Last month Nobel Laureates from all around the world met in Lindau. With them were 600 carefully chosen young scientists. At the end of the week the state Baden Württemberg invited all of them to a trip on Lake Constance. I was invited as a blogger. So here is my 3rd interview.
I talked to Dr. Serge Haroche. He is a French physicist who was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with David J. Wineland for „ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems“, a study of the particle of light, the photon.
What was your highlight of the Nobel laureates-meeting in Lindau?
I think the two meetings I had with the young scientists. The breakfast-meeting where we talked about quantum information. On the first day we spoke freely about science and physics and the big issues of physics in the future.
Have you talked about special projects with the your scientists?
No. We talked about big issues that need to be understood in the universe as the dark matter or the problem of the expanding universe. Also the importance of carrying basic research to understand things indeed. We need to understand that basic research is the most important thing. If you don’t have it, nothing else can happen. I tried to discuss that and found out that the young people here are very aware of these issues.
In fact I am not in the field – most are in chemistry – it forced me not to enter in too many details but to talk in more general terms about the important points about physics, the connection between physics and chemistry and science in general. I liked the atmosphere. And of course it is an interesting opportunity to meet colleagues and prize winners which I never met before. Especially in chemistry I don’t know most of them. So it`s interesting to interact.
What do you think about the junior scientific staff? Are there enough talented young people in the world?
I think we have tremendous and passionate people. The important thing is to have passion. They are intelligent enough to understand that most of them won’t make a lot of money. So it’s not a question of money, but a question of the passion for what you are doing.
The big issue is: Are we missing people who don’t go into science because of the way society is done? Science is very often misunderstood. There are a lot of bad things which are said about science. And I don’t agree. Some of them were addressed this morning, when people are talking about the bad effects of science. The guy (Info: Michael Braungart – a german chemist) who talked about chemistry was very provocative. But he reflects what a lot of people think. But what I did not like in his speech – although he said things which were right – he did not say a word about the way to solve these problems. But what I liked here is that all these issues are discussed freely.
Info:
The fist interview with Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman: „I asire to inspire.“
The 2nd interview with Nobel Laureate David Wineland: „My passion was cars.“[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
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