Lisa Randall
Lisa Randall
Lisa Randallis an American theoretical physicist and an expert on particle physics and cosmology. She is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science on the physics faculty of Harvard University. Her research includes elementary particles and fundamental forces and she has developed and studied a wide variety of models, the most recent involving extra dimensions of space. She has advanced the understanding and testing of the Standard Model, supersymmetry, possible solutions to the hierarchy problem concerning the relative weakness...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhysicist
Date of Birth18 June 1962
CountryUnited States of America
Scientific experiments are expensive, and people are entitled to know about them if they want to. I think it is very difficult to convey ideas.
When you're reaching out to people beyond the scientific community, image does matter.
Organized religion and musicals present tenets to live by that don't entirely make sense but, on the whole, make people who believe them secure, thus giving an appearance of inclusiveness.
In fairness, I don't think that everyone understands what I say, but I think they understand part of it and part of what the issues are... Just the same way that people like a good painting, I think people really like understanding, knowing about the world.
People who dismiss science in favor of religion sometimes confuse the challenge of rigorously understanding the world with a deliberate intellectual exclusion that leads them to mistrust scientists and, to their detriment, what they discover.
I really like that my work is getting more people interested in science.
I do try to do high-impact work, and I try to think of ideas people haven't thought about that have broad implications, but I don't restrict myself to that. I try to work on things that I find interesting.
You have to be careful when you use beauty as a guide. There are many theories people didn't think were beautiful at the time but did find beautiful later—and vice versa. I think simplicity is a good guide: The more economical a theory, the better.
When people try to use religion to address the natural world, science pushes back on it, and religion has to accommodate the results. Beliefs can be permanent, but beliefs can also be flexible. Personally, if I find out my belief is wrong, I change my mind. I think that's a good way to live.
Probably if you look like Tyra Banks, it probably is hard, even if you are really smart, for people to take - it surprises some.
An almost indispensable skill for any creative person is the ability to pose the right questions. Creative people identify promising, exciting, and, most important, accessible routes to progress - and eventually formulate the questions correctly.
The scientist is also a composer... You could think of science as discovering one particular thing - a supernova or whatever. You could also think of it as discovering this whole new way of seeing the world.
The standard model of particle physics describes forces and particles very well, but when you throw gravity into the equation, it all falls apart. You have to fudge the figures to make it work.
The stuff we're really famous for was really lucky in a way.