Cool Stuff
Cool Stuff
I love when I’m reminded of how cool our jobs are in radiation oncology. Like any job, physics and dosimetry can fall into a daily rut but we work with an amazing piece of technology on the forefront of modern science.
As part of our membership in the AAPM, we all receive Physics Today magazines each month. I really look forward to mine, and I read it cover to cover. I like to pretend I understand most of it. This month’s special issue dedicated to Quantum Mechanics is particularly fascinating to me. I dreamed of being a theoretical physicist since I was a kid discovering the truths of the universe like Einstein, and reading physics today has a way of taking my brain to that wonderment of cutting edge physics and lets me revel in my dreams.
The fundamentals of quantum mechanics happen on a little smaller scale than what we deal with daily for cancer treatments, but we get to use the tool everyday that the scientists used to unlock its mysteries – the linear accelerator. In the article, “Stories from the Early Days of Quantum Mechanics,” Isidor Isaac Rabi laments to his audience in 1979, “Now, in a day when we need all this big equipment for physics experiments, such as those vast accelerators we have, I begin to think: Will God reveal himself only to rich people?” This may not directly relate to our modest linear accelerators we use in radiation therapy, but when I read that, all I could think is that we bring these wonderful 3–4-million-dollar machines to everyone in the country who needs it.
A couple of articles later in “Magic Moments with John Bell,” we learn that John and his wife, Mary Ross, spent several years as accelerator physicists. John Bell had strong impact on the field of modern Quantum Mechanics. It’s so cool to me that we work on versions of a machine that some of the physics world’s greatest thinkers used to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
What does the future hold for quantum mechanics and its influence on radiation therapy? Much of the technology we use daily to control our linacs is a result of the early days of pure research that experimentalists created to explore quantum mechanics and the Standard Model. The same can be said for MRI machines that play a vital role in cancer care. I think that quantum computing is the future, and it will have a major impact on medicine. Just think of how fast your plans will calculate 😉! The advances in computing power had a major impact on medicine as CT machines improved by leaps and bounds through the 90’s and 2000’s. I envision something similar happening with the complexity of radiation therapy.
It’s nice to be reminded every now and then of just how cool our jobs are, and I’m happy to be reminded every month in Physics Today that we are part of an amazing community.