Closer to Truth . Ask the Experts . Roger Blandford

Why did you become a scientist?

I was very fortunate to go to a challenging high school and had very good teachers. And I found science the most interesting subject that I learned about. So that sort of kept my interesting going I think. And that's why I got involved in it.

Does the general public properly appreciate science?

One of the ways of improving everybody's life, I think, is for people to have an understanding not just of how to work your VCR, but to actually understand more of the principles that led to that VCR being designed and constructed in the first place, and the connection that that has to the very fundamental ideas of condensed matter theory, electromagnetic theory and so on. And to appreciate without necessarily understanding the details that there is a very large world of science and technology that is very strongly interconnected is one of the lessons that we should be trying to give to the next generation.

How would you like to be remembered?

I'd like to be remembered for someone who was interested and fortunate to participate at some minor level in a lot of exciting scientific discovery. And I think I would like to be remembered through my students for better or worse.