“From my own knowledge of these things, physics is not something that girls tend to fancy. They don’t want to do it … There’s a lot of hard maths in there that I think that they would rather not do,” Katharine Birbalsingh, chair of the UK government’s Social Mobility Commission and a secondary school head teacher, told the Commons Science and Technology Committee on April 27, 2022.
Comments like this are disappointing and misleading because there are multiple reasons why girls don’t choose to study physics at degree level – and “not wanting to do maths” is not one of them.
Instead, the reasons include lack of opportunities, getting less support from teachers and parents, and stereotypes about girls choosing biology and boys opting for physics and mathematics, and in our culture that mindset is even more prevalent.
Interestingly, the most commonly asked question at an orientation on the first day of a Bachelor’s degree class is if the students have chosen to do a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, physics, chemistry or biology or just happen to be there because they didn’t get admission in an engineering university. Even more interesting is the finding that most of them are those who have been declined admission in engineering colleges.
But then, there is the story of the extraordinary 24-year-old, Mahnoor Mansoor which is far from being conventional as she chose one of the top engineering universities in the country to pursue her bachelor’s degree in physics.
After finishing school in Chenab Nagar, she went to Islamabad to complete her intermediate in pre-engineering. By now she had become well aware of her growing interest in physics and decided to do her Bachelor’s degree from the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in physics.
“As an undergrad, I had made up my mind to do a Master’s degree abroad, so I kept looking for opportunities,” shares Mahnoor about the opportunity that allowed her to explore physics in a way she had known. “Luckily, I got admission in the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.”
At Manitoba, following a year’s course work in the degree, her supervisor for experimental neutrino [particle] physics suggested that she join an experimental team that was researching on the Water Cherenkov Test Experiment (WCTE).
The WCTE is an experiment proposed at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva, to measure the response of a Water Cherenkov Detector for charged particles such as π±, p+, e±, etc. The data obtained from WCTE is meant to be used in future neutrino experiments.
Using water as the detection medium is a way to provide a very large target mass at reasonable cost — all the world's largest neutrino detectors are water Cherenkov experiments.
Double Dutch? Baffling? Well, not for our young physicist. For the uninitated like myself, particle physics since it has given us lasers, semiconductors and the Internet.
“During summer I started researching various aspects,” says Mahnoor. “Our team included students from all over Canada and we made detectors to get information about the particles.”
Mahnoor’s WCTE team held a beam test in July 2023 at CERN.
“We aimed to utilise different detector technologies to do precision measurements that can help in perfecting the ongoing neutrino search,” she explains adding that, a detector basically gathers information such as speed, mass, or charge of the particle and from that information, scientists can find out exactly what particle they were looking at.
The experiment had traditional detectors like lead glass calorimeter to measure the energies, Time of Flight, and Aerogel detectors for particle identification, of the incoming particle from the beam at CERN. This beam consisted of particles like muons, pions, electrons, and protons.
Cherenkov radiation is a bluish light that is produced when charged particles, such as electrons or muons, move through a material like water, faster than light can move through it.
This is a type of particle detector that utilises water as the medium for detecting Cherenkov radiation. These detectors are frequently employed in high-energy particle research investigations, including those involving particle accelerators and cosmic rays.
“We placed our detectors in front of the beam pipeline and ensured they were correctly placed geometrically,” explains Mahnoor. “When the beam is turned on, we monitored the response from our detectors from the control room.”
Once the team made sure that the detectors were working fine in the test runs, they started the data collection process for 24 hrs in three eight-hour shifts.
“Now we had the data, the next step was to analyse it and try to understand the detector responses, the properties of the particles and how precisely one particle can be differentiated from another,” elaborated Mansoor who wants to pursue a PhD after completing her Masters in physics and astronomy.
Sharing her love and compassion for physics, she talked about how her experience of physics and exposure with the team helped her diversify and expand into new horizons.
“In Pakistan, the subject has little to no scope as it is mostly based on theoretical work,” says Mahnoor. “No experiments are done and the main reason for that is funding and interest in the field of research.”
Studying electrodynamics, quantum mechanisms, and statistical mechanisms, being part of a team making waves, has made her parents so proud that she feels she couldn’t have achieved that if she hadn’t gone abroad to study physics. She is also well aware that she has challenged stereotypes.
“Subject and interest is one thing,” she says. “But the whole experience of such a huge funding, sending people to invest in building detectors, investing time and thousands of dollars leads to polishing the expertise of young scientists and it greatly contributes to the society.”
The enthusiastic young physicist has paved her way to an unconventional subject that usually students do not opt for and even if they choose to learn it, they end up either teaching or pursuing other dimensions of the subject.
“Leaving home, packing bags, and living in a hostel wasn’t easy,” Mahnoor shares. “I am fortunate that despite being a part of a conservative society like Pakistan, my family was supportive of the idea of education abroad because they clearly saw my fascination with physics.”
Pakistani students who want to pursue physics are mostly inspired by our very own noble laureate scientist Dr Abdus Salam. The reason for Mansoor’s fascination with the subject was no different.
“Additionally, I found the lectures of American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman magical,” she says. “I used to watch his videos and they felt like magic to me. For example, a video of a fire burning does hold the magic for an average person the way it does for me as I understand the physics behind it, and in this way my interest grew multifold.”
In school, Mahnoor liked physics but when she was doing her intermediate, her interest began to develop particularly because of one of her teachers who encouraged and motivated her enough to decide to choose physics for further study instead of going to an engineering university.
Unfortunately, Pakistan does not have much scope nor the opportunities to explore physics because funding and opportunities are limited to only certain fields.
“The funding that our project received at Manitoba, the prospects that the team had, and how the data was used from the experiment is phenomenal,” says Mahnoor, finally pointing out the real cause of stagnancy in our education methodology. “This could not have been the case in Pakistan because of various constraints from finances to opportunities for practically conducting such experiments. Here the main focus in studies is theory, exams, marks, and degrees, not the potential and capability to learn.”
While Mahnoor’s accomplishments not only highlight individual brilliance, they also expose the systemic limitations hindering scientific exploration in our country. It's time to redefine the narrative, to recognise that talent knows no gender, and to invest in the untapped potential of aspiring scientists who can lead to groundbreaking advancements that benefit the country and society as a whole.