Howard Burton - The Pull of the Stars: A Conversation with Claudia de Rham

Theres something special about astronomy. While virtually every other area of science, from mathematics to particle physics to evolutionary biology, has to periodically address the delicate balancing act between basic and applied research, regularly invoking you never know type of reasoning to justify open-ended, curiosity-driven research, astronomy traditionally requires no such intellectual contortions whatsoever.

The very same general public that is constantly subjected to time-worn arguments on how basic research in pure mathematics has the potential to serendipitously give rise to better crytography protocols to protect credit card purchases doesnt seem to bat an eye at the idea of examining the fine details of galactic nebulae just because, well, theyre out there.

Why the difference?

Well, nobody knows for sure, of course. But it certainly doesnt hurt, I think, that your average galactic nebulaa dry concoction of dust, hydrogen, helium and various ionized gases, turns out to be spectacularly, breathtakingly, beautiful. The philosophically inclined among us might probe deeper still, musing on to what extent our sentiments of beauty might be, in turn, driven by some inherent predisposition to contemplate our place in the universe or whether, in this case at least, they correspond to something that objectively exists.

But the rest of us tend not to worry about any of that. Presented with a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope, our reaction will inevitably be: Wow. Thats so beautiful! And this appreciation for the inherent beauty of the astronomical world naturally spills over into an unbounded respect for the very idea of astronomy itself.

Claudia de Rham has experienced this sort of enthusiasm first-hand on many occasions.

Ill often meet someone at the airport, say, and we start talking, and I tell them that Im trying to understand the evolution of the universe, the contents of the universe; and you can see the sparkle in their eyespeople get very excited about that.

Its something that I think perhaps 90% of the people I meet want to learn more about. Maybe they dont have the opportunity in their everyday life to do so, but I think a lot of people have this curiosity deep inside themselves; and I think its something that they believe that we, as humans, should be trying to understand and study further.

Claudia, as it happens, has distinct memories of when her own astronomical passion was first kindled as a young Swiss girl growing up in Madagascar, staring up at the stars.

The night sky was this wonderful, constant thing that we were surrounded by that you could see from everywhere. In Madagascar, you can see the Milky Way beautifully. You have very clear skies at night and you just see this beautiful Milky Way all the time, so its really like a constant dream that exists in this very poor country. And that was one of the things I would attach myself to.

At the time, I didnt really know about cosmology. Initially, I was just attracted to astronomy, to the stars. Later on, I realized what inspired me more was cosmology and where we come from, as well as questions about the future of the universe. But originally, it was really all about looking at the stars and astronomy.

Propelled by these formative experiences, Claudia went on to eventually find her way to the very front lines of theoretical physics research as a highly-regarded cosmologist at Imperial College London, where she now has the inestimable privilege of having a day job that requires her to spend her days puzzling over highly abstruse mathematical and conceptual issues like dark energy and the associated fiendishly difficult cosmological constant problem, where even the most passionate scientist is still likely to encounter prolonged periods of frustration:

Its fair to say right now that I have no idea; Ive tried to work on it and I came up with different models, so having worked on it, I can tell you that its really hard; and I have no immediate candidates. Theres nothing that says, If we really push that way of thinking further, theres really something that seems to be coming out there.

I tried the idea of understanding if we could modify gravity or modify the way the vacuum energy would accelerate the universe, and all I can say is that its difficult.

But like any expert in the mathematical sciences, Claudia knows all too well that failure is simply an inevitable part of the game, the necessary flip side of pursuing ones passion in trying to penetrate the secrets of the universe that nature all too often so stubbornly conceals from our view. It is a lesson that definitely bears emphasis.

I think that its very important for people who want to get into the fieldfor students, for instanceto appreciate that research is very different from most other activities. They often think that theres a clear path that you follow when you work hard: you move straightforwardly from here to there in order to get to the solution.

And then they get into research and suddenly realize that they just dont know what the answer is, and maybe theyre going to spend five years working on a subject before eventually realizing that it wasnt the right approach. But you learn from that.

Science is not straightforward. It is not predictable. And it is often extremely difficult, sometimes even despairingly so. But all of that, in fact, is an integral part of the appeal, part of the beauty.