• Question: Did you just drift into this field of science or was there just a day when you decided that subatomic phiysics for you?

    Asked by lucyb to Ben, Jony, Katharine, Mark, Peter on 14 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Jony Hudson

      Jony Hudson answered on 12 Nov 2011:

      I think for me it was a bit random, but also down to the people around me. I had a couple of really good teachers at school who got me really interested in science. And then one of my professors at university, and my professor when I did my PhD really inspired me to get in to this field.

      So, a bit of drifting with a bit of pushing!

    • Photo: Mark Basham

      Mark Basham answered on 13 Nov 2011:

      Hi lucyb

      Through school I wasn’t really sure about what i wanted to do, but one of my Lecturers at Uni, who later became my PhD supervisor really inspired me to get into computational physics.

    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      I kind of drifted. At school, I have to admit, I only put effort into the subjects I enjoyed – Science and Drama. This way of thinking just continued; I just followed my interests and found myself really enjoying particle physics.

    • Photo: Katharine Schofield

      Katharine Schofield answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      I wouldn’t say drifted exactly. I was interested in so many different things at school but physics was always the one I kept coming back to and that I found more exciting than anything else. So that’s what I did at uni.

      I do actually remember the time I decided to specialise in particle physics. I was really struggling with getting my head around my particle physics module in the 3rd/4th year of uni – I spent hours and hours over my summer hols just trying to understand it. Then something kind of clicked. I was trying to understand Dirac’s equation. Dirac had the amazing insight to realise that his equation predicted a new form of matter (anti-matter). Anti-matter was subsequently discovered years later. It was an absolute shiver-down-the-spine moment to see some maths written down which showed us something new about the universe that we didn’t know before. I was sold on particle physics from then on.

    • Photo: Peter Williams

      Peter Williams answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      i’ve been interested in physics since i was a teenager, but applied to do engineering at university as that is a “proper job”. when i got there i ditched it because i found the physics more interesting. and i never looked back

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