• Question: If your part of science did not exist or had already been discovered, what would you work on?

    Asked by hlepoidevin to Jack on 21 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Jack Miller

      Jack Miller answered on 21 Jun 2013:


      Hi hlepoidevin,

      This is a good question, and the two parts are very different! For me, if we were living seventy or so years ago, I’d definitely be working on particle physics — I’d get to see the unification of all of the world as we understand it (apart from Gravity…) into one single, complicated model that explains reality to fantastic accuracy. I do, however, think that part of understanding something is being able to use it, and what I’m working on now relies upon a lot of other areas of science as a whole — parts that independently didn’t really exist fifty years ago.

      When you ask what I’d do if what I’m working on had ‘already been discovered’, I don’t really think that’s ever going to happen — NMR and MRI have been around for longer than I have, and we’re still working out better ways of using the techniques to probe our world (living or otherwise). That being said, in another life I’d still have enjoyed being a particle physicist, and wrestling with the big, important questions in our universe!

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