Question: Do you think it will make a positive impact and why/why not?

Paul Stevenson answered on 17 Mar 2010:

I think my work will make a positive impact in one direct and one indirect way. The direct way is that I think trying (and succeeding!) to understand the universe and the ways in which it works is an important part of what it means to be human – to strive to understand the world we live in in such a way as to go beyond just doing what is necessary to survive.

The indirect way that my work might make a positive impact is that although I do “basic” physics – in the sense that it is to do with understanding how nature works at a level of the basic building blocks of matter – it is only by doing basic research that any of the positive applications happen. Without basic research in nuclear physics there would be no radiotherapy for cancer treatment, we could not do PET scans, or MRI scans, we wouldn’t even have the world wide web. It’s really hard to predict what good will come of any basic research, like mine, though I am trying to better understand how nuclear fusion works, and that is one area that might lead to carbon-free clean energy generation.