麻豆传媒

As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?

As a young boy, I wanted to be an inventor. But by my teens, I had decided that I also wanted to be a rock star and to play for Leeds United. So yeah, not very ambitious then!

Explain what you do in one easy paragraph.

I am an explainer. As a professor of quantum physics, I conduct research into the tiniest particles that make up the world. I also spend about half of my time communicating scientific ideas to the wider public. It keeps me busy. No time to play for Leeds United.

What do you love most about what you do?

I get as much pleasure explaining complex scientific concepts as I do in finding them out for myself in my research. But probably my greatest love is writing.

Sum up your life in a one-sentence elevator pitch鈥�

I鈥檝e always been curious about the universe and have been lucky enough to pursue a career that has allowed me to find answers. But more importantly, I have a loving, happy family that I really am far more proud of than any of my scientific achievements.

What鈥檚 the most exciting thing you鈥檙e working on right now?

We have just written a paper on the foundations of quantum mechanics. We are trying to understand how quantum systems like atoms do what they do. Our work, I hope, will have implications in a new field of science that I am working in, called quantum biology 鈥� basically, what distinguishes life from non-life and does that have any connection with quantum physics?

Were you good at science at school?

Pretty good. I also liked art and music, though my favourite subject was definitely maths.

If you could send a message back to yourself as a kid, what would you say?

I鈥檇 say, 鈥淏elieve in yourself. Listen to advice, but don鈥檛 let others talk you out of pursuing your dreams.鈥�

What鈥檚 the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?

Probably what my wife, Julie, told me many years ago. We were about to get married and I felt I needed to do the responsible thing and earn a living. She told me to follow my dream and do a PhD and that we could manage. I did, and we did. And I鈥檒l always be grateful to her.

If you could have a long conversation with any scientist, living or dead, who would it be?

Oh, Albert Einstein, without a shadow of a doubt.

What鈥檚 the best thing you鈥檝e read or seen in the past 12 months?

Reality Is Not What it Seems and The Order of Time, by the cosmologist Carlo Rovelli. Translated from the original Italian, they retain a beautifully poetic charm and are full of profound ideas.

鈥淪pace and time have no meaningful existence without gravity, even out in the emptiness of space鈥�

Do you have an unexpected hobby, and if so, please will you tell us about it?

Oil painting. If only I had more time for it.

How useful will your skills be after the apocalypse?

Terrible. You can鈥檛 defeat zombies with mathematical equations. But I鈥檓 fit and healthy and pretty resourceful, so who knows鈥�

OK one last thing: tell us something that will blow our minds鈥�

This is something from an appendix of a book by Einstein. We think of gravity as a force acting between objects within space-time. In fact, the gravitational field is space-time. So, just as there can be no gravity without space and time for it to act in, space and time themselves have no meaningful existence without gravity, even out in the emptiness of space. This is because the reality of space and time is inextricably linked to the existence of matter and energy within it.