Life in optical

Universe Awareness at the International SKA Forum 2010 from carolune on Vimeo.

This event was organised to celebrate children and what Astronomy can do to broaden their minds.
The documentary was produced to describe and summarise the event. It was made by Rolf Muggen > www.rolfmuggen.nl
… This is what I do :)

That’s it, it’s official, I have my one-way flight from Europe to South Africa. In a few weeks, I’m going for good. And I can’t wait.

What am I going to do there? I’m going to do science.

I’m going to carry out scientific research, work with students, possibly lecture a bit, try to write papers, etc. I’ll be an ordinary postdoc after 5 years out of the research circus, with a big wide gap in publications. That in itself is rather unusual, but I am not deterred. It will be great fun, because when I’m in South Africa, I feel free.

I feel free to seize and to create opportunities. I feel free to be myself. I feel unaffected by the pressure of traditional academia because in South Africa, the big picture is bigger than elsewhere.

I “grew up” as a scientist in a place where you are taught to believe that you need to get the high-profile fellowships and the faculty positions as quickly as possible, otherwise you’re nobody. Forever. Being under the impression that all the effort it takes to complete a PhD could have been in vain can be rather demoralising. In fact, that’s what made me leave research back then.

After 5 years of doing my own thing, something that doesn’t fit in any box, where how I am judged comes from what I’ve done, not who I’ve worked with, I feel that I’ve built something good. Now I don’t need to worry about staying in the race. I’m not in the race. I’m not in any race. I see a big forward-looking bright picture, I’m looking at a bit of future.

I’m also doing this because I’ve been given an amazing opportunity, because I can, because I love science and because there are awesome people that I can work with. Isn’t that how science should be done?

Yes there may be less of some things than elsewhere, but it feels like there is more life in people there. And it’s people who make up the true richness of a place, not stuff. So while doing science, I’ll try to make sure it’s always teamwork. I’ll learn from everyone, I’ll try to work with grad students, who also work with undergrad students, who in turn can talk about their cool studies at their high schools, and – basically – everybody can be someone else’s hero :)

Some may say this is a naive way of putting things, but allow me to disagree. Once someone told me I was one of their their role models (alongside other amazing people I admire respectfully). “Me?!?” I thought in disbelief. But then I thought, “this person is going to out-do me in every way imaginable. She’s cleverer than me, she’s younger than me, she’s amazing, she is going to go much further than I ever will, and I will have been part of what pushed her forward…. Wow. That’s just awesome!” It’s positive feedback at its best. I just want to do even better now because I’m aware that people are looking at me.

There are more heroes to come than have been. And it would seem that I can be a part of making heroes by doing cool science in South Africa. So yes, I’m going to South Africa to do science because I believe that the science done there is excellent, that the people are stimulating, and because I believe it is so much more relevant to do science in South Africa than in some prestigious institute full of fancy people where the best I can hope to achieve is about myself not about the world.

I love her passion and her arguments are compelling.

I am at the ‘Communicating Astronomy with the Public’ conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Actually, the conference starts next week but this week we’ve had a great Astronomy Communication school with professional astronomers, journalists, communicators, educators, students etc. and it’s been great.

One of the topics that has come up, that we have just touched upon is: ‘What tough questions the public poses us?’

This propped up once with one of the participants mentioning that the most difficult questions they have ever been asked was by a young child, and we (as in scientists), have no idea about the answer.

So we went around the audience and collected a few questions. Here is what we got:

• Why are there so many stars? (Girl, 6 years old)
• How can you take a picture of the Milky Way if you’re in it?
• Where is heaven?
• Why are the stars so different from each other?
• What is the Universe? A good answer is to quote Carl Sagan: “The Universe is all there is, everything there ever was and everything there ever will be.” (Cosmos Chapter 1)

Good questions! Now I’m asking everyone to throw in their ‘toughest question’ into the conversation. When has a member of the public, a child, an adult, anyone – caught you off guard and asked you a question you couldn’t answer straight away?

And how would you answer the questions above?

Update: Some of my fave tweeps have already contributed great input:

• 11 year old “My mum says God made the universe and anything else is heresay [sic]‘. More of a statement I suppose.
• 14 year old asking me to explain why black holes decay, another one was 6 year old asking my why the Universe is full of gravity