SLAM
6/16/202622 min
At the National Lab Research SLAM, scientists from all 17 Department of Energy national laboratories get three minutes and a single slide to explain years of complex research to people who aren't scientists. This is the story of how Lawrence Livermore built a program to teach its researchers a skill that turns out to be as essential as the science itself: making the work understandable.
Guests featured (in order of appearance):
- Brandon Zimmerman - Staff Scientist, LLNL
- Christine Zachow - Operations Manager, LLNL
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Big Ideas Lab is a Mission.org original series.
Executive Produced by Levi Hanusch.
Sound Design, Music Edit and Mix by Matthew Powell.
Story Editing by Levi Hanusch.
Audio Engineering and Editing by Matthew Powell.
Narrated by Matthew Powell.
Video Production by Levi Hanusch.
Brought to you in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMatthew Powell0:00
[yawns] It's 2:00 AM, and you're opening the freezer door. [freezer door opens] You know it's probably not the best idea- [sighs] ... but you find yourself grabbing that tub of ice cream calling your name.
Brandon Zimmerman· Guest0:15
Hmm.
Matthew Powell0:15
Knowing it's rock hard, you're gentle with it as you place it on the counter, careful not to alert anyone of the personal choice you just made. You reach into the drawer and grab a spoon, but not the plastic one. You don't even think about it. You just know.
Brandon Zimmerman· Guest0:36
You don't put a plastic spoon in there because intuitively you know that would just snap off.
Matthew Powell0:40
You've never taken a material science class in your life, and you just made a material science decision. That example is how Brandon Zimmerman, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, explained millions of dollars worth of national security material science to a room full of congressional staffers on Capitol Hill in three minutes.
Brandon Zimmerman· Guest1:05
It's not the right material for the role it has to play, and so we're just doing the same thing at the lab.
Matthew Powell1:10
A scientist can spend years on a discovery that could change the world and still lose the room in 30 seconds if no one understands why it matters. So Lawrence Livermore built something to fix that, a program designed to take the hardest science in the country and make it land for