• Question: what inspired you to be who u r

    Asked by mollieskye to Ben, Mark, Katharine, Jony, Peter on 15 Nov 2011. This question was also asked by someh001, leannemari, explode786, fin09, ellie31, letsgetphysical, iloveanimals, tarax, nerd101.
    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      My parents. They encouraged me to just follow my interests and do whatever I enjoyed, that just happened to be physics. I appreciate that I am very lucky.

    • Photo: Mark Basham

      Mark Basham answered on 15 Nov 2011:

      My parents definitely had a lot of impact, but I was also inspired by a lot of teachers, and had a good number of positive role models in clubs etc.

    • Photo: Katharine Schofield

      Katharine Schofield answered on 15 Nov 2011:

      I got bits of inspiration from all over the place really – I was lucky that my teachers and my family were really encouraging, and they let me go where my interests took me.

      As for sciency inspiation, I remember going away on holiday when I was quite young and really seeing the stars properly for the first time – WOW. Where I grew up was probably one of the most light-polluted areas of the country so we could see a few stars on a clear night but not many. Seeing the milky way and thousands of stars for the first time made me feel so small, but also part of something so big it’s hard to imagine. It made me want to try to understand what was out there. Which of course we never will, not fully – every question you answer raises yet more questions, but it’s hard to resist the urge to keep exploring, it’s part of what makes us human!

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