杏吧原创

Only a small fraction of the world鈥檚 population have the chance to study physics, let alone win a Nobel prize. But Gerard鈥檛 Hooft wants to change all that. Everyone, he says, should have access to the kind of information that started him on his career as a Nobel prize-winning theoretical physicist. Now he is building a website with this goal in mind. All you need to follow in his footsteps is an internet connection, a budding intellect and the desire to study hard. Amanda Gefter met the physicist whose website is for those 鈥渇ully determined to earn their own Nobel prize鈥�.

For people who are just starting to learn physics, what do you think are the most exciting areas of research?

When I was growing up, it was the physics of fundamental particles. A lot of experimental data were not understood at all. It was considered a great challenge to write down consistent mathematical schemes to describe these particles. It came as quite a surprise in the 1970s that something as simple as the standard model could describe these particles. That was really unexpected: we thought that nature would be hopelessly complicated. Most of that excitement has evaporated as we鈥檝e found the answers. Now the most exciting thing is the quantisation of gravity. That鈥檚 a wide-open problem and it鈥檚 attracting hundreds or even thousands of people, including many bright young people.

Did you teach yourself?

I did teach myself a lot. But my uncle was a theoretical physicist and I had good teachers at school. So every now and then I would go astray and someone would tell me: 鈥淣o, this is not the way to think about things. You have to be sharper.鈥� Imagine what happens if someone does not have such help and still wants to teach themselves. Anybody who wants to learn should have the chance.

That sounds very democratising.

My philosophy is that you should not have to come from a highly developed country to pursue this kind of interest. If you grow up in a remote area of Africa or in the middle of Asia and you have no one around to tell you what to do, then you should be able to start teaching yourself as soon as you have an internet connection. It鈥檚 for people who are deprived of all other possibilities that I would like to add something. And that also includes people who are older, or people who can鈥檛 afford to go to a university.

What inspired you to make a website to help people teach themselves?

The site is for people who want to understand how it all works 鈥� the world of elementary particles, of forces, of gravitation and such. When I created it for young theorists, I was imagining myself at a young age, when I was very curious about theoretical physics but found it difficult to get hold of any systematic way of learning things on my own. I didn鈥檛 want to have to wait for university. I wanted to try to teach myself. But for young people today, there鈥檚 so much junk on the internet that it鈥檚 very hard to find good things to use to teach yourself.

So I collected the websites I could find that had useful information and lecture notes, and put links to them on the page. My advice for young people is to look at the order in which I list the topics, identify the level you are at and then try to read some of this stuff.

Would a self-taught physicist be able to get respect from the scientific community nowadays?

That is going to be very difficult. But if someone really wants to teach themselves, he or she will be able to contact professionals in the field on the internet who can help them along.

I get letters every now and then from people who want to learn physics. Often these are people who have some sort of self-concocted ideas about what the universe is like, and often these ideas are not very well phrased or not based on solid logic. I try to explain that to them. Sometimes people are unwilling or unable to see their own mistakes, and then there鈥檚 nothing you can do. But young people can still be coached; they鈥檙e ready to learn things.

鈥淭he next Einstein will be someone who鈥檚 done things in an unconventional manner鈥�

Einstein had a PhD in physics but he was largely self-taught.

That鈥檚 right. He didn鈥檛 follow the standard route to learn things, and that鈥檚 very important. When you try to figure things out for yourself, you make many mistakes. It is when you realise what you have been doing wrong that you learn something.

Are any other physicists self-taught?

The best example is the theoretical physicist and Nobel prizewinner Richard Feynman. Feynman to a large extent taught himself and didn鈥檛 go through all the established routes. He got a degree, but Feynman was a little bit like Einstein. He was very independent, having his own focus, his own ideas and his own common sense. All that helped him very much.

Is the internet changing the way people learn science?

I hope that the internet is changing things, making science more accessible to everybody. It鈥檚 not quite as easy as is sometimes suggested because many sites are protected, so it鈥檚 not always possible to get access. I鈥檝e made some effort to make pages accessible and I鈥檓 still working on it. But lots of serious science is accessible. For my website, I concentrated only on those sites that give you the information you need, not the sites that are beautiful or amusing but don鈥檛 teach you enough.

Who do you think will use your site?

It鈥檚 for the young Einsteins, in a sense. For really bright young people who are extremely motivated and who can produce the amount of self-discipline needed to do this, because it is hard work. It doesn鈥檛 just come on its own. You have to do the exercises in the books, and that takes enormous self-discipline. I think it鈥檚 quite likely that the next Einstein will be someone who鈥檚 done things in a somewhat unconventional manner, just like Einstein did. If you do things in a completely conventional way, you don鈥檛 have the fantasy needed to think of something totally new.

Could your site help someone win a Nobel prize?

The most important motivation for doing science is that you investigate things that have not been known before by anybody. It is a marvellous feeling: to know that you can really contribute. And it is not too difficult to make a fundamental contribution to science. Whether it鈥檚 a subject that earns you a Nobel prize is down to so many chance circumstances that you can鈥檛 control. That shouldn鈥檛 be your first concern.

If you are a scientist, you work hard to study a certain branch of science and your primary satisfaction should be that you can do something others haven鈥檛 yet done, that you can do something novel and change someone鈥檚 view. And if it seems like a modest contribution, just think of all the thousands of scientists who are busy working on small pieces that, taken together, define the direction and the progress of science as a whole. That鈥檚 the satisfaction. And then, if you鈥檙e lucky, the contribution you make will turn out to be so important that it earns you a Nobel prize. It can happen.