Fukushima Game Jam, August 2011. Kids playing games w developers in Minami-soma. Photo: Ryo Shimizu

A Japanese farming community of 70,000 torn apart by the earthquake and tsunami, on the edge of the Fukushima Dai–ichi nuclear exclusion zone, is finding a way to move forward through video games.

Minami–soma City neighbors the ocean and the Fukushima nuclear plant. A year ago, the tsunami dragged approximately 10% of its homes into the ocean. Some died and many more fled. The community shrank to 10,000 residents.

When explosions happened at three Fukushima reactors, after the March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese government advised Minami–soma residents to stay indoors.

Grocery stores emptied, communication lines fell apart and emergency workers couldn’t respond fast enough. On March 24, the Mayor of Minami–soma Katsunobu Sakurai posted a YouTube calling for help.

According to Kensuke Tadano, Minami–soma city councillor, no one died of starvation, but some died from stress and exhaustion.

I recently met Tadano via Skype.

Back in Vancouver, a few months prior, at a Transmedia Meetup, Ryan Arndt of CertainlySocial offered to connect me with game developers in Japan, who he knew through his community development work with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).

“They held a game jam in Minami–soma, Fukushima Prefecture,” he told me. I learned a game jam is a live gathering of game developers. They form ad hoc teams on the spot and each team conceptualizes and creates a video game by the end of a sleepless 24–48 hour marathon.

I was moved to hear about the August 2011 Fukushima Game Jam (FGJ), so soon after the disaster; and I was curious how it all worked and what kind of effect it had.

Minami-soma, Fukushima Prefecture. one year later. Photo: Toshifumi Nakabayashi

The response to my email was immediate and I began corresponding with a group of Japanese game developers. I watched the videos they sent me and read their academic paper. Ultimately, we set up a Skype call between Councillor Tadano, in Minami–soma and Kenneth Chan, FGJ broadcast co–ordinator and host, in Tokyo. Chan translated the conversation between Tadano and I, plus shared his experiences of the FGJ.

Tadano described how, at first, the rebuilding efforts in Minami–soma progressed quickly, with visible changes every day. But after a few months, progress slowed. The government seems to be undecided about what to do with the toxic waste — which, Scientific American reports is less nuclear and more general poisonous substances of contemporary society the earthquake released.

I asked about daily life in Minami–soma now. Tadano told me, in a sense, things are back to normal. The stores have food and the population is almost back to where it was before March 11.

[UPDATE: March 20, 2012 - For another view of the recovery my in-depth look at Fukushima, nuclear energy and climate change, Vancouver Observer.]

There is a semblance of daily routine. But, he said, “there are still people living in shelters or with friends or family… Houses were washed away… people have come back, but their farmland was washed away. Mentally we’re still not healed. The whole community was torn apart… and that’s the hardest thing for us to get over.”

Tadano realized people in Minami–soma and in the affected areas were getting over their initial shock and needed hope for the future. They were ready to begin to create a vision for recovery. “But we also need help to manifest our vision,” he said.

The game development community, including some of the top game designers in Japan, wanted to help in the disaster recovery.

The then chair of Japan IGDA, “Kiyoshi Shin led the FGJ effort with vision and passion,” wrote his successor Kenji Ono, to me in an email.

When Shin contacted Tadano, whose background is in network programming, Tadano grabbed onto the idea of the FGJ. He acted as a local voice in the city, found the location and organized all the necessary permissions. They often worked late at night to complete the arrangements. “Tadano would chime in around 1:00 am,” Chan told me.

“By mid–June, emails were flying — maybe 200 emails a day,” said Chan.

Now that we were talking about the FGJ, the somber undertones in our Skype conversation vanished. Chan and Tadano’s voices were animated and bright.

“It was a logistical nightmare,” shared Chan, as he listed the multitude of arrangements their community had to finalize in less than six weeks. RAT Corporation Ltd., donated the temporary high–speed internet connection and installation at the community hall in Minami–soma where the FGJ took place.

The developers scrounged for beefed up computers for the developers, chartered buses and thought about special insurance for participants travelling to Minami–soma.

They promoted on the IGDA website and tweeted #FGJ. Some of the responding tweets were dubious, “Are you serious? Those guys were hit by the earthquake!” But, Chan told me, after the FGJ he received positive acknowledgements, even from the doubters.

Minami-soma Feb 2012. Photo: Toshifumi Nakabayashi

Still, Chan admitted, it was hard to gather participants from the Fukushima area. A game jam was the last thing on their mind. Also, he said, “a lot of people wanted to join [in Minami–soma] but, their relatives may have stopped them [from travelling there], so we set up satellite sites in Tokyo and Kyushu.” In a strong show of support, roughly thirty did travel from Tokyo for the FGJ in Minami–soma.

Chan had been part of a group, along with Kiyoshi Shin, who had pioneered TV broadcast–style coverage of the January 2011 Global Game Jam events in Tokyo. Teams in 44 countries joined last year’s Global Game Jam to create over 1,500 games in 48 hours. The IGDA community loved the Japanese coverage.

Led by Shin, the Japanese game developers decided to offer the same high–quality coverage for the FGJ. VCL, a video company, brought a full broadcast studio’s worth of equipment to Fukushima. Highly trained students from BaNyaK manned the cameras, lights and mixers.

FGJ 2011. Late night report. Photo: Ryo Shimizu

Shinji Yamane, game blogger, sent me his academic paper about the Fukushima Game Jam, describing how they embedded the social context of recovery into the game jam. Tsunagari (relation, connection) was the theme of FGJ and all the jammers had to incorporate tsunagari into their games.

The gamers connected with the local community in real time as well, inviting local school children to the FGJ.

On August 26, 2011, approximately 50 game jammers, from Tokyo and the local area convened for the 48–hour jam and bus tour of Minami–soma area to see the earthquake and tsunami damage.

FGJ 2011. Children drawing avatars. Photo: Ryo Shimizu

The children, as young as four or five years old, up to high school age, drew avatars for the gamers, at tables in a foyer area. “We uploaded the kids’ drawings,” said Chan,  “and professional graphic artists in Tokyo rendered them to use in the games.”

Spontaneously, some of the kids went into the developers’ area, where each team gathered around one computer. A child would give advice, “why don’t you put this in?” or, “that looks stupid!”

“Ok, that’s great, let’s try that,” was a typical response from the programmers.

Chan spoke with some of the parents afterwards. “The kids had nothing to do, school was suspended, nowhere to go, … life was bland. It was one of the rare events that actually happened. They were very thankful.”

Tadano agreed, “I was really glad the kids could join in … Because of the  earthquake, having their homes washed away, … back to square one… even our children were forced to realize the harsh reality — life isn’t necessarily fair.” It meant a lot to Tadano and the kids, to “realize people out there were looking out for us, thinking about us.”

And there’s more. Tadano described a potential community–wide renewal sparked by FGJ. “The majority of jobs have been in farming… If you wanted to do something bigger, you might have to leave the city.”

Corporations have taken notice and Tadano is delighted to have interest from the content-generation industry and the IT industry. SoftBank Mobile Corp., one of the largest mobile carriers in Japan has already set up an iPad–based learning centre and they’re planning to open a branch in Minami–soma.

A second FGJ is in the works for August 2012. Tadano plans to make it a mini–conference for all the stakeholders interested in developing the IT industry, content-creation and education platforms within Minami–soma.

Fukushima Game Jam 2011 participants. Kenneth Chan, back row, fourth from the left; Kiyoshi Shin front row, far left; Kensuke Tadano, front row, last on the right.

FGJ 2011 Children's avatar drawings

FGJ 2011 Children's avatar drawings professionally rendered and ready to use in FGJ games

FGJ 2011 bus tour, sunflower. Photo: Ryo Shimizu

What if socially responsible human beings? On September 30, 2011, I gave a seven-minute TEDx talk: Becoming the Inspiration You Seek: the Alchemy of Opposites. It was part of TEDxTransmedia Rome: What if… socially responsible media?, a one day speech fest at the MAXXI Museum sponsored by the European Broadcasting Union, RAI 5 and others.

This poem is a synopsis of my speech:

between
reality and imagination,
a pressure cooker of contradictions.
be curious
embrace opposing forces

as Buddha suggests, build a stainless vessel*
within
to contain the most difficult opposites
in your life and your work…

grow
reach out
become our own heroes!

~ ~ ~

* Buddhist dedication: By whatever boundless merit we have attained through practicing the precious genuine dharma of the supreme yana may all beings become a stainless vessel of the supreme yana. Dharma = teaching, Yana = method

Here is a link to playlist of all of the TEDxTransmedia Rome 2011 talks.

CERN’s (European Organization for Nuclear Research’s) temporary citizens migrate here from any of over a hundred nations of the world to run the largest experimental facility on Earth. Their passionate quest to understand the mysteries of the universe underlies everything that is CERN.

Current theories about the Big Bang and evolution of the physical world of elements only account for 4% of what’s in the Universe. What else is there? What really makes the Universe tick?

Dr. Christine Sutton points out LHC on local map of CERN complex. Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

Nestled between the Swiss Alps and the Jura, CERN’s workspace is like a small village, filled with industrial–scaled buildings and a fluctuating workforce on the order of 10,000 people. The workers are particle physicists searching for the fundamental truths of matter and energy.

Their primary food source is a large cafeteria, which also serves as the hub of social life at CERN.

It was in the cafeteria where I met with ConCERNed for Humanity Club, a small group of CERN scientists and staff, who are inspired by this 1950 statement from Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), noted philosopher, anti–war and anti–nuclear weapons protestor:

All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy. [emphasis added by ConCERNed]

“The Science to Save Us from Science,” The New York Times Magazine (March 19, 1950).

I don’t suppose Bertrand Russell was of aware of this connection, but to me his sentiments resonate with Buddhist doctrine. In similar fashion, Buddhist science of mind proves the rationality and, therefore, imperative for us to cultivate the quality of compassionate wisdom toward each other — friends and enemies alike.

Russell and many scientists, including Rothblat, Einstein and Pauli felt a moral duty to educate the public about implications of scientific breakthroughs in the aftermath of the development of atomic weapons.

It is in this spirit of ethical responsibility that physicists Dr’s. Michael Ditmars and Francesco Spano call on their CERN colleagues to study and discuss the impact of science on critical issues such as climate change and environmental degradation.

Our Monday evening meeting outside on the cafeteria patio was a fitting prelude to Tuesday’s whirlwind tour of CERN’s labs and experimental stations. We spoke behavioral science (my language) instead of hard science. Spano and Ditmars wondered why so few people showed up to ConCERNed gatherings.

I listened intently as the two described CERN’s competitive environment and the de facto late–night hours of dedicated lab work. Enticing participation was sounding like an intractable problem, yet a potential solution emerged. After learning the most popular event of CERN’s year includes beer and games, I suggested adding this to ConCERNed’s format. They said, “Yes!,” they would give it a try — I have yet to hear the results.

Speaking of fun, I was lucky to have my good friend Diane Park accompanying me on this Neutron Trail Europe Tour. She likes to drive (I don’t). Di put me in charge of navigating with the appallingly meager Google maps she’d printed before we left Vancouver and my equally appalling sense of direction.

Photo: Lesley Stern

When we encountered the French roundabouts, I thought they were really cool, but I think Diane’s reaction, from behind the wheel was more like that of Lesley Stern, a traveller, who writes, “the most mortifying thing about driving in Europe,” is the roundabouts. “Not only do you have to downshift and yield, you have to read the signs in order to get on the right road, because once you’re on the wrong road, god knows when you’ll be able to get off …”

“Go around as many times as you need to even if it takes all day,” is her advice but of course, we didn’t have all day, we were going to CERN for our tour and we were on a schedule.

Diane got us there on time, we received our security clearance and made our own way to the press office, following a line on the floor down an extremely long hallway fitted with office–doors on either side. Here we met Dr. Christine  Sutton, particle physicist and science educator, who served as our lively tour guide and interpreter.

While I talked with Sutton and the physicists, asked questions and did my best to grok the physics and its implications, Diane filmed. As a send–off gift, her partner, the Canadian composer and double bass player, wrote a piece for our CERN adventure, which Diane used as the score for the CERN Accelerated video (see article top).

Mark told me, “Numbers are at the centre of all the music I write. Mathematics is the language of the universe, and music is math in its purest form, produced through the filter of humanity. The music for CERN Accelerated has the numbers 314 (first 3 digits of pi) as a rhythmic and harmonic foundation, and the entire piece is meant to describe a spiral of digits.”

Mark Haney’s new quartet 3339 will premiere at the Cultch in Vancouver on May 11, 2012 in MEriDIANS.

Immediately before visiting CERN, I went to a Neutron Trailhead — Enrico Fermi’s famous lab at Via Panisperna in Rome, Italy, where he did his Nobel–prizewinning work, methodically bombarding slow neutrons at the elements of the periodic table. (Neutron Trail Via Panisperna video here.)

Dr. Ludovico Pontecorvo with model of ATLAS at CERN. Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

It was a nice surprise for me to meet Dr. Ludovico Pontecorvo, nephew of Bruno Pontecorvo and one of the Via Panisperna boys who worked in Fermi’s group. CERN looks to the future, but like my grandfather and the Via Panisperna boys, the physicists here continue to bombard particles and continue to seek precise answers to questions about the quantum nature of the universe.

The CERN Complex of Accelerators. We toured ATLAS, nTOF and ISOLDE. Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

In Enrico’s time, clever scientists made fundamental discoveries with primitive equipment. Now, to answer the next set of questions, they turn to ever–more elaborate and powerful tools. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest particle accelerator in the world and the pride of CERN. Situated along its 27 km. ring, over half a dozen different experimental stations, each with a specific approach, delve into the mysteries of matter and energy.

ATLAS mural at CERN. Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

One of these experiments is ATLAS and Ludovico Pontecorvo is the ATLAS Muon System Project Leader. He explained the incredible precision of the ATLAS experiment to Diane and I. CERN video about detecting particles, details of muon spectrometer analysis at ATLAS.

LHC Control Centre. Note the bottles of champagne, left rear, markers of milestones celebrated at CERN.Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

Next we visited the LHC Control Center and the SM18 facility to see the LHC magnets, responsible for hurtling the sub–atomic particles around the LHC ring at close to the speed of light. Thanks to the largest collection of helium anywhere on Earth (140 tons of it), they function in an environment colder than the Universe. The magnets are a wonder of creative engineering as Christine Sutton explained to me in this four min. Neutron Trail video:

I asked her about the purpose of the experiments and for example, were they looking into how to deal with toxic nuclear waste? She stated, we’re “… hitting different materials with neutrons and seeing the interactions. Some of those interactions might be relevant to nuclear waste solutions, some to what’s going on in stars. Do we understand stellar processes? Some might even have to do with medical applications.” It’s an open–ended inquiry at CERN to find answers but also to be challenged with new questions.

Enrico Chiaveri, nTOF Collaboration Spokesperson at CERN. Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

For our nTOF (neutron time of flight) tour, we walked underground with Enrico Chiaveri, spokesperson for the nTOF Collaboration and donned white lab coats and booties. NTOF looks at arrays of speed of different elements via the neutrons of each.

Amidst the high tech, Dr. Yorick Blumenfeld demonstrates a particle pressure cooker at ISOLDE, CERN. Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

By the time we reached ISOLDE, the last experimental station on our itinerary, I was rather full–up on neutrons, pions, electrons, hadrons and quarks. But I do remember our physicist guide Dr. Yorick Blumenfeld explaining that ISOLDE uses electrons to modulate nuclei. I thought it a fascinating concept.

Dr. Christine Sutton, our CERN Tour Guide with her book "The Particle Odyssey". Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

During a most illuminating particle physics tutorial with Sutton, she imparted to us the concept of sub–atomic particles as tennis balls, transmitting energy between atomic building blocks. She used the example of the pion, which my grandfather had elucidated in post World War II research.

“Pions are a mixture of anti–quarks and positive quarks [as are neutrons, protons, etc.]. …These pions are the tennis balls… they flit between protons and neutrons inside the nucleus, holding it together,” Sutton told us. “Your grandfather’s research with pions got people looking in that direction, he was sort of kickstarting things.”

This cartoon of Dr. Carlo Rubbia, physicist, environmentalist, Nobel laureate and atomic maestro was in his office at CERN amongst other evidence of his brilliance as a scientist. Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

This concept of tennis ball–like sub–atomic particles transmitting various forces came in handy when, later in the week, I met Dr. Carlo Rubbia, physicist, environmentalist and former Director of CERN. At my request, Rubbia kindly explained how he had deepened Enrico Fermi’s concept of the weak interaction — this work won Rubbia and his colleague Simon van der Meer the Nobel Prize in 1984.

The weak interaction is one of the four basic forces of nature — electro–magnetism, gravity and the strong force are the other three. My grandfather’s 1933 theory was not disproved; rather it stood the test of time and was deepened. Rubbia described Enrico Fermi’s theory “as based on point–like object, no specification of what was behind it.” Rubbia and his group discovered the intermediate vector bosons, the particles that transmit the weak force and also showed the weak force is a deeper layer or another aspect of electro–magnetism.

We talked about clean energy and the potential of thorium to help solve the climate/energy crisis. According to Rubbia, the element thorium could replace toxic plutonium and uranium, giving us clean abundant nuclear energy. He said, “technically, there is no problem about solving the energy crisis. … [For example,] Prius [cars] are manufactured in China. Each Prius utilizes six grams of rare earth, which includes thorium. If you took the thorium for all the Prius cars, you would supply China’s energy needs for 22,000 years.”

In the end, I think we both agreed, technology can provide tools, but we humans need to adapt our behavior, or as Rubbia put it, “demonstrate courage,” for us to really expect to live long and prosper.

Statue of Shiva at CERN. Photo: Olivia Fermi © 2011.

As we left, Rubbia’s office, it was threatening to rain, but there was one more thing Diane and I wanted to document — the statue of Shiva, presented to CERN by the Department of Atomic Energy of India.

“O Omnipresent, the embodiment of all virtues, the creator of this cosmic universe, the king of dancers, who dances the Ananda Tandava in the twilight, I salute thee,” reads the inscription, also in Sanskrit, at the base of the statue.

I appreciate Shiva for the reminder of our tiny place in this vast universe. Creation — existence — can only happen in conjunction with destruction, is Shiva’s basic message. CERN is dedicated to studying a tiny piece of the vast nature of the universe. In this sense, the statue is a fitting statement of the humble place of CERN in the cosmos and also of its significance to humanity.

It was here where he taught quantum mechanics, gathering some of Italy’s brightest rising stars around him; and where, with the collaboration of these same students, he did his Nobel Prize winning work bombarding elements with slow neutrons. The tools and methods they used to explore radioactivity back in the 1930′s were rustic to say the least.

In this little  6 min video: tour of building now under construction – in three years will reopen as Centro Fermi, including radioactive? goldfish pond and a toast to Enrico. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Oct 7, 2011 – Thanks to Mark Haney! for cleaning up the sound and adding Respighi track to the Via Panisperna Enrico Fermi video (Mark’s comment below).

Slide from my upcoming talk at TEDxTransmedia Rome: September 30, 2011.

Rome, Italy vies to be called the starting point of the Neutron Trail. It is the birthplace of Enrico Fermi and his wife Laura and where I will celebrate my grandfather Enrico’s 110th birthday on September 29, 2011 at a special location in Rome.

The next day, I am giving a TEDx talk at the MAXXI, also in Rome. The occasion: TEDxTransmedia, a conference dedicated to socially responsible media. Transmedia is current lingo for utilizing a variety of media — books, websites, films, apps, games, songs, events, etc – to spread coherent content. The idea is to utilize the strengths of each type of media to share specific aspects of a story in a multi-dimensional, and at its best, interactive form.

The Neutron Trail is a dynamic, multi-dimensional inquiry, into our shared nuclear legacy, perfectly suited to taking advantage of the variety of media the term transmedia suggests. For example, playing a ceremonial game of squash in 2009, tied the physics of a squash ball to the the physics of the first nuclear reactor. The game was filmed and made into a video loop displayed at M.I.T. as part of a larger exhibition questioning our mental contructs and beliefs around the development of nuclear energy and the a-bomb.

Next stop CERN, Switzerland to visit the European Nuclear Research Institute. If all goes as planned, I’ll tour the facility and meet with the renowned nuclear physicist and renewable energy advocate, Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia.

Stay tuned for updates as events unfold.

Trinity blast after 10 sec. July 16, 1945 at 5:30 am.

In the dark of night, on July 16, 1945 a few scientists and military personnel gathered in the remote desert of New Mexico, USA. Sixty–six years ago the world was at war. The two key aggressors were Germany under the Nazis and Japan.

The secret desert meeting was code–named Trinity and the purpose was to test the first atomic bomb. Now on July 16, 2011, I’m looking back to understand how to move forward. Two months prior to Trinity, Germany fell, ending the war in Europe. Japan was yet to surrender.

Both states committed genocide and war crimes in their respective drives to conquer surrounding nations. The numbers are sobering. Three to four percent of the world’s population was killed in World War II. Roughly, 40–50 million civilians were slaughtered or died of disease and famine in China, smaller Asian countries and all over Europe. Including soldiers, perhaps seventy million died in total worldwide.

The scientists had agreed to build the bomb and to military secrecy and control because of the war. They carried out their test just before dawn on July 16. It was successful by the standards of the time and place. The first atomic bomb exploded and released its mushroom cloud of dust and radioactivity.

Japan attacked the US in December 1941 and the US joined the Chinese in battle against Japan. US soldiers were reduced to starving, diseased slave laborers in Japanese prisoner of war camps. Between helping to free Europe and fighting the Japanese, the US lost close to half a million soldiers.

The first time I visited Trinity in 2009, I didn’t fully understand the horrific scope of World War II. I understood something of the Nazi’s brutality in Europe and against the Jews, but didn’t realize the Japanese military had committed horrible war crimes in China killing roughly fifteen million people. I didn’t have the equanimity I have today.

I did know that three weeks after the first atomic bomb detonated at Trinity, an atomic bomb was dropped, for the first time, over a civilian target at Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945.

The Japanese refused to surrender and three days later the US dropped a second bomb, this time on Nagasaki, Japan. The total death toll between the two cities, including later deaths from cancer is roughly two hundred thousand. After the Nagasaki bombing, Japan surrendered. World War II ended on August 15, 1945 and the world celebrated.

The Japanese people suffered terribly throughout the war and including this final tragic blow they lost approximately three million people.

What I learned about since my visit to Trinity is the larger context within which the Trinity test and subsequent atomic bombings occurred. New information spurs fresh insight.

It’s easy to miss the big picture for many reasons. Time goes by and immediate memory is lost. Some parts of the story come to represent the whole. Summaries and simplifications skew our understanding of history.

Then too, our frames of reference shift. Who is the enemy? The nations who were enemies are no longer. Is the enemy us?

The legacy of what happened on July 16 is still with us. The Trinity test explosion was much more than a proving of new technology. It led to the end of World War II and to the loss of human life.

For safety and security, the test was carried out in the isolation of the desert. It turned out when it comes to nuclear explosions, there’s no such thing as isolation. According to the Centers for Disease Control, humans, livestock and crops in the immediate area around Trinity were exposed to radiation and fallout. Also fallout from the first atomic bomb test showed up in Indiana contaminating Kodak film.

It turned out there was no such thing as secret when it comes to discovery. In 1945, from a technological point of view, humanity took a great leap forward. Yet, from the standpoint of human behavior, we appear stunted. Trinity was the seed from which nuclear weapons proliferation sprouted and spread across the planet. Many of the same scientists who had built the bomb saw the dangers, and alongside visionary political leaders, called for humane and global controls on nuclear weapons technology. It turned out it was a lot easier to create an atomic bomb than to learn how to wisely abstain from misusing its power.

The first time I visited Trinity in 2009, I was full of inner turmoil. I was born after the war. I never knew a time when Japanese people were my enemy.

I wanted to understand the different points of view. I wanted to understand why people came up to me and told me how grateful they were to the scientists including my grandfather Enrico Fermi who built the bomb and presided over the Trinity test.

The people who seemed to thank me by proxy —many of them, but not all, were old enough to directly remember the horror of World War II. They told me they saw the use of the bomb as an end to atrocities and as a vehicle to save lives. I wanted to understand why others saw my grandfather’s work as evil.

That need to understand drove my visit to Trinity and my desire to learn enough of the history to find some answers. Over a number of years I did my research and read some books. I spoke with Japanese people, with scientists, with my own family members and with families of survivors of the Trinity test.

Despite the two perspectives being diametrically opposed, gradually I have come to be able to look at it from either point of view. Doing so requires letting go and accepting, even if momentarily, another’s frame of reference.

Now, if I look from one point of view, I can find the humanness in it. If I look from the other I can as well. Yet it’s hard to see what the two points of view have in common. That requires a melting of the heart, which I feel as I type these words.

If I take the two views at face value, I can find love of human life at the heart of each. What I notice is the two sides are maintained by doing the opposite — by demonizing and reinforcing of differences. I often wonder what this serves some sixty–six years later.

All families suffer losses and betrayals. When families triumph, their members embrace the whole, through hurt and with love finding healing and new behaviors. Cultures do as well. Perhaps our world is part way through healing from the birth of the atomic era and part way toward maturing enough to handle nuclear technology with sanity and wisdom. It’s what the scientists who detonated that first bomb sixty–six years ago hoped for.

It’s something many of us hope for.

I would like to dedicate this day, July 16 as Trinity Day. Let it be a day of balance, where we contemplate maturing not just individually, not just in our families but culturally and as a species: to act a little bit smarter, wiser and healthier. If we all do it, the world will change. Happy Trinity Day.

What's in the Enrico Fermi time capsule? Olivia Fermi, Dr. Paul Weiner (grandson of Enrico Fermi), Kathy Weiner and Ben Weiner (great-grandson of Enrico Fermi). Photo: Blythe Olshan-Findlay/Olivia Fermi

If you were around in 1949, and someone asked you to select items to place in a time capsule, what would you have picked? This was the task my grandfather Enrico Fermi was given and today we learned what he chose. Some 62 years later, the occasion has nothing to do with an anniversary.

Rather the University of Chicago is demolishing the Research Institute (RI), where my grandfather worked after the war and which contained the time capsule, to build a new and more modern facility. Alumni, friends and some of our family gathered to watch Dr. Riccardo Levi–Setti pull the capsule from within the cornerstone and discover its contents.

It seemed a fitting honor for the paleontologist–physicist who, in 1992, took over Enrico’s office and became director of the Fermi Institute (part of RI). The  building is across the street from the Henry Moore statue “Nuclear Energy” marking the spot where Enrico achieved the first controlled release of atomic energy in 1942.

Dr. Roger Hildebrand, physicist, spoke about the objects as Riccardo lifted each from the capsule. The two men worked with Enrico and they and their wives were all good friends.

Levi-Setti hands Hildebrand 1949-era road maps placed in time capsule by Enrico Fermi. Photo: Olivia Fermi

Some of us tried to guess what was in the capsule before the ceremonial opening. The most popular guess — newspapers — turned out to be the closest to reality. Items included a University of Chicago course catalog, an airline schedule, road maps and a promotional brochure: The new frontier of technology: Atomic Research.

Roger Hildebrand displays Enrico Fermi time capsule item: “The new frontier of technology: Atomic Research”. Photo: Olivia Fermi

Reading this page today from the 1949 brochure highlights a certain amount of disconnect between what was envisioned and where our world is now with atomic energy and atomic weapons. (photo below):

Page from brochure "Atomic Research". Photo: Olivia Fermi

Bundle of maps from Enrico Fermi time capsule. Photo: Olivia Fermi

Here are two videos of Enrico Fermi time capsule opening. The first one is the mini two minute version, the second one is the full nine minute version including Roger Hildebrand’s humorous commentary and close-ups of the items; plus more photos and story below.

Anything else? Roger Hildebrand & Riccardo Levi-Setti peer into Enrico Fermi time capsule. Photo: Olivia Fermi

Enrico Fermi time capsule. Photo: Olivia Fermi

Some of the guests…

Far right: Steve Berry, chemist-physicist, spoke during the ceremony. Photo: Olivia Fermi

In the 1960′s, Steve Berry lobbied in Chicago for clean air alongside my grandmother Laura Fermi. In 1971, the Environmental Protection Agency enacted the Clean Air Act, which mandated states to implement air pollution control laws. Shortly after this success Laura Fermi told her girlfriends Lilla Fano (widow of Dr. Ugo Fano) and Steve’s wife Carla Berry, “Now that clean air has been picked up by Washington, it’s time to move on.” Laura Fermi, with her friends, then formed the first handgun control lobby in America, which eventually led to the Brady Campaign.

The mathematician and dean of the University Robert Fefferman introduced and closed the event. Also viewing the time capsule opening were Dr. Jim Cronin, Nobel laureate, Courtenay Wright, physicist and go enthusiast, worked under Enrico Fermi and his wife Sara Paretsky, mystery author, Henry Frisch, Fermi Institute physicist (born in Los Alamos to two Manhattan Project physicists), Priscilla Frisch, astrophysicist, Mel Shochet, physicist, Jon Rosner, theoretical physicist, Stewart Rice, chemist, Howard Zar, Peter Hildebrand. [Send me an email if we missed you!]

Awaiting Fermi time capsule opening, University of Chicago. Front row from left: Priscilla Frisch, astrophysicist (back to camera); Henry Frisch, Fermi Institute physicist; Sara Paretsky, mystery author, and her husband Courtenay Wright, physicist worked under Enrico Fermi. Photo: Olivia Fermi

Students with Olivia Fermi after her Neutron Trail presentation at Montclair State University March 23, 2011. From left to right: Mariam, Stephanie C. Lear, Merari Mejia, Olivia Fermi, Binta Jalloh and Marianela Parra. Photo: Stephanie C. Lear

Students and faculty from the colleges of science and art at Montclair State University in New Jersey welcomed me to their campus last week. Both my Neutron Trail – Elemental presentation, a keynote to launch their Second Annual Physics and Art Exhibition (Wed, March 23) and Neutron Trail workshop (March 24) were well attended and enthusiastically received.

In the workshop, twenty honors and graduate students, who also attended the talk, explored themes of legacy, power and influence in an interactive format. It was a personal thrill to launch the first-ever Neutron Trail workshop, which I had been gestating for months.

Students reported positive shifts in how they view their own power and the power of others. Many left with new insights about volition and their capacities to recover from adversity. Exercises offered mental challenges and physical interaction along with discussion. With the Neutron Trail material as fuel, it was natural for me to utilize my experience as a facilitator, trainer and martial artist to create this type of workshop. I loved working with the students and am looking forward to offering more.

The Deans of Art and Science hosted the Neutron Trail events in conjunction with my participation as a provocateur in performances of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange’s The Matter of Origins.

My whole stay has been punctuated with delightful meetings both planned and random. Professor Peter Lax, the Abel prize winning mathematician, and his wife Lori, violist, host me in Manhattan. They were my guests at a Matter of Origins performance last Thursday. Peter said, “The dance was outstanding.” Lori remarked, “that’s why I like modern dance and I don’t like ballet. Ballet has a sameness about it. Modern dance offers something new. It’s much closer to the here and now of the human soul.”

At a faculty lunch last week, I met Mary Lou West, physicist, who has a special interest in cosmology, asteroids and magnetism. We spoke of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion and the power of the sun. Our conversation highlighted some of the most troubling implications of our nuclear legacy — the struggles for greater power in spheres human and high-tech.

Fission, the splitting of heavy atoms like uranium, is what today’s nuclear power plants and fission (uranium) bombs use. Fusion combines the lightest elements releasing far greater power than fission.

“Our sun and all the stars generate energy via nuclear fusion,” explained West. It is fusion energy from the sun 93 million miles (150 million km) away lighting our days and giving us warmth.

Bringing the sun’s energy to Earth is almost unfathomable. Yet the United States and Soviet Union did just that in the 1950’s creating the first fusion (hydrogen) bombs. In their Cold War race to create ever-greater weapons, they harnessed forces capable of ending life as we know it.

Today research is ongoing into how to take plentiful hydrogen and turn it into what could be the cleanest, most efficient energy production method ever devised. “We’ve made a few hydrogen bombs, but we’ve yet to make a hydrogen power plant. We’re just taking baby steps,” commented West.

When I read a draft of this blog post to Peter Lax, over breakfast this morning, he stated, “Fusion is full of instabilities. I don’t think it should figure into our [near term] policy for a source of energy.” Stewart Brand, the environmentalist and futurist, are more optimistic about fusion as part of the solution to our energy crisis.

Learning more about the potentials and pitfalls of cleaner, safer nuclear energy is a priority for me on the Neutron Trail. At the same time, I’m keeping my central focus on us how we evolve in groups. How might we change our own behavior — in communities, corporations and as countries — to adapt to the challenges of peak space on Earth? Peak resources? To human-induced climate change on a planet chock full of us homo sapiens.

Keeping a balance on the Neutron Trail between people and science is only part of it. I also have a firm commitment to play along the way.

Going to dinner alone last Tuesday, I saw (and heard) a double table of seven guys and one woman, talking, laughing and lively. As I walked by, one of them called, “You looking for a group?”

Banter ensued. I asked what they were doing here at a hotel on a strip mall highway, in New Jersey. “Tires. Well we’re tired too, but really we’re at a tire convention.”

Someone else asked me, “What kind of tires do you have?”

“I’m in a car co-op,” I chirp proudly.

“You’re one of those!” A quiet young man, at the end of the table, invited me to join their group and I did.

Another of the group, Shawn queried me about what was I doing at this hotel. “Neutron Trail,” I replied.

He wanted to know what the Neutron Trail is, but the conversation flowed in another direction. More jokes went by about this and that.

Shawn asked again, “What is the Neutron Trail? Is that about science or the environment?”

“You figured it out,” I told him, “It’s both.”

It didn’t stop there. Pretty soon Shawn, who studies physics as a hobby, and Patrick, who is Italian-Irish, had gotten out of me about Enrico Fermi, my famous physicist grandfather. Flipped out the two of them and left the rest of the table cold. I’m used to this.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “Most people haven’t heard of Enrico. On we went. With humor and wit they enticed me to share my story, asking all sorts of questions about my talk and the Neutron Trail. Patrick, Shawn and Rick wanted to come to the presentation and seemed disappointed when they learned it conflicted with their tire convention duties. “Why don’t you be my warm-up act?,” I said, “You know the Tire Trail.” We all laughed.

In the wake of the crisis at the Fukushima Nuclear plant in Japan last week, BBC Radio contacted me. In this five minute interview, aired this morning, I also talk about the Neutron Trail, my grandfather Enrico Fermi’s response and the future of nuclear energy.

Listen to Olivia Fermi – BBC World Update Radio Interview

To read the transcript:

Transcript of BBC World Update Radio Interview, aired March 21, 2011
Presenter: Dan Damon, Producer: Pearse Lynch

BBC:         The work continues on the Fukushima plant. The disaster there has reignited the debate surrounding nuclear energy: gift or curse?

Olivia Fermi is someone who understands that dilemma at a personal level.

Her grandmother Laura Fermi was a writer and environmental pioneer.

Her grandfather Enrico Fermi was the Nobel Laureate, experimental and nuclear physicist known for his development of the first nuclear reactor — known as Chicago Pile I — and with J. Robert Oppenheimer is frequently referred to as the father of the atomic bomb.

I asked Olivia Fermi if coming from an inheritance of nuclear understanding gives her a greater level of comfort or perhaps a heightened concern over humanity’s relationship with the atom.

Fermi:         Growing up with it has made me more aware of it. From the age of five, I was made aware of the power and dangers of nuclear energy. It’s like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. If you’re put into that situation then you tend to think about it more.

We need nuclear energy now. We’re a planet of seven billion people. It’s kind of like we’re halfway through the birth canal with nuclear energy. We have a lot of problems to deal with and yet it’s giving us power. The Japanese people as a whole are suffering because of a lack of power right now and fresh water and they’re having to ration electricity.

BBC:        You didn’t know your grandfather but you learned a lot about him from your grandmother and your family. What was his idea of the potential danger and benefit from nuclear power, from nuclear fission?

Fermi:        That’s a very tough question to answer. My grandfather was very quiet on political matters. I found a quote from shortly before he died (in 1954), where he talks about technology outstripping our maturity as a race or as a society to handle. And that he fervently hoped that we would grow to handle it properly.

BBC:        Did he have doubts about what he had done, about what he had helped to create? For example, like Oppenheimer he began to worry about what he did.

Fermi:        I’m sure he did. He was never as outspoken as Oppenheimer or Niels Bohr or Bethe or Szilard or many of the other scientists. My grandmother, his wife, was a Jew in Italy [where fascism and anti-Semitism were taking over, putting my grandmother, my mom and her brother at grave risk]. They fled Italy when my grandfather won the Nobel Prize in 1939. They were Italians and in the United States at that time Italians were enemy aliens because Italy was allied with Hitler.

My grandfather had top-secret clearance, the highest top-secret clearance that can be given to a civilian. At the same time he was an enemy alien. I think that kept him very active in science and very quiet politically.

On top of that, he was impeccable in his work, one of the most brilliant scientists of the twentieth century. I think he had a, maybe, naiveté or professional blindness that politicians and policymakers would be as impeccable with their work as he was with his. He believed very strongly in open science and in democracy.

BBC:        Tell me about the Neutron Trail.

Fermi:        The Neutron Trail is a project I started. It came out of a personal inquiry visiting the people and places most impacted by our shared nuclear legacy. I’ve been going around visiting and meeting physicists, activists, environmental activists, artists. It’s quite a journey to start with this premise where we’re not following through with nuclear waste and yet on the other hand benefiting from the power.

If government or whatever body it is allows nuclear waste to be put in cardboard boxes and dumped in trenches, as it was in the Savannah River Plant, which is one of the largest plants in the United States, then of course, people are going to be harmed. The Neutron Trail is all about looking at all the different realities and putting them together so that we can basically face what we’ve done in the past and make better decisions in the future.

BBC:        That’s Olivia Fermi. Her grandfather was one of those who developed the first nuclear reactor and the future of nuclear power is something that she worries about and wonders about all the time. If you google “BBC World Update”, you’ll be able to see some pictures Olivia sent us including a couple of pages from her grandfather’s notebook. Just some remarkable documents there. And if you understand them, it will be interesting to hear from you.

You’ve been listening to World Update from the BBC in London.

In our Neutron Trail documentary film shoot yesterday, John O'Brian and I shared nuclear postcards.

Last summer I was thrilled when two executive producers approached me to make a feature-length documentary about the Neutron Trail. Yesterday was our first day of shooting.

In between, the director and I met face to face and conversed via email. I shared the treasures I’d collected, the insights I’d earned and the access to key people who might agree to be in the film. Mostly he listened, took notes and reflected his understanding of my external experiences on the Neutron Trail. With the producers, we wrote proposals to funders and succeeded in procuring seed money for the demo shoot yesterday.

I am a Neutron Trail Walker. I visit people and places most impacted by our shared nuclear legacy. But in some ways, what motivates me is more important than who I talk with or where I go. As I walk the Neutron Trail, questions appear like leaves in spring. As answers appear, the questions, like autumn leaves fade and fall, dissolving into the ground.

New questions spring forth and orient me about where to step next on the Trail. Through staying true to my inner orientation, the Neutron Trail is becoming an interactive, expanding community-building event on the move.

As we collaborated, I found myself wondering if the director really understood what motivates me? Or for that matter, did I? The beauty and power of true inquiry starts with any burning question. Answer that question and perhaps a more fundamental, underlying question will appear.

The director was keen to hear all about my Enrico, but barely seemed to notice the role Enrico’s widow, my grandmother Laura Fermi played. This was really bothering me.

In my mind, the director was reflecting a larger cultural perception. It’s easy for all of us to notice technology while remaining unaware of the kinds of holistic endeavors my grandmother championed. Technology is great but not without common sense and human caring.

Without Enrico Fermi, the history of atomic energy would not be the same. Without Laura Fermi, there wouldn’t be a Neutron Trail. I felt impelled to bridge the communication gap between myself and the director.

She was the one who came at our nuclear legacy from a humanist/activist perspective. She carried on after Enrico died in 1954, attending the first International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy (1955) as recorded in her book Atoms for the World. Then in 1959, Laura Fermi became a pioneer in the environmental movement.

Professor John O’Brian, an art historian at UBC with a vast atomic archive, generously responded to the invitation from the director and myself to hold our first shoot with him at his home in Point Grey. After a seamless setup by the crew, we sat at a table in John’s dining room and showed each other nuclear postcards. We talked, on camera, about the Neutron Trail, my grandparents and the moral and ethical questions Laura raised.

Together with the director and the crew, we created a space where I found ample opportunities to talk about the challenges, the dangers and the rewards of being a Neutron Trail Walker. John and I went beyond interview. We created a generative dialogue — continually eliciting ideas and feelings and insights, one from the other.

During the filming, the director asked me to talk about Enrico’s personality. I answered as well as I could, despite some inner friction at the presumption, considering I’d never met my grandfather. Then I took a risk, deciding to tackle directly the question of Laura’s importance.

I segued to my grandmother’s pivotal role in my development and in the world.

Spontaneously my hands came together in horizontal prayer position. Wriggling the point forward where my fingers touched, I announced, with the camera as my witness, my grandmother Laura gave me a route forward out of the paralysis, out of the strange mixture of pride and guilt I felt growing up under my grandfather’s shining sun (not shadow). Lo and behold, under the gaze of director, camera and crew, a new articulation had emerged.

When I was five, I already knew radioactive fallout travelling through the atmosphere from above-ground nuclear tests was a bad thing for milk, bones and teeth. I knew my grandfather was a very great scientist and someone to be admired. His work was related to nuclear fallout. Out of these disconnected messages, I came to live with a strange mix of pride and guilt.

Also, when I was five, Laura and her girlfriends invited me to fold flyers with them. The flyers were part of an ultimately successful campaign to enact air pollution controls in Chicago.

When I was seven, my grandmother gave me a leather bound journal with gilt-edged pages and exhorted me to write. She told me the pen is mightier than the sword and my imagination, if I troubled to write about it, could effect the world in good and positive ways. She gave me a path out of the pride and guilt, a path, which has become the Neutron Trail.

What motivates me is more important than who I talk with or where I go. The Neutron Trail is foremost a humanistic inquiry into our shared nuclear legacy –  dedicated to all of us alive today who imagine possibilities for human evolution, who imagine we can grow up enough to properly handle the technologies we’ve birthed into our world.

I am grateful to the director. His questions represent the questions of the audience for a film about my travels on the Neutron Trail. The director’s questions are arriving early, from the future. They test me and prepare me for what is to come: a future hopefully filled with Neutron Trail Walkers who may look to our film for orientation before setting off in new directions.

The stated goals of yesterday’s shoot were to make a screen test of Olivia and to see how we would work together. As the make-up artist packed away her powders and the cameraman and soundman loaded their gear into their truck, our Executive Producer said the session exceeded his expectations. This was wonderful feedback indeed. Throughout, the director, said, “good,” in his gentle way, all the while orchestrating the shoot. Everyone liked the way I expressed myself and talked about Laura’s contribution to the Neutron Trail. We all liked how we worked together. My heart feels satisfied, purring like a happy, contented kitty. It was a dynamic and wonderful experience.

Apparently, in a few days we’ll see the director’s cut of the footage and maybe some of the outtakes. I want to learn from what worked as well as what didn’t. From 1.5 hours of footage (including a shot of me dancing to “Radioactive Mama” (1960)), the director will make a 5-minute piece to submit to funders. There are many possibilities for the documentary and it’s much too soon to say how or when we will move into production. Definitely, we are at the beginning of a potentially very exciting project…. stay tuned!

* * * *

Our shoot was bracketed by the news of the massive, 8.9 on the Richter scale, earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Northern Japan. Ways to send donations to Japanese survivors.

We on the Neutron Trail are especially following what happens with the four nuclear reactors in the earthquake zone. Earlier today there was an explosion at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant and now an emergency at a second plant in the same facility has occurred. News reports are changing so fast it is impossible to say more, other than at least some workers have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. (as at March 12, 3:30 pm PST).

* * *

UPDATE – May 2011. In a surprising turn, the documentary project was cancelled. Now it is July and I am over the jolt and happily looking ahead to new and even more fitting opportunities. The Neutron Trail is about active and empathic conversations: I’m networking and researching generative and collaborative media forms loosely under the umbrella of Transmedia. Transmedia is all about generating content and dialogue through various media including live urban, on the street games, film, music, apps,  and enhanced books.