Breakthrough Junior Challenge Winner Reveal! Homeroom with Sal - Thursday, December 3

Hi everyone, Sal Khan here from Khan Academy. Welcome to the Homeroom livestream! We have a very exciting show, I guess you could call this a show today, where we're gonna announce the 2020 Breakthrough Junior Challenge winner.

But before we jump into that, I will give my standard announcements. Reminder that we are not for profit; we can only exist through donations from folks like yourself. So if you're in a position to do so, please think about going to khanacademy.org/donate.

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Last announcement: there's a version of this livestream that you can get as a podcast wherever you typically get your podcasts. If you go to "Homeroom with Sal," the podcast.

And with that, I am excited to introduce our first guest, who is not the surprise guest, but she will help me introduce the surprise guest, Hilary and Alice. Hillary, thanks for joining! Hillary is the 2017 winner of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge. Welcome, Hillary!

"Hi, hi Sal! It's really amazing to be here. I'm really honored."

No, well, I still remember, I'm one of the judges, and I still remember fondly your entry, two, two, three years ago. Well, you know, I am curious before we introduce this year's winner, what got—what made you try to win the Breakthrough Junior Challenge? What was kind of your mindset into it, and how has it affected your life since then?

"Yeah, so I actually joined it the first time when I was in 11th grade in 2016, so that's four years ago. And for me, it was a huge gamble because I knew that the Breakthrough Junior Challenge was a large competition, right? And so I was at first really intimidated because if this was international, then I'm going to be up against all these other really smart high school kids from all over the world. But I just went through it anyway because like I always say this, I have this mindset that if you fail, you never really fail, you only learn. And so I carried that mindset with me. So I tried that the first time and I ended up getting the special prize that year, the popular vote, and then I tried again the next year. It was my very last try because I was already 18 at that time. So I was like, okay, I need to put everything into this entry; I need to invest a lot of effort into it. And so it really just—I guess it all worked out and I did win that year. This competition has actually changed my life so much. I mean for—and even until now, four years later, I feel like it's the gift that keeps on giving. It just has led me to MIT, it has led me to science communication, it has led me to reach so many people all around the Philippines and the world, and it's just really changed my life so much. I'm certain that it could make the same kind of change for this year's winner, and I'm really excited to see how it pans out for them as well."

No, I think what's really powerful about it is just the experience of doing it and producing the videos. It doesn't just take deep insight in math or science; it takes great communication skills, great creativity. I think the winners are—you know, I tend to give extra points in my head for the folks that can make me laugh a little bit. And you were definitely one of those!

So yeah, there's a lot of really cool skills that come into this together. Well, you know, I have more questions, but I think it would be fun to ask you and the new winner, so maybe we can announce this together. So this year's winner for her video on quantum tunneling, Murriam Segaye. Congratulations!

"I have so many questions for you! I guess both myself and Hillary have questions, although I have questions for both of you, but I guess first of all, Mariam, what does it feel like to win?"

"Absolutely crazy! It's just unreal; I'm still absorbing it. I don't know, it's just been—nothing's gonna be the same from now on, and I'm just waiting, and I'm on my ride."

Yeah, right! Well, before I dig deeper, because I have a ton of questions actually for both you and Hillary, I think it's worth it for everyone to take a look at Miriam's entry and learn a little bit about quantum tunneling.

"So I was watching my brother play this video game, and he used a cheat code that let his character do a 'walk through walls' hack. He pushed himself against a barrier in the game, hit some buttons, and boom! His character appeared on the other side. Imagine if he could walk through walls in real life. And it turns out you can at a quantum level! We're talking on a scale of the stuff that makes up atoms. Strange things happen at a quantum level. For one thing, all subatomic particles, they've got split personalities. One personality is a wave and the other one's a particle. But they're still one being. When you want to know where they are, they seem like a particle, and when you want to know what they're doing, they behave like waves. But you can't ask both personalities at the same time. Basically, they've got some serious commitment issues. And that means we can only guess where they might be.

Imagine an electron has two dice, six sides each. What the electron rolls is where it will sit along the line. Our electron can't commit to a position until the dice are rolled. Remember, there's commitment issues! So as our electron is shaking the dice, it's everywhere at once! Something like us trying to measure its position has to force the electron to let go of the dice and pick a spot of all combinations. Getting a seven is more likely than two or twelve. In reality, though, the electron can be in more than just ten spots since there are many more combinations than just two dice.

Now we can picture subatomic particles as this: a probability wave. This wave will tell us the odds of finding a particle at that location. Say this is our electron's probability wave. The peaks of the wave is where we're most likely to find the electron, and in the valleys, it's less likely we find it there. Let's say the electron is heading towards a barrier. As it hits the barrier, the wave bounces off. But let me tell you something about waves: they are not perfect! For example, a beam of light doesn't perfectly reflect off of the surface; a small fraction of light can get through. Waves won't bounce off perfectly, so neither will the electron wave. Sometimes, the wave can slip through the barrier. When the wave is in the barrier, the chances of finding an electron there goes down by a lot. But if the barrier is thin enough, the wave can reach the other side before it dies off.

So what does that mean? Remember, the wave tells us how likely it is to find the electron there. This means there's a chance we can find our electron on the other side of the barrier or in there too! Once it's on the other side, we can say the electron tunneled through the barrier. This is quantum tunneling. And that's how subatomic particles can walk through walls!

Okay, so little elementary particles can walk through walls, but I can't because my body's made up of more than a quadrillion of these quantum objects and the odds of all of them tunneling through the wall is practically impossible. So why does quantum tunneling even matter? It's the reason we're alive! Quantum tunneling allows nuclear fusion. Sounds familiar? That's how our sun releases huge amounts of energy that makes life on our planet possible!

So how can you quantum tunnel at home? You already are! It's one of the ways our DNA mutates. Among other rules that quantum physics plays in our biology, quantum physics makes it seem like the world is playing cheat codes on us, but it isn't! It's how the universe works! Maybe the quantum world is telling us that when faced with an obstacle, there's a small chance we can defy expectations and reach barriers."

[Music]

[Laughter]

I actually—while re-watching it, I watched it obviously as a judge and really enjoyed it, but I now see a metaphor between quantum tunneling and winning the Breakthrough Junior Challenge. Both of you all have quantum tunneled!

Yes!

Mariam, let me ask you, why did you pick quantum tunneling, and what were you thinking as you went through the process?

"I didn't know what quantum tunneling was, and at first I thought I was going to make my video on entropy. But I was watching a video about entropy and it was talking about like the universe reaches its maximum entropy like quantum tunneling will happen and the res—the universe will like restart! And I was like, wait, wait! What is quantum tunneling? What do you mean the universe will start? And I searched it up, and I was like, how have I never heard about this? Because there's a lot of like quantum phenomena that you hear about, but I've never heard of quantum tunneling. And it—I just kind of went down a rabbit full of articles and stuff, and I just thought I can tell a story; this is better than entropy, so I went with that."

And I'm curious for both of you. I mean start with Mariam, and then Hillary, have y'all done videos before? Have y'all done anything like this before?

"This was just kind of on a whim."

"Yeah, let me have a shot at that."

Mariam?

"Yeah, like at school we do have like project-based learning things, so like once you learn something you might like make a video about it or something. We've definitely had video projects before, and I've made a few videos for class."

What about you, Hillary?

"Well, for me, I definitely had zero experience! That's why at first I was really hesitant to join the challenge because I was making videos, but I actually had experience in making graphic—graphic design because I used to make fan art for the show called Doctor Who. I was so obsessed that I just had to make fan art, and that was when I learned the skill, like individu—so that's how I started it."

Very, very cool! You know we have another fun video; this is an excerpt of Hillary's video from a couple of years ago, which is also a very—you know, I thought I fully understood relativity before I watched it, but there's a couple of good metaphors or visualizations you have there that were like, oh yeah, that's a really cool way of thinking about it, and actually on the quantum tunneling side as well!

But there's a fun video that myself and Scott Kelly recorded to surprise Mariam, and Felipe, if you could show the video of Mariam finding out about her winning.

"I believe the video creator's name was Mariam. One of the things that I think we can do together is two of the judges, above many others, is maybe to speak directly to Mariam, and you know, I just want to let you know, Mariam, you are the winner of the Junior Challenge! The $250,000 scholarship and the $100,000 science lab for your school, they are yours! Congratulations!"

So tell us what was going on in your head, Mariam, when that was happening?

"I think my head just froze! There wasn't like, there was no processing or anything. It was just like disbelief and shock! Like when I walked into that room, I was told something completely different, and I just didn't think anything was going to happen."

What did they tell you? What did they tell you was going to happen? Like why were you all there? And it looks like y'all were in a socially distanced classroom. What was going on?

"Yeah, so we were told that we were coming to school; it was a Friday where we didn't have school and we were just told like, oh yeah, you're gonna film like this grade six video like to advertise for school for sixth graders in town to come. And then they’re like, oh actually first, Alberta Education wanted to film some stock footage of kids reacting to a certain video. And my principal, Mr. Barr, he's just like, oh, I picked this podcast for you guys to like react to! And I was like, okay, I'm just like completely dismissing all the clues that were happening, like 'oh it's all gone, okay!' Oh, there's a filming crew, oh whatever, oh it's not Kelly and Falco, oh nothing! Like you know, oh, they're talking about the Breakthrough Junior Challenge; it just never—I don't know."

Oh, that's good. So you have a healthy amount of naivete about you, which made the surprise, which made the—you're easy to surprise, which is always a good thing in life!

Well, you know, Hillary, at the beginning you talked a little bit about this, but I'd love you to, you know, kind of tell Mariam what you know what the world has in store for you. You know, how you use the scholarship money, what happened with the lab money, what has your teacher done with the money?

"So, I mean your life is never going to be the same after this. And right when I think that I could finally move on for the research challenge, I keep getting new cool things, new opportunities because of the stuff that I did with the Breakthrough Junior Challenge. So it's really amazing! And I mean, of course, it led me to college here at MIT. It's fully free! And it's really amazing to go to school without having to think about money at all! And so I feel really grateful for that! And now that you have that scholarship, you will have that kind of freedom also to pursue your own interests without worrying so much about money, so that's always great, and you will also have so many opportunities to meet cool people. I mean, just at the awarding ceremony—I don't know how that's going to work this year because I mean, the pandemic—but you will meet so many cool people. And in college, you're going to meet even cooler professors, and then you might even—I don't know—consider doing science communication from now on because then you're really good at explaining things! So that's like you have a knack for that! And for me, I kind of capitalized on that. After that, after the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, before the challenge, I was only thinking about doing pure astrophysics, but now I'm also considering science communication and broader impacts as well, so that life is never going to be the same from now on."

I'm curious, Mariam, what are you thinking about doing? You are a senior, so you are applying to college right now?

"Yeah, I am a senior! I am not entirely sure—I know I want to major in physics and hopefully some kind of program that does have like a more interdisciplinary approach to science and physics. But I know I will like in the future—or actually now from now on—want to do science communication. I've always admired science communication."

Yeah, well I think both of y'all could do both! You know, I always feel that if you really understand something, you should be able to explain it, or if you explain it, you should really be able to understand it. So I think they go hand in hand!

It's funny, sometimes when I’m doing research for something on Khan Academy, I'll call a friend who's an expert in the field, and I was like, you have this really what I think is probably a dumb question: why does A lead to B in there? Like that's actually a fundamental question—no one knows! I was like, oh wow, I've touched on an area of research! And I have no doubt that both of y'all are going to do incredible things.

And I actually—I wonder, I have so many questions for both Mariam and Hillary! I remind everyone watching—put questions on YouTube and Facebook! I'm going to surface as many of those questions as possible to Mariam and Hillary.

Mariam, I gotta say, I don't think you're going to have any trouble getting into college. I'm assuming your grades and test scores are decent.

[Laughter]

If you need a tutor, let me know! I don't think you do.

"And you're on my tutor?"

"Yes, yeah, I mean, you know, not to be shameless about it, but both of y'all do cite Khan Academy as playing some role in your lives, you know, I don’t want to shoot our horn too much, but—"

[Laughter]

"And I'll also say, the part that that event that Hillary is referring to is normally it's in November, but because of COVID, I think they're going to delay it to March or whatever, but they're still going to do it. And I have to say it is the fanciest party that I go to every year! I bought a tuxedo just for that party! It's the only time in the year that I wear a tuxedo, and I go hungry because the food is really good! So I look forward to hopefully seeing y'all there!"

So, let's see, there's a bunch of questions here.

Let's see, I mean there's one from Facebook, which is just, it feels like just a compliment, which is always good to receive! Peter Mastroianni says, "Outstanding! Wonderful communicator! Kudos! Makes an extremely complicated and otherwise seemingly impossible challenging concept understandable! You will inspire and open minds with your work!"

Applause

So people are loving it, and I think that both of y'all’s work has kind of met that bar!

You know, Smart Bear 5 from YouTube, Hillary and Mariam, what are your future plans? You've touched on it a little bit.

Maybe I'll start with you, Hillary. Hillary, are you a physics major, or what are you majoring in?

"Yeah, currently I'm a physics major here at MIT. I also do research, and during the weekends, I also do science communication talks in the Philippines, so I've kind of been doing both hand in hand."

Wow! So where are you right now? Are you distance learning from the Philippines, or are you in Cambridge?

"I'm in MIT, actually! I'm on campus!"

"Oh very cool! And what do you think—what do you think you're going to do? I know still—what are you—you're a sophomore, junior?"

"Yeah, I'm a sophomore right now, and right now the plan is to maybe pursue a PhD, so that's the plan right now in astrophysics. I'm really interested in that and also do a lot of science communication on the side. I found that I really get excited when I talk to people about science, and I feel like it's really something I want to pursue in the long term, so I'm not sure what kind—what form science communication. I mean, you can be very creative with how you pursue that line of work, so I'll figure that out—but for now, I'm just gonna keep on doing what I'm doing, that is talks and doing problem sets in my physics major."

Very cool! Well, you know, going against your PhD will make my mother proud! She still asks me questions whether I could get like some credit towards an MD or a PhD through my Khan Academy work!

[Laughter]

But—and Mariam, what about yours? I mean, I know you're earlier, you said you might be a physics major. Are you thinking kind of a similar track to what Hillary's thinking of?

"Yeah! I know that I'd like to pursue research and like physics and science and all that, and more like interdisciplinary things. I don't know—I don't like the set categories all the time for different things—and definitely science communication because yeah, the world as a whole needs to work on that!"

Well I know an organization that could use the benefit of people who know how to make good science videos! So I'll see if I can, you know, connect you to some people who have influence there!

So we should—we should talk about that!

Let's see, other questions: you know someone on Facebook, Retta Graham, says, "What is the most beautiful moment in your Breakthrough Junior Challenge?" I guess you could interpret that question however you see fit! Was it the moment you found out about it? Was it the creation? Was it telling your parents? Was it telling your teacher that they're getting $50,000? I mean, for—I didn't talk about the prizes: $250,000 scholarship, $100,000 lab for your school, $50,000 for the teacher!

What has been y'all's best moments so far?

"Um, I don't know; I'll start with you, Mariam, and then Hillary, you've had more of the moments, but Mariam, what's been really standing out?"

"I think the first moments were like the creation of the video. I was like, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and the deadline was coming close, so I was like, okay, I need to decide on my topic. And I knew like part of me wanted to do quantum tunneling, so like I went out on a walk, and I babbled to myself a lot, and I was talking to myself! People might have been staring at me! But then I was like, oh my goodness, like I think I can explain the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and like all these things with like split personalities and whatnot. And like the video was like forming in my head, and I was like imagining it as I was walking, and I was like, oh my goodness! Like taking out my phone every five seconds and like writing something in notes— I won't forget! And I was like, this is going to work! I can't wait to like explain it like this and show people that you don't need fancy equations to understand the way particle duality and Schrodinger's wave function and all that! And same with like—it was mostly like the explanations and stuff, like coming up with like the scripting—that was like—that whole time it was like in this state of flow! And yeah, when I—the whole dice analogy was like another like, I guess a light bulb moment for me. And yeah, that was like I was really excited to like get the video all together!"

You know, ever since seeing your video, I've been quoting you a few times! Every time someone mentions electron, I go: you know they have commitment issues!

[Laughter]

And Hillary, what about you? What are the moments that have really stuck out for you?

"Yeah, for me, I mean, yeah, as you said earlier, I've had more of those moments than right now because it's been a while. But one thing that stuck out to me was the my acceptance speech. It was a really nerve-wracking moment! I wrote my acceptance speech on the plane ride on the way to California, so I really like poured my heart out for that really short acceptance speech, and I was really happy that I got to say that in front of the world, and it was live-streamed and all of that. And it was a really amazing moment for me! It's like winning the Oscars, but in science and for high school students! So that was really—it was for me! And another thing that stuck out to me was when I talked to a bunch of elementary school kids in the Philippines. So I had gotten invited to that event; it was a very impromptu event, and one of the organizers of that heard that I had won the challenge, and they invited me to talk to all these kids. They were really tiny! And they were fourth grade and sixth grade, and they were also energetic! And I talked to them about science and about the Hubble Space Telescope and all these cool things, and they were just so energetic! They had so many questions, and I feel like it was at that moment when you really realized that talking to people about science is really exciting to me, and I really find so much meaning in it! So I—that's really what I decided that I also wanted to do communication apart from just pure physics!"

So yeah! Absolutely! And you know you mentioned it's kind of like the Oscars, and Yuri Milner, who's really the driving force behind the Breakthrough Junior Challenge—that was his whole intent—which is we celebrate people in music and movies, but really, there are people changing the frontiers of science and mathematics that are doing things that are, you know, I like movie stars too! But— but that are doing things that are going to change humanity and benefit humanity, they need to be awarded the same way!

And also young people who can communicate science, which will—you know, when you communicate science—that's how I always think about my job at Khan Academy. You know, I do still secretly hope that I might be able to like create some new math theorem or, you know, find some new particle or something! But I also like to think that by the way—by communicating the science—that there's going to be folks like y'all, millions of them, and one of y'all are going to figure out how to, you know, travel at warp speed, or, you know, solve climate change, or cure cancer!

And so I think that's the real power of science communication which both of y'all are already on a fast track!

You know, maybe one final question for both of you. What advice would you have for a young person like yourself a year or two or three years ago, who's like well, yeah, I think I could do it, but gee, it's so hard! You know, a lot of your doubts that y'all had! Maybe start with you, Hillary—what advice would you have for someone who is thinking about it or maybe is a little bit afraid to throw their hand in the ring?

"Yeah, so my first advice would be to just not be afraid! I always say this, and I said this earlier, when you fail, you don't really fail; you only learn. I have said that a number of times, and I'm always surprised at how much it resonates with people because, I mean, we all feel that that way sometimes, right? We feel like we've kind of failed, but if you look at it from a different perspective, take it as a learning experience, a learning opportunity, then it won't feel too bad at all, and then it will make you even braver to pursue better opportunities to enrich yourself, to meet new people, and all these things! So definitely don't take anything as a failure; take it as a learning experience—that's my advice!"

And what about you, Mariam?

"I think—I mean, I found out about the challenge like five years ago, and I didn't think I could get anywhere with it! Because I'm always like intimidated by the other videos and the other like older teams and everything! But if you're—if someone watching is thinking about participating in the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, I just want to let you know—it doesn't take a lot! I was working on like a half-broken computer, and my friend was helping me edit on his like shattered iPad. And we were like we don't have like any professional video-making abilities or like software! And like—all the animations in my video were made with Google Slides! It doesn't take a lot, so you should at least try! And—and because the focus is obviously on the communication, not necessarily your editing abilities! And if you love science and want to share science, then just go for it!"

No, well that resonates a lot with me because both of your videos are like high-tech Pixar compared to mine! So you get—I'm definitely on the lower production end of things! But you know, this is a real treat! I look forward to seeing you both! I hope everyone watching—you know, there's an amazing finalist! I mean, both of y'all had a lot of other strong competitors! You know, I think y'all were a notch above everyone else! But congratulations to everyone who is a finalist!

And you know, I've got to believe that even the folks who didn't quite get to where you all are but got to the finalists, hopefully the process of making the videos means a lot! You know, I always—whenever someone applies for a job, I'm like, what have they made? So you know, hopefully everyone uses their videos as their calling cards to show how they both can understand difficult concepts but also communicate it!

And I just want to thank you both because even though hopefully what the Breakthrough Junior Challenge is providing you is going to be a great foundation for the rest of your life, and it feels like y'all might be the ones winning the prize, I genuinely feel that it's society that's going to win the prize because it’s going to unlock your abilities to do more for all of us!

So thank you so much, and keep communicating! And keep pushing the frontiers of science, both Mariam and Hillary! Thank you!

"Thank you so much!"

Well, thanks everyone for joining! You know, I really encourage you to look at—we saw Mariam's video—re-watch it! It is actually probably the best exam explanation of quantum tunneling you can find! I also encourage you to watch Hillary's video, probably the best explanation of relativity you can find! And also look at the other Breakthrough Junior Challenge winners over the last several years and actually the finalists—a lot of really great concepts! I'm watching them with my kids!

That re—it's probably the best way to expose yourself to some concepts in math and science that most folks think are beyond them, but really, really aren't! So take a look at it, and thanks for joining today.

And I look forward to seeing—I'm fighting the sun! The sun shows up at around this time of day in my closet!

[Laughter]

But I look forward to seeing y'all at the next Homeroom with Sal! Thanks for joining us today!

And yes, we will have the head of Teach for America, Alisa Villanueva Beard, to discuss on Wednesday! So see y'all then!