LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES, December 16, 2019 /EINPresswire.com/ -- As the world becomes increasingly more volatile, and everyone seems to want to fight each other rather than live in peace, science breaks down the barriers between different cultures to realize incredible achievements. We can reach out to the entire world through the scientific community and use the knowledge developed through science to improve the wellbeing of everyone.

Dr. Tom Bowles is a nuclear physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the most prestigious laboratories in the world. He served as the laboratory's Chief Science Officer from 2004 to 2006, as well as science advisor to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson from 2006 to 2010.

When Dr. Bowles was first offered a job at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he said yes without even asking the salary. That was because it was the science that was most important to him.

“I grew up during the space race, so I’ve always been interested in science,” says Dr. Bowles. “What is the universe made of? How do stars generate energy? If the universe is expanding, will it expand forever? Will it coast to a stop? Will it collapse back in on itself?

“One of the things that’s defined my life is looking at things holistically. Instead of just looking at one part of a problem, we need to understand all the different parts, from the scale of the universe to subatomic particles.”

As program manager for the nuclear physics program, Dr. Bowles dedicated most of his years of research to the study of neutrino physics.

“Neutrinos are produced through the fusion processes in the center of the sun, so we built observatories a mile underground to look into the center of the sun,” recalls Dr. Bowles. “We wanted to experiment to see whether neutrinos had enough mass to close the universe. It had been observed that there was a deficit of neutrinos coming from the Sun. One of the hypotheses was these neutrinos don't really disappear on the way to earth. There are three types of neutrinos and they change from one type to another type. When we observed all three types of neutrinos, we found the right number of neutrinos but that they did change between types. That means neutrinos do have mass but, thankfully, not enough to end the universe.” However, neutrinos do account for 5% of the mass of the Universe, which is as much as all the normal matter. We still don’t know what 90% of the universe is made up of. We call it dark matter and dark energy, but we don’t know what it is.

As the chief science officer and chief scientist at Los Alamos, Dr. Bowles oversaw all science programs, with a $108 million yearly budget for discretionary research considered important to the future of the country.

“I was the primary contact for efforts outside the laboratory with businesses, technology, universities and the public,” says Dr. Bowles. “When I was asked to serve as science advisor from Los Alamos to Governor Richardson, he said, ‘I'm looking for big bold ideas.’ That sounded like fun, so I accepted, and we did some really good things for New Mexico.”

As a Christian, Dr. Bowles says he believes there's absolutely no contention or issue between science and religion.

“Science simply answers: What are the laws of nature? What causes an apple to fall? Those are comparatively simple questions,” says Dr. Bowles. “Religion, philosophy answers the question of “why.” Why are we here? Why is there good and evil? Why do we die? Science can't answer any of those questions. That's not what we do. When I look out at the universe, it is so incredible and so beautiful, who but God could have created something like this?”

CUTV News Radio will feature Thomas J. Bowles in an interview with Jim Masters on December 18th at 4pm EST

Listen to the show on BlogTalkRadio

If you have any questions for our guest, please call (347) 996-3389

Lou Ceparano
CUTV News
(631) 850-3314
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