The Conversation
I. Physics Time Management
Giving it your all
HB: Iāve had this question thatās been rattling around in my head for some time. I go into the bookstore and look at popular science books, and I ask myself, Are there people who should be writing a popular science book who arenāt doing so?
It seems to me that thereās a bit of disconnect between what the general public is aware of through popular science books and whatās really going on at the front lines, whoās really driving a field forwards.
Now thatās completely understandable. After all, itās naturally difficult for the public to really get a good glimpse inside the sausage factory. But one of the things I really wanted to talk to you about is just that: looking inside the sausage factory. So hereās my question to you: why havenāt you written a popular book?
NAH: Well, people ask me this question a fair amount. Like most physicists, I really love talking about physics. I definitely enjoy giving public talks. I enjoy interacting with non-physicists about whatās going on in the subject. Itās something Iāve thought about, but Iām quite certain that Iām not going to do it for a very long time.
HB: Meaning what, exactly? Until youāre old enough that you canāt contribute much to science anymore?
NAH: Well, this is really the main point. There are many reasons why Iām not investing the time right now in writing a popular book, but the most dominant reason is that, while itās very important for the general public to know whatās going on, and I definitely enjoy doing this sort of thing, it is not the most important thing for me to focus on right now.
I think that our real job is to push physics forward and to try to learn something new about the way nature works. And thatās a very tough business. It sounds obvious, but it really is a very tough business. There are some people who, by whatever combination of their personal history and their talent or whatever, are positioned (or have already made significant contributions to) our understanding of the world.
And by this I mean something in a really serious sense. Not, Are you one of the leaders of your generation? or Do you have a great academic job? or something like that. Iām talking about things that will actually matter on the 100, 200, 300-year timescale, if not longer.
There are those who, by a combination of talent and luck and whatever else, have either done that already or are more easily capable of doing that. Then there are people who will never do that āand naturally not everyone in academia is focused in that direction anyway.
And then there are people who are right on the bubble. And I consider myself to be one of those. Itās conceivable that I might be able to have some really important impact and push physics forward, but itās by no means obvious.
So my thinking is that the only thing thatās in my control is giving my utmost to single-mindedly focus on the hardest problem, the most important problem that I have any hope of making some small progress on. The ability to concentrate and focus like that is absolutely crucial.
Of course it doesnāt mean that I donāt do anything else with my life. And actually, giving public talks about physics is one of the things that relaxes me. I enjoy doing it. Itās an enormous amount of fun.
But I donāt think of it even remotely as my actual job. My actual job is to try to figure out something about the way the world works. And Iāve been both blessed and cursed, I think, with just the right amount of talent, ability, motivation to have a chance of doing it.
HB: Why cursed, exactly? Because youād like ten times more talent?
NAH: Well, ten times more would be fantastic. Ten times less it would be fairly clear that I couldnāt do it, which would lead to a very different life.
Look, I realize that Iām in a phenomenal situation. But it means that the aspect of this business that is just flat out hard work is very important to me. Itās the one thing that I feel is really in my control. If I didnāt do that I would kick myself forever for not having given everything I had to try to do the things that are really important.
And for me everything flows from there. Our real job should be to figure out important things about the way the world works. We have huge problems: I mean really dramatic, zeroth-order, very important mysteries about the way the world worksāthings that anyone would be interested in knowing the answer to. Of course weāre interested in knowing too. But my point is that theyāre not questions only of interest to egghead specialists: I think theyāre things that really matter to everyone. And we have the chance to tackle them.
Itās not up to us when big breakthroughs happen; often big discoveries are made when itās their time to be made. And you could be unfortunate enough to live through one of the doldrum periods where whatās going on is more or less an incremental addition to our general knowledge.
HB: And there are an awful lot of those.
NAH: Yes, there are an awful lot of those. But I genuinely have a sense āand I donāt think itās just blind optimism, I really have this senseāthat weāre in a very exciting time right now.
After 300ā400 years of barrelling through developments in physics that have given us some deep understanding about all sorts of basic things about the world around us, weāre now at the point of addressing some of these very profound questions about where the universe came from, whatās the origin of space and time, and so forth. These are finally the questions that are on the docket.
HB: I remember you once telling me years ago that you thought about this question of timing back when you were a graduate student, or perhaps even an undergraduate: that youād been thinking about the timing of a major experiment like CERNās LHC in terms of how it might impact your career.
NAH: Absolutely. The prospect of all these wonderful experiments happening (even though theyāve been delayed a little bit) was something I was long anticipating, and played a major role in pushing me in a particular direction. You have to think of your research career on a big scale and over the long term. We only have thirty or forty years or so in which to try to push things forward.
So thatās my view. I donāt feel that this is one of these random times in the development of the history of the subject. I think itās conceivable that really, really big things are at stake, and making sure that we get that right is by far the most important thing that we can do as scientists.
Once we figure that out, telling people about itātelling people about whatever new-world view emerges if we get thereāthatās going to be incredibly important too. But itās not comparable in import to pushing things forward.
II. The Problem with Popularization
Not what it used to be
HB: So I get that. I get the fact that itās an important time; and I get the fact that, either way, itās your time, and you naturally want to be focusing on what you think are the most important issues and where you feel that you can make the most significant contribution. And I understand that writing a popular book would take a huge amount of time away from that. So, notwithstanding the fact that you believe passionately in the importance of communicating science and scientific ideas, you naturally want to focus on actually doing science...