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Idea Collection Series

The idea for his video series, came about in order to have an activity that allowed us to show a more ‘human’ approach to theoretical physics and to demystify the field. It was also an opportunity to showcase the research interests (and personalities!) of the various members of our Higgs Centre, from PhD students to the recently established Higgs Chair. Furthermore, this series was aimed not only at the research community in Edinburgh, but also at colleagues, and collaborators across the globe, as well as the non-scientific public.

Rather than everyone recording themselves and their answers, we conducted interviews with all project contributors to be able to gather some spontaneous and conversational answers.

Introduction

The Higgs Centre Researchers Introduce Themselves

The first chapter in this series aimed at introducing the breadth of experience, fields and areas of science under the auspices of the Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics, with contributions from colleagues within the School of Physics and Astronomy’s three Institutes (Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Institute for Condensed Matter and Complex Systems and the Institute for Astronomy), along with colleagues from the School of Mathematics.

Creativity

The Higgs Centre Researchers Discuss Creativity
There seems to be a common misconception that researchers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields do not really allow themselves to exploit creativity in their activities. In this video, we have tried to dispel this misconception, by addressing how important imagination and creativity are for the scientific process.

Collaboration

The Higgs Centre Researchers Discuss Collaboration
In this chapter, we tried to highlight that collaboration is crucial for science. Sometimes, scientists are portrayed as achieving breakthroughs on their own, when the reality is very different. At the Higgs Centre, we try to create a stimulating, collaborative spirit, working with colleagues from different fields in order to take us beyond current paradigms.

Being A Physicist

The Higgs Centre Researchers Discuss Being a Physicist
We tried to demystify what it actually means to be a physicist, in this video (apparently it means drinking a lot of coffee). We discussed the favourite parts of everyone’s days and checked if theoretical physicist indeed used blackboards!

Global Challenges

The Higgs Centre Researchers Discuss Global Challenges
Theory and real world problems? Does that go together? We tried to highlight that theoretical physicists have indeed plenty to contribute in order to tackle global challenges that the world faces. We concluded our series by discussing what the future of theoretical physics should look like!


We received incredible input from over 20 local researchers (PhD to Chair level), who were ready with answers in this interview-type format, which was used in order to also garner some rather sponatenous answers. We thank them all for their time and their enthusiasm.

Many people made this video series possible, not in the least our incredible editor, Paul Maguire, who managed to make sense of our ideas and Anna Lisa who did 16 of the interviews. See below for a list of everyone who was involved.

All these people were involved in the making of this video project.

Directors

Ines Foidl

Nelson Lachini

Dylan Robson

Anna Lisa Varri

Interviewers

Luigi Del Debbio

Jean-Christophe Denis

Antonin Portelli

Dylan Robson

Anna Lisa Varri

Interviewees - in no particular order

Luigi Del Debbio

Anna Lisa Varri

Tyler Shendruk

Joan Simon

Tim Adamo

Weiguang Cui

Einan Gardi

Benjamin Giblin

Mike Petersen

Sadegh Khochfar

Avery Meiksin

Graeme Ackland

Franz Herzog

Davide Michieletto

Antonin Portelli

Daniele Sorini

Niamh Maher

Jasmin Allenspach

Vera Guelpers

Davide Marenduzzo

Max Hansen

Neil Turok