What is it like being a scientist?
Although there are all sorts of scientists working in a wide range of fields, I think that one thing that most scientists have in common is that they retain childhood feelings of curiosity and wonder at the strangeness and variety of the world. I really enjoy solving puzzles, whether through flashes of inspiration or by discovering something new through experiments. I like hearing or reading a really clear explanation of something new (to me at least!) and how it was discovered. I try to give that sort of experience when I teach, or when I write a research paper. It’s not so different than enjoying a novel or a movie with a really great script – except nature’s puzzles are always fair, while some mystery story authors cheat!
What inspired you to become a scientist?
I’ve always liked mysteries, and finding out how and why things are as they are. Good teachers and access to a good public library with many interesting books on diverse topics, helped show me what science was about and what it could tell us. But the thing that probably set me on a path to study space science rather than to become a detective or a lawyer, was growing up at a time when spacecraft were beginning to explore the solar system. They were beginning to show us for the first time what the Moon, and even more astonishingly other planets, look like close up! This was a revelation, after centuries during which the planets were just dim lights in the sky. I was fascinated by what they found, and how it was possible to do this at all!
What is the best thing about being a scientist/ your job?
My work is never boring! The UK is strong in space science, and I work with interesting people, scientists and engineers, who are very good at what they do, both at my own lab and around the world. It’s very exciting to be able to work at one of the frontiers of scientific research and also to work in a laboratory where new types of scientific instrumentation are being developed.
If you could go back in time which scientist would you like to meet and what would you ask them?
I’d like to meet James Clerk Maxwell FRS, a Scot who managed to find a way to sum up all of electricity, magnetism and light, in four concepts that could be expressed concisely in simple equations. He also came up with the Maxwell distribution to explain the large scale properties of gases (density, temperature, pressure) in terms of what the gas molecules are doing. All these ideas are essential parts of the space physicist’s toolbox. Among other breakthroughs, he was also the first to figure out that Saturn’s rings must be made of lots of independent small pieces. Einstein described his work as the “most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton”. I’d ask him how he thought his work might be applied in the future – I bet he’d be astonished to know all its uses today!
What do you do in your free time?
It’s good to get away from sitting in front of a computer from time to time, and I have done quite a bit of rock and mountain climbing, running, orienteering, though now I’m a parent I spend a lot of my time doing what most dads do!
What is the first science you remember doing?
My first research paper (encouraged by my mum) was a study of the behaviour of house martins nesting under the eaves of our house, which was published in the Young Ornithologist Club magazine, when I was about 9 years old. This showed me the value of persisting at something, which was pretty hard for an 9 year old boy!
What advice would you give a school child who is interested in science/How would you inspire a child/non-scientist to be interested in the work you do?
If you enjoy detective stories, exploring, using your imagination, learning new things, debating or arguing, you may enjoy doing science research as a career. If you follow your interest in science through school and beyond, you may find it’s the ideal career for you, but even if in the end you pursue a different career path, you’ll enjoy yourself and you’ll pick up lots of useful skills!
What’s the funniest/strangest/most surprising experience you have had in your career?
Space rocket launches are usually delayed, so it was extraordinary to watch a Chinese rocket take off carrying a satellite with one of our experiments on it, a day earlier than announced! It was quite strange to visit the Baikonur cosmodrome (from where Cluster was launched), and to be shown the Buran space shuttle, which 15 years earlier was impossible for anyone but a select few Soviet scientists and engineers. Seeing the first data come back from space from our Cluster-PEACE electron spectrometer instruments was a very special moment too – space really is full of electrons!
What discovery or invention could you really not live without?
We’d all find the world very different, if ways to harness electricity hadn’t been invented – lighting, cooking, communicating, entertainment, computers and transport have all been revolutionised in the last century or so, and it’s still happening. Professor Maxwell and his colleagues helped make this possible!
What do you think is the most important thing yet to be discovered/invented?
The exploration of space is teaching us what a special place the Earth is. Inventions and discoveries in a whole range of science and technology are needed so that humans can live well and sustainably in the future, without paying a price in terms of a degraded environment. There’s plenty for today’s children to do when they grow up!