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Asked by sawyerbean to Mark, Matthew, Mike, Paul, Sabina on 12 Mar 2014.
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Matthew Malek answered on 12 Mar 2014:
Right now, there are two burning questions that drive my research. Those are:
1) Understand why there is matter in the universe. If matter and anti-matter are symmetric, the Big Bang should have produced an equal amount of each… which would probably have collided and annihilated almost immediately afterward, leaving only energy (radiation) behind.
Even if the annihilation were prevented, we should be in a universe with equal amounts of matter and anti-matter… yet this is not the case. Virtually no primordial anti-matter remains. Why??
We know that matter and anti-matter are not perfectly symmetric. This was discovered in by Jim Cronin and his colleagues decades ago. The difference is called “CP violation”. However, the measured CP violation is really really small — far too small to explain why there is matter (and only matter) in the universe. I’m hoping that my work with neutrinos will hope to “shed some light” on this puzzle.
2) Detect dark matter: We know that about 85% of the mass in the universe is some new particle, or class of particles. We don’t know what it is, though. The puzzle has persisted since the 1930s, when Fritz Zwicky accidentally discovered dark matter by observing the motions of galaxies in the Coma cluster. Eighty years later, we have loads more evidence that it exists… but still no clue what it is! I think we’re closing in, though, and hope that the next decade or so will finally see this mystery solved. I’ve worked on dark matter detection beter, and hope to go back to it soon…
One of the coolest things about being a scientist is that every answer generates more questions. Everything that we learn guides us to what we can study to learn even more. So while these are my big aims now, in ten or twenty years, we may have these answers… and I will be chasing different mysteries!
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Mike Lee answered on 12 Mar 2014:
I’d love to discover something new but obvious. Something simple but for some reason, no one had ever thought of it. An example from reasonably recently is the idea that light can twist as it moves. This was discovered in 1992, which means that for around 100 years people could have discovered it, they just never thought about it. It would be great to discover something like that.
Things like I’d like to know, but won’t discover myself are:
Is there life on other planets?
What is dark matter?
When will we build a space elevator? -
Sabina Hatch answered on 13 Mar 2014:
It would be incredible to invent a solar cell that could harness solar energy so efficiently and yet be so incredibly cheap that everyone could afford one. To solve our energy crisis and no longer have to worry about burning fossil fuels and damaging our environment. It would be a completely different world!
Before I die, it would be nice to find a way of preserving your body so that I could wake up in 1000years and see what the world is like, and how we have developed as a race.
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Paul Coxon answered on 13 Mar 2014:
I’m not sure, there are lots of useful things I’d like to invent. One is same as Sabine’s because we work in the same area of research – a cheap and efficient solar cell. It’d have a real positive impact on people’s lives.
But if I wanted to be really famous, I’d like to invent a material that could cover electric wires so that all my iPhone and earphone cables never got tangled up – it is SO annoying having to untangle them all the time.
If I could make untanglable wire I’d make MILLIONS MWAHAHA! 😀
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Mark Jackson answered on 14 Mar 2014:
I would like to know whether humankind will make it. What I mean is, humans have two drives: one is to discover and invent, and the other is to destroy. Our progress in using technology responsibly is slower than our ability to create the technology, and so we often use our inventions to harm ourselves. We discover how to harness the energy in an atom, and then immediately afterwards use it to create bombs which kill millions. The chances of life on our planet is so rare, it would be a tragedy of the utmost degree if we allowed irresponsible politicians to abuse scientific advances before we have had a chance to mature as a race. I think the dilemma was most succinctly put by Ellie Arroway in Contact while being interviewed by a panel determining whether she were qualified to interact with the alien Vegans:
Panel member: If you were to meet these Vegans, and were permitted only one question to ask of them, what would it be?
Ellie Arroway: Well, I suppose it would be, how did you do it? How did you evolve, how did you survive this technological adolescence without destroying yourself?
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