The Conversation
I. Physics Time Management
Giving it your all
HB: Iâve had this question thatâs 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 arenât doing so?
It seems to me that thereâs a bit of disconnect between what the general public is aware of through popular science books and whatâs really going on at the front lines, whoâs really driving a field forwards.
Now thatâs completely understandable. After all, itâs 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 hereâs my question to you: why havenât 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 whatâs going on in the subject. Itâs something Iâve thought about, but Iâm quite certain that Iâm not going to do it for a very long time.
HB: Meaning what, exactly? Until youâre old enough that you canât contribute much to science anymore?
NAH: Well, this is really the main point. There are many reasons why Iâm not investing the time right now in writing a popular book, but the most dominant reason is that, while itâs very important for the general public to know whatâs 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 thatâs 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. Iâm 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 âand 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. Itâs conceivable that I might be able to have some really important impact and push physics forward, but itâs by no means obvious.
So my thinking is that the only thing thatâs 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 doesnât mean that I donât 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. Itâs an enormous amount of fun.
But I donât 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 Iâve 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 youâd like ten times more talent?
NAH: Well, ten times more would be fantastic. Ten times less it would be fairly clear that I couldnât do it, which would lead to a very different life.
Look, I realize that Iâm 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. Itâs the one thing that I feel is really in my control. If I didnât 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 worksâthings that anyone would be interested in knowing the answer to. Of course weâre interested in knowing too. But my point is that theyâre not questions only of interest to egghead specialists: I think theyâre things that really matter to everyone. And we have the chance to tackle them.
Itâs not up to us when big breakthroughs happen; often big discoveries are made when itâs their time to be made. And you could be unfortunate enough to live through one of the doldrum periods where whatâs 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 âand I donât think itâs just blind optimism, I really have this senseâthat weâre in a very exciting time right now.
After 300â400 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, weâre now at the point of addressing some of these very profound questions about where the universe came from, whatâs 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 youâd been thinking about the timing of a major experiment like CERNâs LHC in terms of how it might impact your career.
NAH: Absolutely. The prospect of all these wonderful experiments happening (even though theyâve 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 thatâs my view. I donât feel that this is one of these random times in the development of the history of the subject. I think itâs 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 itâtelling people about whatever new-world view emerges if we get thereâthatâs going to be incredibly important too. But itâs 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 itâs an important time; and I get the fact that, either way, itâs 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...