Want to know how the universe started or when it will end? Ever wondered if there is intelligent life on other planets or in other galaxies? What exactly is dark matter? How much do we know about the first trillionth of a second after the Big Bang?
On a recent afternoon, dozens of high school students from around New York City were crowded around Sir Martin Rees, the famed British cosmologist, seeking answers to these and other burning questions.
Rees, 71, seemed to enjoy the attention; he even posed for a few photos with his fans — “Hashtag Selfies with Scientists.”
That was Bill Ritter’s line, anyway. The WABC news anchor was the official host of the gathering, a part of the seventh annual World Science Festival here in the city.
Not that all the kids questioning the great scientist were from our area. Via Skype, students joined the discussion from Sao Paulo and Qatar.
Rees, the UK’s royal astronomer, offered a wide-ranging introduction.
“It’s amazing we can now say that the entire universe started off in a tiny fraction of a second. We have evidence of what it was like then . . . Every star is not just a twinkling of light. The galaxy is far richer and more interesting” than we had previously imagined.
“There are a billion planets rather like the Earth. Will there be life on any of them?”
In 10 or 20 years, we may have big enough telescopes to see whether there is life out there.
- Sir Martin Rees
It’s hard to say: “The origin of life even on Earth is still a mystery. In 10 or 20 years, we may have big enough telescopes to see whether there is life out there.”
You could have heard a pin drop in the NYU auditorium as Rees answered the students’ questions. The room was a veritable United Nations.
Nafassho Nafasshoev, a junior at the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering who is originally from Tajikistan, plans to be a physicist. He found the opportunity to meet Rees “amazing” and stayed afterward to ask for some career advice.
Assy Barry, a freshman at the Brooklyn International School originally from Guinea, always wondered about what will happen to the planet after the human race disappears. Rees said humans are just one point on the evolutionary timeline; the next iteration of beings may be robots.
Leanna Troncoso, a sophomore in the International Baccalaureate program at Brooklyn Latin, is interested in the idea that human beings are “made up of dead stars . . . the idea that there is a link between outer space and life here today.”
Asked what finding about outer space was the most surprising, Rees pointed to the discovery about 15 years ago that the expansion of the universe is speeding up, not slowing down.
How long will it continue to expand? Indefinitely? Rees quotes Woody Allen: “Eternity is a very long time, especially at the end.”
The astronomer says he enjoys talking to “non-experts” because they have a fresh perspective.
“Scientists,” he tells me, “ask the questions they think they can solve. It’s an occupational risk.” Talking to laypeople helps remind us that the “big questions are the important ones.”
But he also wants to develop young scientists. He says the “main problem with getting young people interested in science is the lack of qualified schoolteachers.”
The professional scientists he knows “were all inspired by one or two teachers in high school” — but many young people both in America and Britain today “are not having that experience.”
“Kids,” he says, “have a natural interest in the world around them. But a good teacher can build on that.” As he just did.