• Question: what is your favourite science topic

    Asked by anon-217575 to Savannah, Philippe, Lucy, Joanna, Harrison, Edoardo on 10 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Philippe Gambron

      Philippe Gambron answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      It’s particle physics and cosmology. They try to explain Nature at its most fundamental level. They endeavour to tell us what matter is made of and why it behaves as it does. In a way, this is a field that tries to find the most fundamental explanations, on which everything else is based.

    • Photo: Harrison Prosper

      Harrison Prosper answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      At present, apart from my day job topics, it is the application of Einstein’s theory of gravity to describe the expansion of the universe that is my favourite topic. I’m not a professional cosmologist, but my students and I from time to time try to invent models of the universe that predict crazy stuff, yet still agree with some observations. For example, we cooked up a model that agrees perfectly with the data on distant supernovae (exploding stars), but predicts that the universe will self-destruct in 5.6 billion years!

    • Photo: Edoardo Vescovi

      Edoardo Vescovi answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      Leaving aside physics, biology comes second.
      I have been always amazed by the huge complexity and variety of organisms. Do you know that virtually all animals and plants seem to come from a single “microbe” that popped out somewhere in the ocean 4 billions years ago? And that the DNA — the part of a cell that contains information on how to build the cell’s structure — is written in an alphabet of 4 letters? Pretty mind-blowing!

    • Photo: Savannah Clawson

      Savannah Clawson answered on 10 Jun 2019:

      Aside from particle physics which I study day-to-day, I find the many different interpretations of quantum physics really interesting, not just because they are examples of how crazy the world around us might be but also because they open up so many philosophical questions that we often try to ignore as scientists. The most widely accepted theory of quantum mechanics is the Copenhagen interpretation which has many mind-boggling issues like cats somehow managing to be both dead and alive at the same time – it sounds crazy because it is! However, we are often faced head-on with counter-intuitive things like this in quantum mechanics and we have to face really big questions such as what role, if any, does consciousness have in physics? Some people believe that the theory of quantum mechanics tells us that we must be living an infinite collection of universes, called a multiverse, where every possible thing that can happen does happen. So maybe when you decided to have cereal instead of toast for breakfast this morning, you have created a brand new universe in which you went for the toast all along! This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to quantum theory – there are many even crazier ideas out there for how the Universe really behaves! As Niels Bohr (the father of the Copenhagen interpretation) said “For those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it”.

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