What is it like being a scientist?
You never know what’s going to happen, and no two days are ever the same. Perfect for anyone with a really low boredom threshold (like me)!
What inspired you to become a scientist?
There was never any choice for me – science was what really fired my imagination and held my attention. I was always fascinated by what makes things coloured (I still am – see our quantum dots!), any sort of chemical reaction, how crystals can be grown from solution, snow flakes, how ice turns into water, what pollen looks like under a microscope, seashells, pebbles, fossils………
What is the best thing about being a scientist/ your job?
Doing something no one has ever done before (regardless of whether it’s sensible or not!)…….especially when you suddenly realise you may understand what’s happening!
If you could go back in time which scientist would you like to meet and what would you ask them?
Henry Moseley, who worked out the atomic number of the elements (leading to the modern form of the Periodic Table) – he carried out his most important experiments in Manchester almost exactly 100 years ago. He was killed in action during the First World War in 1915 at the age of 27. At the time, he had already been nominated for the 1916 Nobel Prize in Physics – and the 1916 prize was never awarded. I’m fascinated by the free-thinking of his generation, who laid the foundations of our understanding of the atom so rapidly and so early in their careers. I’d ask him how he designed so many ‘killer’ experiments in such a short time.
What do you do in your free time?
Alot of singing in a choir of about 80 voices. We sing all sorts – from jazz to Monteverdi, in great places from the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester to cathedrals in Hungary. I don’t understand how its possible to read music, watch the conductor and sing the right notes and words simultaneously – our brains really are marvellous parallel processors! When things go really well, the choir sings much better than the individuals making it up, which is a glorious thing to be part of.
What is the first science you remember doing?
When I was about 6 I remember noticing one morning at breakfast that my reflection was upside down in my cereal spoon – but when I turned it round, I was the right way up. My wonderful Dad (never one for ‘dumbing-down’) drew out the ray diagrams to explain real inverted and virtual upright images!
What advice would you give a school child who is interested in science?
Go for it, keep asking questions and don’t be scared. Some of the best science has been done by people who didn’t think they were good at it, or who didn’t start out working in science. (Even Einstein had a spell in the Swiss Patent Office!)
What’s the funniest/strangest/most surprising experience you have had in your career?
Strangest: Being in Moscow (at a research institute) in the week the Soviet Union collapsed – realising how fast people can adapt and cope with the utmost chaos.
Funniest: During a period lecturing at Tsinghua University in Beijing, trying to eat the ‘western breakfast’ specially provided (fried egg) with the implements provided (chopsticks).
Most surprising: Discovering that the queue for the gents was longer than the queue for the ladies during a tour of the Brazilian synchrotron source in Campinas. A phenomenon of quantum-mechanical improbability.
What discovery or invention could you really not live without?
My Mac and what they call up here ‘t’internet’. Skype still seems a miraculous thing to me (though it does confuse the dog!)
What do you think is the most important thing yet to be discovered/invented?
There’s only one answer to this – a way of providing for our future energy needs without wrecking our environment. Which is why I am privileged to work in the field that I do, and honoured to be able to share it with others at the Summer Science Exhibition.