Physics is...

Questions answered by Annette Paul, PTB Working Group "Enviromental Radioactivity"

1. What were your reasons for studying physics? Because the development and the laws of our universe have always fascinated me.
2. What university did you go to? At Braunschweig Technical University
3. Did you know a physical experiment at school which particularly impressed you? What are the physical experiments which impress you? After a lesson on induction, I bent a wire to form a coil, fed it with current via a battery and then brought it close to a compass. Induction! (7th grade)
4. Your physical aha-experience? No symmetry without conservation theorem, no conservation theorem without symmetry.
5. Do you have a favourite experiment? No, but I follow with great interest all experiments in the field of nuclear physics. The photoelectric effect (which is so simple!) is one of the most important experiments for me.
6. Are you also interested in a completely different speciality? History, psychology and art (in this order – in most cases)
7. What profession did you aim for as a child? Teacher (6 years), lawyer (12 years), physicist (17 years)
8. Have you ever had a chemical kit? No, but I constructed one myself.
9. By what do you recognize a physicist? Each time he/she has a new device in his/her hands, he/she throws the instruction manual away, switches the device on, presses all buttons and then disassembles the device.
10. Your recommendation for future students of physics? Do what you like, so you will be really good.
11. Do correct measurements require a healthy amount of ambition? No, enthusiasm, devotion and, sometimes, the readiness to make sacrifices. Ambition wants respect for an achievement, but only after the measurement.
12. Those who measure a lot, measure a lot of rubbish... Do you think this saying contains a grain of truth? Yes, more than a grain
13. Do you understand quantum mechanics? I understand that I know something about it.
14. What are light quanta? Photons. The particle property of radiation which for a long time seemed to have wave character only: h*v.
15. A trip to the moon – would you like it? Yes, at once
16. Your favourite measuring instrument? HP Ge-detector
17. Do you master a musical instrument? No
18. What measuring instrument would you least be able to dispense with? You can rebuild everything, so you can also dispense with everything.
19. What measuring instrument is in your opinion useless? None
20. Why does the world exist? Because a mouse is looking at it? It is our task to find out. A challenge to mankind, rather than to mice. The recent assumption is: because the soup has bubbled.
21. A good measurement is always carried out very carefully, almost ceremoniously. Is this ceremony comparable with a sacred rite? No. Only understanding of the effect measured and gaining of new knowledge may be like a revelation.
22. What is in your opinion most important in a measurement? Receptiveness to surprises
23. Correct measurement – a mechanical art or a science? Both
24. Would you tell us three important events of your biography? School attendance at CERN, first lecture with my later supervisor, team work in an experiment abroad (France).
25. Do you think there are things which cannot be measured? In the affirmative, what? Naturally, for example: feelings. But we are working on it...
26. Did you ever see the primary kilogram in Paris? No, but at present we are making a better one.
27. As you know, the Internet was invented by physicists to communicate in virtual terms. Would you have liked to be among the team of the “first Internet hour?” No, there were more important events at CERN.
28. Which physicist do you admire? Niels Bohr
29. Complete the sentence: “A life without measurements is... to live like a blind person with his hands tied.”
30. It is said that Goethe’s last words were “more light!” What should be your last measurement? I don’t know. Brain current?
31. Do you remember the most important measurement of your life? Of course
32. There was a time when certain physical experiments were suddenly regarded as politically undesired. How political can physics be in your opinion? Physics is not political, but it may be abused for politics. That is always bad but probably unavoidable.
33. Is it possible to still discover something new in the field of physics? But we have only just begun! There are still so many things we do not understand, and in many cases we have seen only the tip of the iceberg.
34. Is nature really as physics, biology and chemistry describe it? How can “describe” and “be” be the same? If this were so, nature would be only as mathematics and physics describe it.
35. Try to find a definition for coincidence. Coincidence is an unpredictable and non-reproducible event.