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Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology at Harvard University. Her research connects theoretical insights to puzzles in our current understanding of the properties and interactions of matter. She[…]

Randall hopes people will start asking the broader questions.

Lisa Randall: I don’t know. You know for one thing it turns out which ideas turn out to be right. I think that, you know, at this point though, one impact is just it makes people think about broader questions. I mean it’s . . . I mean one of the nice things, it expands your horizons. That wasn’t meant literally, but in the sense that it’s nice to think . . . I don’t know. I mean some . . . I guess people are different. Some people like to think they know everything, and some . . . For some people, I think it’s nice to think there’s all these questions that we don’t know the answer to. I mean there could be extra dimensions in space that we just don’t know about. And certainly in the history of physics there have been many things that have been discovered that no one would have anticipated. No one anticipated quantum mechanics, but it was discovered and people put it together. And so I think just the idea . . . It’s a little bit humbling, but in an interesting way, to think about the number of questions we know the answer to; but look at the number of things we don’t know the answers to. And so I think just being able to think about these in an intelligent way – to ask these questions – and to, you know, hopefully to think more scientifically about them; not just to think in a sort of “new agey” kind of way, but to really think about what these things could mean. Recorded On: 11/2/07


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