Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 27 minutes ago
Lecture by Dr Tim Hunt, 2001 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, at the Molecular Frontiers Symposium "On Human Origins and the Future of Humanity", at Lund University April 18-19, 2024. The symposium was co-organized with Lund University and the Royal Physiographic Society of Lund.
ABSTRACT:
Science is often called a “knowledge based” business, but to me it’s founded on ignorance. So many things about the world are still mysterious, and it’s those mysteries that lead people to wonder and explore. I will start my talk with an example of my own ignorance, revealed by a curious bedtime question from a then 7-year old daughter: “Daddy, why is the ceiling opaque?” I suddenly realised—I’d been looking at Einstein’s 1905 paper—that I had no idea how light got through glass; specifically, how photons passed through windows. I asked a physicist friend if the photon that came out the other side was the same photon as the one that went in. “Tim” he told me “that is a meaningless question”. I gradually came to realise that simple questions do not necessarily have simple answers, but progress in science depends on questioning; but finding good questions is not a simple matter. During my life we’ve seen astonishing advances in understanding and amazing technological developments, all made possible by curious people doing experiments to find things out. It hurts, not knowing.
Lecture by Dr Tim Hunt, 2001 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, at the Molecular Frontiers Symposium "On Human Origins and the Future of Humanity", at Lund University April 18-19, 2024. The symposium was co-organized with Lund University and the Royal Physiographic Society of Lund.
ABSTRACT:
Science is often called a “knowledge based” business, but to me it’s founded on ignorance. So many things about the world are still mysterious, and it’s those mysteries that lead people to wonder and explore. I will start my talk with an example of my own ignorance, revealed by a curious bedtime question from a then 7-year old daughter: “Daddy, why is the ceiling opaque?” I suddenly realised—I’d been looking at Einstein’s 1905 paper—that I had no idea how light got through glass; specifically, how photons passed through windows. I asked a physicist friend if the photon that came out the other side was the same photon as the one that went in. “Tim” he told me “that is a meaningless question”. I gradually came to realise that simple questions do not necessarily have simple answers, but progress in science depends on questioning; but finding good questions is not a simple matter. During my life we’ve seen astonishing advances in understanding and amazing technological developments, all made possible by curious people doing experiments to find things out. It hurts, not knowing.
