science hits the streets

Anyone who's ever been involved in science education and outreach knows firsthand how resistant one's intended target audience can be to any attempts to broaden their knowledge of science. This is especially true of physics, which has a (not entirely undeserved) reputation of being inaccessible and, well, non-user-friendly. There will always be a certain percentage of the population with an innate interest in science, and that percentage keeps science museums, public lectures, and science fairs/competitions in business. But how do you reach the rest of the people, the ones who must be dragged kicking and screaming into anything that smacks of science education?

If you're Brian Schwartz, a physics professor at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, you don't wait for people to come to you. You take science right into the streets. Schwartz heads up a popular science-and-arts program at CUNY, sponsoring public lectures, demonstrations, musical and theatrical performance pieces, all dealing in some way with topics in science. His latest effort, held just this past weekend, was the Amazing, First Ever, Science Street Fair. CUNY rented several booths in two planned NYC street fairs -- long a beloved mainstay of summer life in the Big Apple -- and invited numerous education and outreach organizations and individuals to man each one, all part of an effort to bring science to the people. On Saturday, the booths could be found on Third Avenue, between 12th and 13th Streets. On Sunday, the event moved a bit further uptown, to Lexington Avenue between 37th and 38th Streets. Just to make sure the event was recorded for posterity, CUNY hired a roving videographer to wander through the street fair, capturing "performers" in the act, as well as the delighted reactions of the crowds.

The New York Hall of Science showed passersby how to make their own green slime, and gave several live demonstrations of a dissection of a cow's eyeball, announcing each gruesome step via microphone. ("And as we peel back the cornea, just like the skin of an onion....") There was a chemist demonstrating why popcorn pops -- offering free popcorn in the bargain -- and a host of science-themed magic tricks by magician Bob Friedhoffer. Representatives of the American Physical Society were on hand as well, doling out free copies of a nifty Color Me Physics coloring book for kids, along with free crayons. (There's a downloadable version of the coloring book here.) Some of the kids started coloring right then and there, which was probably just as well, since the crayons began to melt around mid-afternoon, thanks to the first summer heat wave of the season.

Yours truly was also on hand for this memorable event, not as an observer, but as an active participant. Somehow I cajoled a few members of my jujitsu dojo in Brooklyn to brave the sweltering heat and spend an entire two days with me, demonstrating martial arts moves as a means of elucidating "the physics of the fight." The over-arching theme of the Science Street Fair, announced on all the bright yellow banners, was "Science is fun!" We paraphrased that just a bit: "Science can kick your ass!" It seemed to play well with toughened New Yorkers. And technically, I'd argue it's true.

On hand to showcase their respective martial arts skills were 16-year-old Amanda, a green belt who started training when she was 6 years old; our newest black belt, Dave Campbell (he literally just passed his test two weeks ago); and me. Notice how tiny Amanda is: just a hair over five feet tall, weighing all of 100 pounds. Don't let that sweet face and small stature fool you. The girl can do some serious damage. Taking the picture was my very good friend -- and one of my first instructors -- Jordan Dos Santos, who took the lion's share of the breakfalls over those two days, and never once complained. (Jen-Luc Piquant spent much of that time hanging out in cool air-conditioned coffee shops, only emerging whenever a media opportunity presented itself. She claims excessive heat and humidity is simply ruinous to her  pixelated, purple-hued hair.)

Jujitsu is, to put it mildly, a high-impact martial art; you don't want to take those falls on pavement. So we dragged a bunch of wrestling mats into lower Manhattan and then took turns running through various techniques, stopping occasionally to explain to the gathering crowds some of the physics principles behind what we were doing. It proved to be a memorable and eye-catching way to talk about concepts like center of mass, momentum, energy transfer, leverage, torque, fulcrums, and levers, among other things. And talk about practical applications: using the principles of physics, a smaller person can overcome a much larger attacker. Case in point: here's Amanda tossing Jordan onto the ground, even though he out-weighs her by 100 pounds:

See? I told you she was tough. (Dave emailed me the next day, admitting he'd gone home and popped handfuls of Advil because "Amanda hits really hard!") Thanks to Amanda's inspiring example, we managed to coax a few passersby -- kids, mostly, but a few adults were brave enough to venture forth as well -- onto the mats, to try a few punches and kicks, and learn the fundamentals of a basic hip throw. It proved to be a highlight for at least one kid, who thrilled to the novelty of tossing Jordan over his back, and was heard to utter afterwards (at the APS/Color Me Physics booth), "I almost killed that guy over there!"

Well, no: Jordan is well nigh indestructible, it seems -- a good thing, since the kids just LOVED beating up on him, for some reason. We suspect his neck could be lined with adamantium, just like the X-Men's Wolverine. It's the only way to explain why he can just bounce right back to his feet after taking falls like the two pictured below.

One throw is called irimi nage, and is essentially a "clothesline" technique: it should be familiar to any Steven Seagal fans, since Seagal uses it to great effect in films like Down by Law. It's incredibly easy to execute -- note that I am already done with the throw and able to just stand there watching Jordan hit the ground -- but it's a brutal fall to take.

The second throw (tomoe nage) should be familiar to Star Trek fans, since it was a favorite  of Captain Kirk's. It's a bit trickier to execute, but fortunately, Jordan's center of mass falls somewhere just under his chin. This means he flies quite prettily through the air, with minimal effort on my part, earning him the dojo moniker "Air Jordan" because of his extended "hang time." The throw looks really cool, and  never fails to evoke gasps from onlookers, especially kids.

(Yes, to Jen-Luc's fashion-conscious horror, I am wearing a blue plaid flannel shirt, on a hot summer day. I needed something hardy, with lapels, that could get accidentally ripped without causing me great distress. The flannel shirt was less heavy than the traditional judo gi.)

Thanks in large part to the efforts of CUNY staff, the event got tons of local media coverage, including Channel 11 News and the New York Daily News. CBS News actually covered the street fair live (thereby forcing us all to set up our booths an hour earlier than originally planned, whether we were "morning people" or not). You can see the entire segment here. There's great footage of folks from New Jersey's Liberty Science Center having fun with liquid nitrogen, and of a scientist (David Maiullo of Rutgers University) lying on a bed of nails, even allowing the reporter to stand on top of him at one point. And the CBS camera crew captured the priceless moment when an Albert Einstein lookalike (Latif Rashidzada) perched himself atop a little go-cart powered forward by what looked like a fire extinguisher -- another of Maiullo's creations, designed to demonstrate the Newtonian principle of equal and opposite reactions, in a highly visual fashion.

Our little booth got some CBS air time, too, although the reporter seemed to think we were practicing tae kwon do instead of jujitsu. Still, it was gratifying to hear the shocked gasps of the anchors at the site of Dave slamming Jordan into the mats: "Yow, that must have hurt!" In truth, it doesn't hurt at the moment: breakfalls are designed to dissipate some of the impact energy, and we're trained not to land on, say, fragile joints. But there is a cumulative effect that takes its toll, and both Jordan and I were admittedly feeling the burn after two very long days of intense physical activity. From my perspective, it was well worth the pain and effort, just to see the smiles light up kids' faces as they successfully executed their very first hip throw, and realized physics could help them achieve something that they thought was impossible.

I'm not saying we changed the world in a mere two days, magically transforming every random passerby into an amateur armchair physicist, or every child into a budding young scientist. Let's face it, you're not going to get across much in-depth understanding of even simple Newtonian mechanics when you've got two minutes or less of peoples' attention. The very format of a street fair demo reduces everything to short, pithy sound bites, by necessity. But you can convey the simple message that science (biology and chemistry, as well as physics and astronomy) is part of our everyday lives, and perhaps ignite a desire to learn more. 

Most importantly, you can counter the often negative stereotypes of science, and scientists, that prevail in the public consciousness. As one young boy (who had just thrown Jordan) enthusiastically declared as his parents led him away from our booth: "Science is cool!" Talk about a snappy sound bite....

Comments

[Pyracantha]

One thing that fascinates me about the self-presentation of scientists is that they are so athletic. I have read for years about physicists (and other scientists) that climb mountains, run marathons, do martial arts, bike and hike long distance. It is almost as if athletic prowess is required to be a scientist. There must be scientific couch potatoes though.

Pyracantha

[Blake Stacey]

I'm far from being an athlete, though thanks to the odd scraps of DNA I inherited from this place and that, I might pass for a second-string American football player in a dim light. I **was** my high school Prom King, but that illustrates principles more related to math than to physics -- i.e., voter fraud. But that's a story for another day!

Please, **please** tell me a camera crew caught the "science is cool" kid on video!

[Jennifer Ouellette]

The CUNY videographer captured the "science is cool" kid for posterity. If only the CBS cameras had still been rolling by then! Many still shots were taken of the kids on the mat with us, attempting punches, kicks and hip throws. I'll post links to those once they're up and available..

[rgmb]

as a practitioner of martial arts I find it amazing how little energy on my part it takes to do an "amanda" move. It's all about using your opponents energy and redirecting it to use against them. And used along with hold techniques, it's a beautiful thing. : ) So even though it's great that Amanda hits hard, men typically are immune to body blows, especially by someone 100 pounds lighter. I'd never try to defend myself against a man with a body blow, unless it was used after the takedown to incapacitate him from coming back up.

Cool stuff.

[Jennifer Ouellette]

"men typically are immune to body blows..."

Not if the person giving the body blows is Mike Tyson. But as for Amanda -- did I say she used body blows? :) I did not. Groin strikes, strikes to the joints, bridge of the nose, side of the neck... it's all about hitting the most effective targets. Hard.

[rgmb]

i'm familiar with the effective areas, but i assumed for demo purposes they would be striking the body. If he took those blows you mentioned above, and they were hard, the nose bridge and sides of neck are potentially lethal targets, and the other areas----very damaging indeed. : )

And the situation I was referring to was in the case of a woman like myself (comparing myself to Amanda) defending herself, not Mike Tyson. And men are immune to body blows from women for the most part. I've been sparring for over a decade and have never done very much damage with my hardest roundhouse to a man's gut let alone a punch.

In any event, I wasn't trying to appear being critical. I think it's great that you were there for the science fair and showed your stuff. Keep it up. : )

[Jennifer Ouellette]

Ah, one should never assume. :) This actually highlights a problem I have with the way sparring is often practiced in many martial arts schools. If you train with body blows, this gets into muscle memory, and you'll be more likely to execute body blows in an actual defensive situation -- to little effect, unless you manage to hit the floating rib or sternum in just the right way. We practice controlled strikes to specific vulnerable targets precisely to guard against this, whether we're doing a demo or just practicing in class.

It also causes women in particular to internalize the notion that they can't effectively hit a larger opponent -- which is a self-defeating attitude. Sure, mass matters; it's a vitally important part of the equation, and all things being equal, yadda, yadda, yadda. But all things are never equal in real-world situations. It's entirely possible to recognize and accept the reality that size offers an unfair advantage, without jumping to the conclusion that "men are immune", etc. We hear enough naysaying about what women "can't" do -- in physics as well as in the martial arts -- without inadvertently reinforcing that negative message.

I've actually got a post in the works about this issue. Perhaps now would be a good time to actually finish it. :)

[Hubert Peabody-Smythe, Esq.]

'We hear enough naysaying about what women "can't" do -- in physics as well as in the martial arts --'

Where? Are you talking about Lubos? What is it with him and women?

[Fred Ross]

Just to weigh in on the body blows question: most men can't really do that much with body blows either. Professional boxers can, but they've empirically figured out how to put their weight into it. I got my black belt in a karate style, and the end of our promotion was taking punches to the gut from the whole school (kind of embarrassing to recall, actually).

Since then I've switched to an internal martial art. There is no way I'm taking a full power blow from an internal boxer. The whole game changes when you no longer rely on your arm muscles to generate power.

Looks like a fun weekend, though. Will it be happening again? If so I'll have to drop by.

[Mark]

Re: Above Judo Demo

It was science coupled with a cooperative Uke, and some acting.

It would be a lot more difficult for a girl to throw an individual that out weighs her by 60 plus pounds in a real street fight. As a far as the above petite lady demosrtating Tomoe-Nage - it is better that she didn't try it in a real confrontation. A athletic individual can easily get out of it. A failed Tomoe-Nage can leave one vulnerable to kicks. I really don't think that lady can apply Tomoe-Nage effectively in a real fight. There is also a good chance that even a professional Judo player would have some problems executing Tomoe-Nage in a real struggle - timimg the throw is very important, and usually the attacker would have to be pressing forward in order to break his/her balance properly.

[Jennifer Ouellette]

Mark: Of course the uke was cooperating. It was a demo, and the purpose was to demonstrate principles of physics, not duke it out in a no-holds barred street fight. Plus, cooperating ensures no one gets hurt. Context is everything. But believe me, Amanda is genuinely throwing Jordan in the pictures. The techniques do work.

I get very tired of uber-macho male martial artists ranting on and on about "real fights" and how certain techniques don't work in them, yadda, yadda, yadda, as if they were the first ones to ever raise this point. Well, duh. Anyone with a decent MA training understands this. Not every technique works every time, against every opponent; that's why there are so many different techniques. The most simple, basic, straightforward moves are the ones a well-trained MA would use in a fight. Would I use tomoe nage for self defense? Not a chance, not unless by some weird coincidence, the throw was right there mid-fight -- timing, forward momentum and correct position all must be precisely right for it to work (because of the physics, I might add). Ditto for even the most basic hip throw, which is much easier to execute than tomoe nage. (I just don't like turning my back on an opponent, but if he's already behind me....) That doesn't mean it's not worth practicing those throws. Nor does it mean the throw can't be a valuable tool for demonstrating the physics principles at work.

And just because Amanda's tiny, doesn't mean she can't fight -- and win! -- in an actual street altercation, precusely because there are so many variables besides size and strength. Her margin for error is much smaller than it would be for a large man, but believe me, women can do some serious damage outside controlled dojo or demo conditions... something men usually fail to appreciate. You just keep on underestimating us --it gives one more extra advantage. :)

[Steve]

I Stumbeled across your blog looking for Jiu-Jitsu Folks.
And I enjoyed reading yours greatly.

Science is as many thing -- if presented in an environment where people can not help but desire the answer or the process is a great trick I learned from Montessori Education.

" Small guided step to self discovery"

Anyway I own a jiu-jitsu on line Store , if you have not checked it out, not fancy but we are Gameness and our products are high quality. www.jiu-jitsu-USA.com

Great blog

Have a great day!

Sorry for the bad spelling but I an on the phone at the same time - a terrible example of multitasking :)

[Hondo]

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