way to success is to hire people who are smarter than you are. And I have been really fortunate to be able to do that.

00:00:51:02 – 00:01:10:11
William Philips
So you might say with complete justification, that it was science that one World War two. Well, that’s a pretty big deal. I think that the thing that keeps us secure militarily is our advanced science and technology.

00:01:10:16 – 00:01:27:34
William Philips
That’s the thing that’s most attractive, I think, to a scientist, is to work in an environment where you can do the best work, and that environment is in large part the other people who you’re working with.

00:01:27:39 – 00:01:45:30
William Philips
I believe that the strength of this nation and the strength in a number of different ways, both in national security and in economic strength, has to do in large part, not entirely, of course, but in large part to science.

00:01:45:35 – 00:01:55:47
William Philips
We never imagined that that was going to be one of the things that came out of this research, but it did.

00:01:55:51 – 00:02:13:24
David Martin
Get ready. This show is going to be a little different. There’s a history lesson, a Bible study, a little agricultural demonstration, and a masterclass in science and physics. Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m Dave Martin. First, help us show the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are. On your favorite social media.

00:02:13:33 – 00:02:33:44
David Martin
Make sure to leave a comment and join our good Government show community. Check out our website for that link. You’re about to meet Doctor William Phillips. He spent the last 48 years at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. His work there led him to receive a Nobel Prize. Well, not being anything remotely close to a physicist. Here’s my best shot of explaining his work.

00:02:33:49 – 00:02:50:17
David Martin
He was able to slow Adams down so he could count them better. That work? Improve the nuclear clock and just listen. He explains it much better. And it’s really fascinating. This is just one of the many things that government does well that we just don’t think about. Nest, as it’s known, is an agency of the Department of Commerce.

00:02:50:29 – 00:03:15:11
David Martin
Basically, they set standards for measuring accurately, as he explains, it’s so every nation is counting the same. That’s a way to simple explanation. And he gives a better description. The conversation is an excellent example of public service. He does a job you probably didn’t know. The U.S. government does, but they do. His entire career is being honored this year by the National Academy of Public Administration with an award that’s actually named from his former mentor.

00:03:15:13 – 00:03:39:52
David Martin
That’s pretty incredible. Fair warning Doctor Phillips is, among other things, a part time university professor. Some of the conversation will make you feel like you’re sitting in this classroom, but when you listen to someone brilliant, you can’t help but be impressed by everything he says. I know I was coming up. Doctor Bill Phillips, Nobel Prize winner. Lifetime achievement award winner and a most excellent guest.

00:03:39:57 – 00:04:03:39
David Martin
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00:04:03:44 – 00:04:14:57
David Martin
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00:04:15:02 – 00:04:33:16
David Martin
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00:04:33:20 – 00:04:54:19
David Martin
Welcome to The Good Government Show. I am very excited to have with me William Phillips. He is with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He was a Nobel Prize winner for physics in 1997. And you’re going to be receiving your Fleming Award from the National Academy of Public Administration. While very impressive. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

00:04:54:21 – 00:04:55:26
William Philips
I’m happy to be here.

00:04:55:36 – 00:05:23:20
David Martin
Well, I appreciate that. I don’t know where to begin. So you’re the first person I’ve let me just precursor the entire conversation the next half hour or so. I was so good in physics, in freshman physics, I had to take it twice. So anything you tell me, I will not understand. The one thing I remember from my college physics class is a professor stood up on stage and we couldn’t figure out why, but there was a set dining room table next to her, and she went off on some concept and said, and that’s why I can do this.

00:05:23:24 – 00:05:44:40
David Martin
And she pulled the tablecloth out from under the onto the glasses and plates and silverware and, and and said, and that’s physics. And we gave her a round of applause. That’s the only thing I remember from my physics class. So. So with that said, wish me luck. Here we go. You are the first person we’ve ever had on this show, and the first person I’ve ever spoke to that won a Nobel Prize in physics.

00:05:44:45 – 00:05:50:54
David Martin
I have to ask right at the beginning. Wow. What is it like when you get that call and tell you that you’re a Nobel Prize winner?

00:05:50:56 – 00:06:28:11
William Philips
Yeah, well, that was an interesting and really dramatic experience for me. I was attending a meeting in California. I’m speaking to you from Gaithersburg, Maryland, where my job is, but I was attending a scientific meeting. Now they make the official decision by a vote of the Academy of the the Swedish Academy of Sciences around noon. And they try to contact the, the the new laureates before making it public to give them a little bit of a heads up.

00:06:28:13 – 00:06:36:42
William Philips
Sure. Now known in Stockholm is 6:00 in but it’s 3:00 in the morning in California, where I.

00:06:36:46 – 00:06:37:08
David Martin
Okay.

00:06:37:10 – 00:06:48:24
William Philips
So the phone rings and, there’s a guy with a Swedish accident, right? Telling me at 3:00 in the morning, you can imagine I’m a little bit groggy.

00:06:48:29 – 00:06:49:45
David Martin
To say the least.

00:06:49:49 – 00:06:51:48
William Philips
That I was sharing the probably.

00:06:51:48 – 00:06:56:12
David Martin
Sure. This is this is not a good call. It’s 3:00 in the morning. It’s not usually a good call. Right?

00:06:56:14 – 00:07:16:25
William Philips
Well, you can imagine what it was like at the switchboard. Yeah. When the guy calls and says, you know, well, I’d like to talk to William Phillips. And the switchboard says, well, normally we don’t put calls through at 3:00 in the morning. Well, I think you’ll really want to get this called. So anyway, I did get the call.

00:07:16:37 – 00:07:52:30
William Philips
And someone who whom I, I, I didn’t know who was the, the president of the Swedish Academy of Sciences telling me that I was sharing the Nobel Prize with two colleagues whom I knew very well, and then put on the phone some Swedish colleagues, physicists whom I knew personally. Okay, to congratulate me. Now, I believe that the reason for this was that it has happened to people, particularly perhaps to people who thought they deserved a Nobel Prize, that people punked them.

00:07:52:35 – 00:08:24:57
William Philips
I call them, you know, with a fake Swedish accent, telling them that they had won a Bell Prize. Well, these were people whom I knew personally who were members of the the Swedish Academy of Sciences to congratulate me. And I think this may have been a way to reassure me that this was not a joke. That’s my colleague Steve Chu, who later became the Secretary of Energy, got a call not from the Swedish Academy, because the phone number they had for him had changed its area code.

00:08:24:59 – 00:08:45:08
William Philips
It was the same code number, but it was one of those things where they were modernizing the phone system, and they had a different area code, so they weren’t able to make contact because they didn’t realize what had happened to the area code. And so the Swedish Academy was not able to make contact with Steve Chu. And he got a call instead from a reporter who wanted his reaction.

00:08:45:10 – 00:09:12:42
William Philips
Sure. And he said, well, I don’t very wisely said, I don’t have any reaction because I haven’t been informed officially. Right. So he was very wise. I had the advantage of having personal friends congratulate me, and I think that my reaction when I was first told about the Nobel Prize was probably something on the order of of.

00:09:12:47 – 00:09:15:13
David Martin
Okay, so.

00:09:15:18 – 00:09:42:19
William Philips
The afternoon before that, this is the middle of the night, the previous afternoon, early evening at the end of the scientific sessions, a number of us were sitting around having coffee, talking about the fact that the Nobel Prizes were going to be announced the next day. And one of the topics of conversation was, well, I wonder whether it’ll go to our colleagues who have recently achieved Bose-Einstein condensation, which was a really big deal.

00:09:42:23 – 00:09:59:18
William Philips
A lot of people called it the holy grail of atomic physics, and just two years earlier they had announced their their achievement. We thought this would be fantastic because some of those people are here at this meeting. It’s going to be great for the meeting. No one suggested, oh, Bill, maybe you’ll get it.

00:09:59:22 – 00:10:01:53
David Martin
So you’re a you’re a dark horse winner. Is that what you’re saying?

00:10:02:05 – 00:10:05:58
William Philips
Well, I don’t know. It was, it was certainly a surprise to me.

00:10:06:00 – 00:10:06:29
David Martin
Okay.

00:10:06:34 – 00:10:39:37
William Philips
Part of the reason why it was a surprise was that you can only give the Nobel Prize to three people. That’s part of the rules. Okay? The Nobel Prize in in one particular area can be even to no more than three people. It can be given for two different subjects. That’s that’s the rules so many people have and had contributed to the field of laser cooling, which is what was recognized here, that I thought that it would never come about, that there would be a Nobel Prize because you couldn’t recognize everybody who had,

00:10:39:42 – 00:10:41:20
David Martin
There were just too many of you that.

00:10:41:25 – 00:10:41:41
William Philips
Just to.

00:10:41:41 – 00:10:41:53
David Martin
Many.

00:10:41:53 – 00:10:42:10
William Philips
Of us.

00:10:42:13 – 00:10:42:24
David Martin
Right.

00:10:42:25 – 00:10:54:07
William Philips
Well, somehow the Nobel Committee decided that this was a field that needed to be recognized and figured out a way to do it, that that made sense to them.

00:10:54:09 – 00:10:58:50
David Martin
Okay. All right. So did you actually get over to Sweden and pick up your prize? And where is it by the where is it?

00:10:59:04 – 00:11:00:52
William Philips
So, so so it’s done in Stockholm.

00:11:00:55 – 00:11:01:16
David Martin
Yeah.

00:11:01:21 – 00:11:19:34
William Philips
Except for the peace prize. Okay. The prize is in Oslo, Norway, in a completely different country, which says interesting history that goes with that. At the time of Nobel’s will, Norway and Sweden were not entirely separate countries.

00:11:19:37 – 00:11:20:03
David Martin
Okay.

00:11:20:08 – 00:11:45:02
William Philips
And I don’t remember exactly how the relationship was, but Nobel specified that the Norwegian Parliament, which, as I said, no, Norway was in a certain sense part of Sweden at the time, but the Norwegian Parliament should have the responsibility of giving the peace prize. The Norwegian Parliament has delegated that responsibility to a small committee that is the one that that size on the peace prize.

00:11:45:02 – 00:11:56:11
William Philips
But anyway, it’s done in Oslo because of that quirk. In Nobel’s will, all the other prizes are given in Stockholm and believe me, it’s quite a to do.

00:11:56:15 – 00:12:12:34
David Martin
I am sure it is. Let me ask you a question about your about your Nobel Prize. You were working for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. How did working for the government, you know, allow you to do your work, to prepare your work, to set you up to be a Nobel Prize winner?

00:12:12:36 – 00:12:42:51
William Philips
Right. Well, so this is a, I think, a really important question, because for me, it goes to the issue that is often brought up about the relative importance and the way in which we as a society are to support fundamental research which studies the most fundamental ideas of, of, of science, as opposed to applied research, which tries to do things that will be of relatively immediate benefit.

00:12:42:58 – 00:12:54:19
William Philips
Okay. And both, of course, are important. And I feel very strongly that my work has been both, in a sense, at the same time. So let me explain why I was.

00:12:54:21 – 00:13:06:40
David Martin
Let me break this down for me and the rest of the audience. What you’re saying is there’s two kinds of science. There’s thinking about it, and there’s thinking about it so it can be turned around and done. And and you’re saying that you you combine those two in your research?

00:13:06:42 – 00:13:09:37
William Philips
Well, yes. Except the thinking about it isn’t just thinking about it.

00:13:09:40 – 00:13:14:47
David Martin
No, of course not. There’s way more involved. But remember, not a physicist.

00:13:14:51 – 00:13:36:00
William Philips
There’s also a division in in in scientific research between theory and experiment. I’m an experimentalist, okay. I do things in the lab. But of course, both fundamental and applied research can also be theoretical things that you do with pencil and paper or computer simulations and whatever. Well, anyway, here I am at the National well with the National Bureau of Standards.

00:13:36:00 – 00:14:05:03
William Philips
When I when I first came, we changed our name in the late 1980s. But in any case, why am I there? Because as a graduate student, I had worked in a in a group doing precision measurements. We measured an important fundamental concept of nature that was important to nest as to NBS. And they knew that I was trained as somebody who knew how to make precision measurements.

00:14:05:03 – 00:14:33:16
William Philips
And that’s a lot of what we do here and this. And so that was the thing that got me hired. And my background as a graduate student, doing things that were related to the things they were doing at nest. But I had at the latter part of my graduate career said, this was wonderful that I did, but it’s it’s awfully characteristic of things that have happened in the past and may not have such a brilliant future.

00:14:33:20 – 00:14:55:53
William Philips
Today I’m seeing lasers becoming a part of our laboratory equipment. This was new. Now today, lasers are ubiquitous. Yes, but back then we were just beginning to get them in the laboratory. Things you could buy on the open market and didn’t have to be a laser jock in order to make them work. And I told my thesis advisor I’d like to do an experiment evolving lasers.

00:14:55:53 – 00:15:19:25
William Philips
And he said, sure, so I did that. Nobody cares about that experiment anymore. Turns out you still care about the measurement that I made, the precision measurement I made. Nobody cares about what I did with lasers, but it gave me the experience to do other experiments with lasers. So my supervisors here and said, okay, so you’re going to now work on the precision measurements that we’ve got going here and this.

00:15:19:30 – 00:15:35:21
William Philips
But since you’ve recently done all these experiments with lasers, why don’t you think about what you might do with lasers? That would be interesting to do. And I thought what we do here at NIST is make better measurements. One of the things that inhibits.

00:15:35:24 – 00:15:40:11
David Martin
Why does the government, why does the government why is that a government function I guess is good question.

00:15:40:19 – 00:16:08:46
William Philips
Okay. So in order to be able to have international trade, I mean, I mean this is just one example, but in order to have international trade, we have to be able to say, When I’m selling you this thing and I’m guaranteeing that it’s one centimeters in diameter, or that it’s going to maintain a temperature of 21 degrees C, or that it’s going to output a voltage of ten volts.

00:16:08:51 – 00:16:43:34
William Philips
I can guarantee that that’s true within some level of accuracy, because I have in my country what’s called a national metrology institute. That’s here in the U.S., it’s the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom. You know, it’s the physical technician installed in Germany. Every major country has one of these national national metrology institutes. So we can say, based on my National Metrology Institute, I can guarantee you that this meets the standards that I tell you it does.

00:16:43:34 – 00:17:09:01
William Philips
So we’ve got to have that kind of an agency if we want to engage in the highest levels of international trade. Okay. Other things, people need to know what time it is. Now you say, okay, you know, I just look at my watch. But there are instances, plenty of instances in our modern world where we need to know what time it is to a lot better than figuring out when it’s time to go to lunch.

00:17:09:01 – 00:17:21:32
William Philips
So, for example, when stocks are traded or, you know, I don’t know much about that kind of thing, but their time stamped with a particular time that sets so people know what the price is at the time the transaction was made.

00:17:21:34 – 00:17:21:56
David Martin
Okay.

00:17:21:58 – 00:17:40:28
William Philips
We do that for the country. We provide a time service with, you know, based on our atomic clocks and based on research that figured out how to put that information about what time it is out on the web in a way that you can be guaranteed what time it is.

00:17:40:33 – 00:17:42:11
David Martin
Why can’t, like Rolex just do that?

00:17:42:14 – 00:18:19:43
William Philips
Well, the thing is, since it’s it’s something that everyone needs or, you know, a wide range of, of people need, it’s one of those things that we consider to be a legitimate function of the federal government, since it is so widely needed. If you relegate things like this to private companies, then you have to worry about, do they have an interest in doing this thing in a way that’s going to be fair to everybody, whereas the federal government is, by its very nature, an organization that is set up, designed to be able to provide a service that is fair to everybody.

00:18:19:45 – 00:18:44:24
David Martin
Okay. That’s the that’s the hope. Right. So you are about to receive, we’re recording this and coming up in November. Very shortly, you’re going to receive the Katherine Gibi Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding federal service from the National Academy of Public Administration. Congratulations. I decided that you you are actually awarded this a couple of years ago, but with Covid, you weren’t able to receive it.

00:18:44:24 – 00:19:03:09
David Martin
So you’re going to receive it this year in your hand. And reading from the little the short right up for the award that you’re about to receive, it says you’ve revolutionized atomic physics, and that underpinned today’s most precise atomic clocks and quantum technologies. What does that mean in layman’s terms? Not physics terms. Layman’s terms, absolutely.

00:19:03:09 – 00:19:33:50
William Philips
But before I do that, I want to say something about the Katherine Gabby Award, because Katherine Gabby was my laboratory director for the majority of my career at NBS and, and she was the best laboratory director you could imagine. And she’s passed away a few years ago. And for me, it’s such a tremendous honor to be receiving an award named for her because she was such an amazing laboratory director.

00:19:33:57 – 00:19:46:52
William Philips
I don’t know of anyone else anywhere in the world who is the director of a laboratory where four different people got Nobel Prizes for the work that they did in that laboratory under her direction.

00:19:46:54 – 00:19:47:21
David Martin
Wow.

00:19:47:33 – 00:19:54:06
William Philips
And so anyway, I just wanted to make sure that that that I said that because she was such an amazing person.

00:19:54:08 – 00:20:05:20
David Martin
I think I read somewhere that your division of the National Institute of Standards of Technology has won more Nobel Prizes than any other government institution. Is that correct?

00:20:05:22 – 00:20:09:22
William Philips
Well, whether that’s true, I don’t know, because it probably depends on how you count.

00:20:09:27 – 00:20:11:29
David Martin
Well, that’s what I read somewhere. So. Yeah.

00:20:11:31 – 00:20:22:46
William Philips
So all of those people were in the physics laboratory. Now, I’m pretty sure there have been a fair number of Nobel Prizes to people at NIH, but they may have been in different.

00:20:22:52 – 00:20:31:30
David Martin
Different categories. Okay. But hey, you’ve got you’ve got a bunch of people in your organization that have all went Nobel Prizes that all work for the government. That’s a good thing.

00:20:31:32 – 00:20:52:48
William Philips
Exactly. Okay. So what was it that I did? Yes. Okay, so atomic clocks are mentioned. So what are atomic clocks? Atomic clock has to have a ticker. Right. Something that gives you a periodic set of events, ticks that allow you to to measure time. The trouble with your watch or, you know, a pendulum clock.

00:20:52:48 – 00:20:54:02
David Martin
On time. Go ahead.

00:20:54:05 – 00:21:19:20
William Philips
Yeah, yeah. Or something like that is that those things are subject to all kinds of environmental effects that could change how fast it’s taking. And furthermore, if somebody else makes a similar watch, there’s no guarantee that those two watches is going to keep the same time. Atoms, on the other hand, are all absolutely identical for the same kind.

00:21:19:22 – 00:21:43:42
William Philips
So cesium atoms, you’re, remember, from your high school chemistry, the periodic chart. Cesium is over on the left hand side and down toward the bottom. A particular isotope of cesium is the thing that is the ticker for all atomic clocks all over the world. And the beauty is that it doesn’t matter where the cesium came from. It’s going to take in exactly the same way for everybody.

00:21:43:42 – 00:22:12:26
William Philips
So it’s an ideal time standard because it’s the same for everybody, assuming you build your clock intelligently. Now, the problem with that is that those cesium atoms which have to be isolated, that is not stuck on to other cesium atoms or stuck on to some surface, they have to be floating freely in space. They’re going to be moving really fast, because that’s the nature of anything at a temperature that is other than absolute zero that they’re moving.

00:22:12:31 – 00:22:33:37
William Philips
And the higher the temperature, the faster they’re moving. So we’ve got these cesium atoms that at room temperature or a little bit above room temperature, where we need to work with them. For all these atomic clocks that people have been making over the years, are traveling at more than 100m/s. It’s not that easy to measure something that’s traveling at 100m/s.

00:22:33:39 – 00:22:39:54
William Philips
What I wanted to do, what I said when when people told me, why don’t you fool around with some of this laser stuff?

00:22:39:58 – 00:22:46:27
David Martin
I’m thinking, why don’t you fool around with some of this laser stuff? Okay. Is that how scientists talk? Okay. Well, sometimes I.

00:22:46:27 – 00:22:47:51
William Philips
Was I was paraphrasing.

00:22:47:55 – 00:22:48:17
David Martin
Okay.

00:22:48:19 – 00:23:10:47
William Philips
But I thought there’s already been an idea. Came from another scientist about using lasers to slow down atoms. So I said, let’s see if we can use lasers to slow down these cesium atoms so we can make better clocks. So that’s what it was all about. I wanted to figure out how to make the season of atoms go a lot slower than 100m/s.

00:23:10:49 – 00:23:16:11
William Philips
And you did. And I did do that, my colleagues and I. Yeah. And there were other people who were working on this.

00:23:16:23 – 00:23:17:01
David Martin
How long did it take?

00:23:17:03 – 00:23:40:59
William Philips
Well, so that’s not an easy question to answer because it happened in various stages. Sure. So I would say that from the time that I arrived in 1978 till the time that we had produced cesium atoms that were cold enough to do the job, because what I neglected to mention is that, well, I think I did say the colder you get, the slower the atoms are.

00:23:41:02 – 00:23:48:01
William Philips
So we call it laser cooling, because what we’re doing is reducing the the velocity and therefore the temperature. And it turns.

00:23:48:01 – 00:23:48:47
David Martin
Out I’m with you.

00:23:48:54 – 00:24:04:12
William Philips
Really is like a temperature. Any case, the time that we finally got the atoms in the right kind of of temperatures that we needed and had figured out the details of how we were going to make it all work, was probably on the order of 1990.

00:24:04:15 – 00:24:10:41
David Martin
Wow. So roughly 1978 to 1990 is how long have you spent studying this? Every day. Right.

00:24:10:43 – 00:24:19:45
William Philips
But fortunately, each stage of this represented an important success. So we could say, yeah, we’re making progress.

00:24:19:50 – 00:24:39:20
David Martin
Yeah. We’re good. We’re going to the right direction. Let me ask you. I mean, 48 years at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in its various incarnations. You know, obviously your brilliance in physics far out shines mine and probably most everyone else in America and the world. Why did you stay with the government? Why did you stay in government service at any time?

00:24:39:20 – 00:24:45:51
David Martin
You, I’m sure, could have, you know, left the government and gone to work for some private organization and tripled your salary. Why did you stay with the government?

00:24:45:58 – 00:24:54:43
William Philips
Yeah, of course, the tripling my salary part is something that from time to time, my wife brings up.

00:24:54:48 – 00:25:18:27
William Philips
But but there are a number of reasons. One of them that for me is really important is I felt that what I was doing was serving my country. And for me, that’s an important thing to do. I love my country and serving my country in this kind of way, in a way that uses the talents that I have, is something that’s been really important to me.

00:25:18:32 – 00:25:50:08
William Philips
The fact that I work with other people who feel the same way, who are also amazingly intelligent. I mean, I am so blessed to be working with a group of people who are just so smart, and to whom I can constantly go to discuss a physics problem and learn something from them. Somebody once said, the way to success is to hire people who are smarter than you are, and I have been really fortunate to be able to do that.

00:25:50:18 – 00:26:19:45
William Philips
We have this wonderful program here called the. It’s a postdoc fellowship program where people apply for postdoctoral fellowship, and there’s an independent board that examines these applications and gives awards it to the best people. And then they come and they get a pretty nice stipend to work, and they get to work in a top notch laboratory. And I don’t have to pay for them out of my business.

00:26:19:50 – 00:26:43:34
William Philips
This is wonderful. And because it’s so highly competitive, the best people in the country apply for these things. So we get the cream of the crop of the latest graduate students who’ve gotten their PhDs in physics. We get them applying for these things and the best of them succeed. And some of those are working for us because they made a proposal to work with us.

00:26:43:41 – 00:26:49:00
William Philips
And then some of those we keep and permanent employees.

00:26:49:03 – 00:26:49:24
David Martin
All right.

00:26:49:27 – 00:26:52:22
William Philips
So we have such wonderful people.

00:26:52:26 – 00:26:55:41
David Martin
So you attract the best of the brightest. And many of them stick around.

00:26:55:43 – 00:27:14:06
William Philips
Exactly. And why? Because they’re working with other people who are like that. That’s the thing that’s most attractive, I think, to a scientist, is to work in an environment where you can do the best work, and that environment is in large part the other people who you’re working with.

00:27:14:08 – 00:27:39:31
David Martin
So there’s a I have a question here that I want to get to, but before I do that, certainly now currently in this world we live in today, there is an overlap between, you know, government kind of overseeing science. I think I had Doctor Fortune who said, when politics and science collide, politics wins twice. You have petitioned the government, the president, directly to increase funding for science and science research.

00:27:39:36 – 00:27:56:51
David Martin
You did it to President Obama and to President Bush. Why did you decide that it was important for you as a scientist to, you know, speak out to the president and talk about what it was that they needed to do to continue the work of organizations like the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

00:27:56:54 – 00:28:20:00
William Philips
Well, for me, it it it’s related to what I said at the outset, my desire to serve my country and my love for this country. I believe that the strength of this nation and the strength in a number of different ways, both in national security and in economic strength, has to do in large part, not entirely, of course, but in large part to science.

00:28:20:04 – 00:28:44:12
William Philips
Why did we win World War two? Because we had scientists who could develop radar. That was one of the most important things that allowed the United States or the allies, I should say, to win World War Two was radar. Why did we why were you able to develop a radar? Because we had people, scientists who had studied microwaves and the physics being behind microwaves.

00:28:44:20 – 00:29:08:37
William Philips
Of course, the thing that comes to most people’s mind is nuclear weapons. Well, why were we able to develop nuclear weapons? Because we had scientific research that people had been doing that related to the things you needed to do to be able to to produce a nuclear weapon in the Manhattan Project. So you might say, with complete justification, that it was science that one World War two.

00:29:08:40 – 00:29:52:11
William Philips
Well, that’s a pretty big deal. I think that the thing that keeps us secure militarily is our advanced science and technology. But that’s also true of our economic strength. One of the things that underpins almost everything in our daily lives, as well as in our economic engine, is semiconductor electronics. While semiconductor electronics derives from quantum mechanics. And all of the fundamental research that was done to go from the basic ideas of quantum mechanics 100 years ago to the development of the transistor, more like, I don’t know, what was that 75 years ago.

00:29:52:16 – 00:30:17:40
William Philips
And today things like quantum information are, I believe, going to be an important part of our future economy. They’re already having an impact on our present economy. So because of how important scientific research has been to the security of our nation, both militarily and economically, I felt that it was important to make that appeal to our administration.

00:30:17:43 – 00:30:21:23
David Martin
Well, you did did it work well? Were you largely successful?

00:30:21:26 – 00:30:44:51
William Philips
I think that we have continued to have strong support for science. I’d like to see more. I’d like to see especially more fundamental research for the following reason. When people look at the funding landscape of the government, there’s often a tendency to think about where can I put my money that’s going to have the most important and immediate effect?

00:30:44:53 – 00:31:26:17
William Philips
Well, fundamental research doesn’t have an immediate effect. It has a long term effect. But unless you invest now, you’re not going to have the long term benefits that are the things that are going to be driving the economy 20 and 30 years from now. I like to use the analogy of seed corn. So if a farmer is operating in a subsistence way, that farmer will harvest the grain from this season, put a certain amount of that grain away to eat, you know, during the winter until the next harvest, and put another part of that grain away to plant next year.

00:31:26:29 – 00:31:27:17
David Martin
Okay.

00:31:27:22 – 00:31:41:52
William Philips
Let’s say you’ve got a hard winter and it lasts longer than you’d hoped, and for one reason or another, you’re running low on your food stock. You might be tempted to start eating your seed corn.

00:31:41:57 – 00:31:42:31
David Martin
However.

00:31:42:33 – 00:31:44:42
William Philips
If you do, what a disaster.

00:31:44:47 – 00:31:45:11
David Martin
Yes.

00:31:45:14 – 00:31:52:35
William Philips
So to me, cutting the support for fundamental research is like eating your seed corn.

00:31:52:37 – 00:32:04:32
David Martin
All right. Okay, I got you got there. So well done. All right. We’re going to come back. We’re going to ask you the questions I ask everyone on the show okay.

00:32:04:36 – 00:32:29:52
Narrator
Across America, there is a growing demand for leadership that delivers results over rhetoric. The Good Government Institute brings together proven ideas, principled leaders and real world solutions to strengthen how we govern not by reinventing the system, but by advancing what already works. On our flagship podcast, The Good Government Show, we highlight the leaders behind that progress, demonstrating how effective governance begins with listening, respect and a commitment to serve.

00:32:29:57 – 00:32:34:35
Narrator
Visit Institute to learn more.

00:32:34:39 – 00:32:52:29
David Martin
Want to hear more about good government? Check out another show I host leading Iowa. Good government in Iowa cities. I host the show with Brad Cavanaugh, mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, and the immediate past president of the Iowa League of Cities. Together, we talked to leaders in Iowa cities. We talk about what works and what good government looks like in Iowa.

00:32:52:38 – 00:32:59:45
David Martin
Join us right here. We’re listening. Now that’s leading Iowa. Good government in Iowa cities.

00:32:59:50 – 00:33:18:10
David Martin
We have developed a good government show questionnaire. I generally a lot of the folks I talked to are city mayors and folks who work, you know, directly in government elected officials. So I’m going to tell this a little bit for you. But the first question is the same for everyone. You work for government for eight years with the National Institute of Standard Technology.

00:33:18:15 – 00:33:23:01
David Martin
What is good government? Define it. Don’t.

00:33:23:05 – 00:33:45:23
William Philips
What is good government? That’s, That’s a good question. I often realize that when I say when people ask me questions, when I give talks, that’s a good question. What I really mean is that I don’t know the answer. I’m reminded of the following story in the Bible in the I forget what gospel it’s in, a young man comes to Jesus.

00:33:45:28 – 00:34:03:22
William Philips
He’s described as being very rich. He comes to Jesus and he says, good teacher, what must I do to achieve eternal life? And Jesus says, why do you call me good? Only God is good. Now people have argued about what he meant.

00:34:03:25 – 00:34:05:34
David Martin
But you’re going with us. Go ahead.

00:34:05:39 – 00:34:35:56
William Philips
I think it emphasizes the point. What does it mean to say that something is good? And how can any and nothing is is totally good? So that’s part of the underlying thing of what the wisdom that Jesus was revealing to this, this young man, which I can. It’s one of my favorite stories. It’s it’s touching and heartbreaking because what Jesus tells the guy is after he first tells him, well, you know what the law is.

00:34:36:01 – 00:34:58:26
William Philips
You know the Ten Commandments, human, all of these things. And the guy says, well, I’ve done all those things, but he doesn’t feel like he’s done enough, and Jesus is. That’s great. But there’s one more thing you have to do. He says, sell everything you have and follow me. And the guy goes away and the scriptures say, because he was very rich.

00:34:58:31 – 00:34:59:07
David Martin
All right.

00:34:59:12 – 00:35:01:28
William Philips
So to me, it’s a heartbreaking story.

00:35:01:31 – 00:35:06:59
David Martin
Yes. I didn’t expect I did not expect Bible study in the middle of conversation.

00:35:07:04 – 00:35:07:25
William Philips
Okay.

00:35:07:28 – 00:35:11:16
David Martin
So this was a long filibuster to give you all time to think about it.

00:35:11:30 – 00:35:31:53
William Philips
So basically, it’s a way of of saying that I don’t really know what good government is because first of all, nothing is entirely good. One of the things that I firmly believe about that you need for good government is not the political spoils systems that we had in the 19th century.

00:35:32:05 – 00:35:32:36
David Martin
Okay.

00:35:32:38 – 00:35:52:44
William Philips
Okay. The civil service that we have today that I’m part of, and that so many of the people that I’m sure you talk to are part of, is a reform that was made over, you know, the, the political spoil systems where a new person comes in, everybody gets fired and all of their friends get get government jobs, right?

00:35:52:47 – 00:36:00:58
William Philips
There are all kinds of things that are wrong with that. And I think that people in the 19th century realized there was all kinds of things that were wrong with.

00:36:01:01 – 00:36:02:25
David Martin
That was the hot topic issue of the day.

00:36:02:27 – 00:36:42:46
William Philips
Yeah. And decided to fix it with the civil service system, which isn’t perfect, but is a whole lot better than a spoiled system. One of the things is that you need institutional memory to run something as big and complex as a government, and so having people who know how the wheels of government work and have that as part of their institutional knowledge, and who are open to changing the way those wheels work in a way that will improve the efficiency, that’s really important, as opposed to having everyone come in fresh and have to start from scratch.

00:36:43:01 – 00:36:47:34
William Philips
I mean, government doesn’t work perfectly, but it works pretty well.

00:36:47:39 – 00:37:08:01
David Martin
All right. That was the longest answer I’ve ever gotten. And you’re the only one who’s ever quoted the Bible. The answer to that question, sir. Congratulations. Doctor Phillips, you are number one. So at the at the risk of getting another Bible lesson, my next question I usually ask is if people are with government, if they don’t like what they see, if they wish government was doing something different, what should they do?

00:37:08:04 – 00:37:11:01
David Martin
Well, not everyone could write a letter to the president and haven’t read it.

00:37:11:04 – 00:37:31:29
William Philips
Well, sure. Look, if you write a letter to the president, I’m not sure if the president reads any of them. He probably gets a tiny selection of letters. But there is a sort of an army of people who do read these letters. They actually get read those those letters that go to the white House don’t just go in the trash.

00:37:31:41 – 00:37:39:14
David Martin
I was talking about the fact that you addressed the president directly. Most people don’t have that power. What can they do? What can people without power like yours do?

00:37:39:16 – 00:37:52:47
William Philips
Okay, but I didn’t really address the president directly. What I did was I signed a letter that was signed by a whole bunch of other Nobel laureates, and that presumably gets the attention of the president, because the fact that so many people have a certain.

00:37:52:49 – 00:37:53:56
David Martin
I understand.

00:37:54:01 – 00:38:22:25
William Philips
But anyway, all these things and I believe that the people who do read these things when they see an idea or a complaint, even if it doesn’t have attached to it, an idea for how to fix it, that these things are taken seriously, that if you see a whole bunch of people are writing in and saying G. My Social Security check didn’t come after I retired, I didn’t get that Social Security check.

00:38:22:26 – 00:38:41:39
William Philips
I mean, I’m just making this up. I have no idea where this. Yeah, I didn’t get it until two months after I retired, and I was in deep trouble trying to to keep my. So isn’t there something you can do about that? I believe that the people who receive these letters, and if they see enough things like that, they’re going to say, maybe we need to do this.

00:38:41:42 – 00:38:46:58
David Martin
Yeah. So what you’re saying is don’t be afraid to speak out. And if you speak out as a group, your power is even increased.

00:38:46:58 – 00:39:06:47
William Philips
And I believe that you get even more of an effect if you write to your congressperson. Because for one thing, the constituency is a smaller number of people. Right. And your local representative in the House of Representatives in particular, really wants to make sure that the people in their district are.

00:39:06:52 – 00:39:07:45
David Martin
Happy with them.

00:39:07:47 – 00:39:17:51
William Philips
Happy, or at least happy with them, that they feel that they are getting service. I’m not sure if anybody remembers tip O’Neill. He was the speaker of.

00:39:17:51 – 00:39:18:54
David Martin
The House. The House for years.

00:39:18:58 – 00:39:42:16
William Philips
Yeah, I was very young. And he said something which people often quote without saying who it comes from. All politics is local. Now, I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think it’s true because I think people do care about, say, foreign affairs, but they probably care more about what’s happening every day in their lives. Sure. And so I think it really makes a difference.

00:39:42:19 – 00:39:57:34
William Philips
Now, here’s here’s the other thing. Makes a whole lot more of an impact. If you actually send a letter as opposed to sending, say, an email. Okay. At least it’s what I’ve been told. Or for that matter, you know, there.

00:39:57:39 – 00:40:01:29
David Martin
We’re both old. Let’s let’s, let’s put our cards on the table here. All right.

00:40:01:41 – 00:40:21:45
William Philips
And there are all these organizations that ask people to sign on to a petition. Well, that has not zero effect, but not nearly as much effect as if you send, you know, your own email that you composed that isn’t, you know, a form letter. Right. And I think even more if you actually send a letter with a stamp on it.

00:40:21:50 – 00:40:23:21
William Philips
Right. And and you’ve.

00:40:23:21 – 00:40:25:18
David Martin
Written old school, as they say. So. Yeah.

00:40:25:18 – 00:40:28:57
William Philips
That’s right. These things have more in effect from what I’ve been told.

00:40:28:59 – 00:40:33:44
David Martin
What drew you to public service? Why did you decide you wanted to work for the government as opposed to going somewhere else?

00:40:33:47 – 00:40:56:21
William Philips
Yeah, well, I think that the answer to that is it’s is more significant in why I’ve stayed, why I went. There were lots of reasons that went into it. I had a couple of different offers, and my wife and I sat down and sort of made a. Checklist that were important to us, and it came out in favor of nice.

00:40:56:21 – 00:41:06:29
William Philips
But why have I stayed when? Especially as time went on and I became better known, I could have gotten easily a job someplace else with a lot more, more salary.

00:41:06:30 – 00:41:08:42
David Martin
And as your wife points out.

00:41:08:45 – 00:41:41:14
William Philips
Yes. And part of that was I felt that I was serving my I felt that I was doing something important for the good of the United States of America. And also, I was working with people who were really smart and who felt the same way. And I felt I could get more done in that kind of an environment than if I went, say, to a university where I was the king of my own domain, as opposed to having a bunch of colleagues of similar stature working together with me on on these problems.

00:41:41:19 – 00:41:53:37
David Martin
I looked at your bio, you know, online a little bit, and you’ve won Nobel Prizes, Fleming Awards and everything in between. You inspire other people. Who inspires you? What inspires you?

00:41:53:49 – 00:42:36:44
William Philips
Yeah. Well, well, the previous generation of physicists who worked on the kinds of things that enabled me to do what I did. So, for example, one of the people who inspired me the most was my thesis advisor just recently passed away. Dan Kepner was such an amazing physicist and such an amazing human being. And both of those things were things that I took away from working in his group, how to think about physics and how to do physics in a way that is open and generous and collegial, as opposed to cutthroat competitive.

00:42:36:49 – 00:42:37:13
David Martin
Okay.

00:42:37:15 – 00:42:57:40
William Philips
His thesis advisor, who is somebody I got to know very well, Norman Ramsey, set sort of the the standard for the way in which we do that kind of physics as being open and collegial. Other people whom I met along the way. Art shallow is one of the people that I think about, one of the inventors of the laser.

00:42:57:45 – 00:43:13:32
William Philips
Well, I wouldn’t be anywhere if it wasn’t for lasers. Sure. But art was also just a wonderful person. His colleague, another inventor. Laser laser Charlie Towns, another person who inspired me, but also contemporaries. I think I mentioned.

00:43:13:37 – 00:43:19:42
David Martin
I disagree with you. Do you go to work sometimes? If you’re good now. Phillips. What the hell is wrong with you? You’re wrong. Come on man.

00:43:19:56 – 00:43:34:45
William Philips
No, in fact, that’s what I hoped for. I hope that I go to somebody and I say, okay, here’s here’s the problem. In this way, I’ve been thinking about this and no, no, no, Bill, that’s not the right way to think about it. Here’s the way to think about it. And then we have an argument. And I love that because it means I’m going to learn something new.

00:43:34:50 – 00:43:46:52
David Martin
Okay. So 48 years with in working for the federal government for the nest, what would you like people to know about government that they don’t know, especially about government scientists and the work that they do?

00:43:46:57 – 00:44:19:31
William Philips
Yeah. Well, okay. So I think that there is sometimes a myth that is propagated by, you know, some people who have a public voice that government workers are sitting around watching the clock waiting to, to go home. I don’t know anybody like that here. Everybody is working as hard as they can and only, you know, sometimes they they forget that it’s time to to to go home for, for for dinner.

00:44:19:36 – 00:44:30:59
William Philips
Almost everybody I know, you know, my colleagues here has an issue about work life balance because they’re spending so much time in the lab.

00:44:31:01 – 00:44:31:49
David Martin
Okay.

00:44:31:54 – 00:44:59:14
William Philips
Because this is how you get things done that they’re sometimes neglectful of the other things in their life. Now, I always try to give as advice to my young people, don’t neglect those other things in your life. But the fact of the matter is that it’s one of the things we have to keep reminding ourselves, because the people I know are so dedicated to their work that they’re just putting in our after hour of work, trying to advance the the field.

00:44:59:16 – 00:45:01:21
David Martin
What do you do for fun?

00:45:01:26 – 00:45:01:55
William Philips
Well.

00:45:01:57 – 00:45:06:40
David Martin
When you’re well, how is your work life balance and how do you get when you get out of the lab? What do you do?

00:45:06:49 – 00:45:42:50
William Philips
Yeah. So when I was I remember very vividly thinking the following thing. I am never going to get a Nobel Prize because I’m not going to work as hard at in the laboratory as people who do get Nobel prizes, because I want to be home with my kids. I want to have dinner with them. I want to put them to bed, read them stories, sing them songs, say prayers, and then go back to the lab.

00:45:42:55 – 00:45:43:16
David Martin
Okay.

00:45:43:19 – 00:45:58:51
William Philips
But that’s not that’s not the kind of single minded attention to your your research that gets you a Nobel Prize. And I thought, fine, I’m having fun doing what I’m doing. This is the right way to go. Well, it turned out better than I thought.

00:45:58:54 – 00:45:59:32
David Martin
I guess so.

00:45:59:34 – 00:46:25:50
William Philips
And now my kids are in their mid 40s. They’re doing great. And my wife is very understanding of the amount of time I spend in the lab. But I’ve. And back then, somehow or other, I had a whole lot more energy where I did things a lot more efficiently. I did things in our church, you know, I served as chairman of the worship committee for a while.

00:46:25:50 – 00:46:46:08
William Philips
I taught Sunday school. Okay, now I sing in a gospel choir, and that’s wonderful. It’s really a a wonderful break from all the tension that comes from so many things that one does in the other aspects of, of life to go to choir practice and, and sing. That’s just fantastic.

00:46:46:22 – 00:47:04:23
David Martin
One of the guys in the back of the room, not the guy in front of the room, everybody’s asking stuff up. I could see that. All right, well, this is the good government show, and we always try to bring it back to good government. Tell me about a good government project that you’ve worked on over your career that, you know, maybe a small thing that was just like a, you know, maybe a small advance or just a small project that you went, wow, look at that.

00:47:04:26 – 00:47:06:31
David Martin
You know, this worked okay.

00:47:06:35 – 00:47:33:53
William Philips
So, well, maybe it’s not so small, but remember, I told you that we got into this was to make better atomic clocks, right? So I didn’t make it better atomic clocks, but I did. And my colleagues did the things that allowed other people in government to make better atomic clocks. So one of the things that I am really proud of is that the U.S. Naval Observatory, not so far from where I am right now, has the atomic clocks that keep time for the military.

00:47:33:57 – 00:47:56:51
William Philips
Okay. They have just recently, by which I mean a few years ago, installed a couple of clocks that used the techniques that we developed in our laboratory. Wow. The laser cooling, the people who did that, the people who designed and now operate those atomic clocks were postdocs in my laboratory. And really proud of that.

00:47:56:54 – 00:47:57:27
David Martin
That’s great.

00:47:57:27 – 00:48:03:05
William Philips
So okay, so that is something that we set out to do. But but to complete the storyline.

00:48:03:08 – 00:48:06:17
David Martin
That does sound like good government, by the way, doctor.

00:48:06:22 – 00:48:31:23
William Philips
Absolutely. But but the other thing is the thing that we didn’t expect is cooling these atoms in that way allowed us to think about using these atoms as quantum bits, as qubits, as part of a quantum computer. We never imagined that that was going to be one of the things that came out of this research, but it did.

00:48:31:35 – 00:48:56:17
William Philips
And so today, one of the major platforms that people are investigating to make quantum computers is laser cooled atoms of the sort that we figured out how to do the laser cooling. And of course, it wasn’t just us. As as this developed, more and more groups joined in on this adventure. But when it started, we were almost the only ones.

00:48:56:17 – 00:49:22:41
William Philips
There was a group in Russia, and there was a group at Bell Labs led by Steve Chou, and that was about it. Now there are hundreds of groups all over the world, and some of those groups are leading the US effort in quantum computing. And it was the work that we did that we thought was going to make better atomic clocks and did make better atomic clocks that enabled that particular direction.

00:49:22:41 – 00:49:24:12
William Philips
So that’s kind of cool.

00:49:24:15 – 00:49:54:06
David Martin
That’s kind of cool. I could talk to you forever. You are a fascinating individual and a brilliant scientist, clearly far more so than I. I could ask you more questions and we’d be here for hours, and I probably could get all of my college physics out of the way one more time and actually understand it. William Phillips, Bill Phillips, doctor Bill Phillips of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a soon to be actually receiving your Fleming Award from the National Academy of Public Administration, a Nobel Prize winner.

00:49:54:11 – 00:49:58:55
David Martin
Thank you so much for your time and your brilliant insight, I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on.

00:49:58:56 – 00:50:03:15
William Philips
Thank you very much for having me. And we should also say Fleming, Arthur Fleming.

00:50:03:17 – 00:50:03:34
David Martin
Yes.

00:50:03:36 – 00:50:04:39
William Philips
What a public servant.

00:50:04:41 – 00:50:16:05
David Martin
Yes. So there you go. You’re you’re carrying the tradition on. Thank you so much. And I look forward to meeting you in person. Coming up at the at the Fleming Award ceremony in Washington. Thanks for coming on.

00:50:16:12 – 00:50:20:38
William Philips
You guys. Welcome.

00:50:20:43 – 00:50:42:05
David Martin
The Good Government Institute has a new partner, the Charles F Kettering Foundation. I really like their podcast to context, and I bet you will too. They have a new series called Democracy Under Construction. The show is hosted by historian Alex Lovett, and he looks back at the first 250 years of U.S. history. Alex digs into the moments that have pushed us towards an inclusive democracy.

00:50:42:10 – 00:50:49:15
David Martin
You can find it where you’re listening right now, or visit Kettering and give them a follow.

00:50:49:19 – 00:51:09:16
David Martin
What if Lincoln hadn’t been shot? What if World War One hadn’t happened? Jim Ludlow. Good Government show executive producer, explores both those ideas in two books in Lincoln Beyond the Bullet, he imagines that Lincoln lives, and while cousins, he imagines what would have happened if three kings, all cousins, hadn’t blundered their way into war. What if. Think about it.

00:51:09:18 – 00:51:17:49
David Martin
Go to Good Institute and order a copy.

00:51:17:54 – 00:51:37:07
David Martin
I told you a little bit of everything in over my 200 shows. Doctor Bill Phillips is the first person to give a biblical answer to what is good government. But the essence of his answer seemed to boil down to good people doing good work with proper expertise and experience, leading government agencies. That’s good government. And that’s a good enough answer for me.

00:51:37:14 – 00:51:56:32
David Martin
Here’s another point from Doctor Phillips. He said working in government surrounded him with smart, dedicated, hardworking people. And he said people who want to work in government and want to serve their country just like him. Scientists one World War two. An interesting take on how victory was one. But you know when you hear him explain it, you can’t help but think you know he might be right.

00:51:56:42 – 00:52:15:07
David Martin
A team effort for sure, but the scientists behind it. Well, it’s hard to argue, even correct, 48 years in public service. Major awards, including from the National Academy of Public Administration. That’s just one of the people that make up civil service who worked for all of us in the US government. That’s good government and that’s our show. Thanks for listening.

00:52:15:12 – 00:52:35:44
David Martin
Please like us and share with your friends or interview us right here where you’re listening and check out our website. Good government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government in action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here where you’re listening. I’m Dave Martin, and this is the Good Governance show.

00:52:35:49 – 00:53:00:09
David Martin
The Good Government Show is produced by the Good Government Institute, a nonprofit organization promoting civic engagement and civic education. All donations to the show help promote trust in government. You can donate at Good Govt Institute. Dog that’s good govt institute.org. Executive producers are Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder. Jason Stershic is our editor and producer.

00:53:00:16 – 00:53:13:39
David Martin
Join us again to hear good stories about our government right here on The Good Government Show.

00:53:13:44 – 00:53:16:35
Narrator
This podcast is part of the democracy Group.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.