Sheldon Glashow (New York, 1932) knows like few others the world of subatomic particles, the components that give shape to all existing matter, from stars to tiny bacteria, including ourselves. Together with Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 for discovering the W and Z bosons, the particles that made it possible to unify two forces of nature, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force, into a single so-called 'electroweak' force. His work, later verified experimentally in particle accelerators, underpinned the standard model, the great pillar on which what we know about the universe rests and which, although it cannot explain everything, remains strong and standing despite the passing of the years. The same goes for Glashow, who, over the age of 90, has now retired from Harvard University for a decade and walks with the help of a cane, but maintains an imposing height, a quick mind and enough energy to give lectures all over the world. . He recently offered one at the Ramón Areces Foundation, in Madrid, where he highlighted the importance of serendipity in science. Those things that happen by chance and for which you have to keep your "eyes wide open." Standard Related News Yes Brian Spears, the nuclear fusion scientist: "The ignition we achieved is comparable to the Wright brothers' first flight" Javier Ansorena ABC interviews the leader of half the hundred scientists who this week took a decisive step to the achievement of a new clean and inexhaustible energy —It is not common to hear a scientist talk about luck. —As Pasteur said, luck is in favor of a prepared mind. There are many examples in the history of science: the discovery of radioactivity, x-rays, inert gases... And I can mention a failure of serendipity: Enrico Fermi discovered nuclear fission in 1934 in Rome, but he did not realize This did not arrive until 1938. If it had succeeded, the Germans would have developed the atomic bomb. In all likelihood, they would have won World War II and now we would be here speaking German. So we were lucky. —Has chance also marked your career? —Luck plays a very important role. Researchers have to be attentive, because nature tries to tell us things. A colleague and I often went diving in Mexico or the south of France and had very good ideas when we got out of the water. —Picasso said: may inspiration find you working… —Inspiration can come from working, having fun or even sleeping. My ideas don't leave when I go home, they are always in my head. A writer or a poet could say exactly the same thing. New accelerator —Your ideas were fundamental to the standard model, but now it doesn't seem enough. —Of course, the standard model is manifestly incomplete. It doesn't answer all the questions. For example, we do not understand how neutrinos (particles with no electrical charge and so light that they barely interact with matter) have achieved their mass or how the different quarts do so. —And what are we missing? — The universe cannot be as complex as those old televisions with a lot of buttons to adjust and make it look sharp, but something much simpler, like a Tesla car. —Will there be more particles after the Higgs boson? —We have no idea. That is precisely the biggest flaw of the standard model. Perhaps they can be found in one of the new super collider projects underway. The question is who is going to build it. Maybe the Chinese, but it could be the Europeans... Certainly not the Americans. The CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) project is not yet approved for 100% because they are now working on increasing the luminosity (energy) of the current accelerator. Nuclear fusion is not going to solve the energy problem, it is too expensive - Rejects String Theory, proposed as an alternative. —This model that proposes multiple possible universes has reached a dead end without having answered the fundamental questions. —Experiments at CERN have pointed to the existence of supersymmetry: each known particle has an unknown twin. —Supersymmetry was a beautiful invention but we have been investigating its consequences for 40 years and we have not found any. So I'm willing to abandon that idea. Other people think we need bigger accelerators and still hope this is feasible. —And what do you think of the proposal that gravity could be different in other places or times in the universe? —In my opinion, it is an ill-defined and untestable idea. We have done many experiments to verify that the laws of gravity have not changed in the last billions of years. We see very old stars that have the same behavior as new ones. Unified theory —What is the biggest problem in physics today? —That it is not a unified theory, but composed of many parts. It seems like it has to be forced to work. That one day we could unify it was the dream that those who created string theory had. —Will a disruptive idea come along that changes everything? —Nothing is completely disruptive. The standard model is not totally different from the quantum mechanics of the 1920s. And quantum theory is based on the previous classical theory. What Newton or Maxwell did is still valid, so I think the standard model will also be part of the truth in the future. I don't know if it's good or bad, but self-driving cars are coming—what big advances in physics can we expect in the coming years? —Autonomous cars. I don't know if it's good or not, but they're coming. Also quantum computers. Regarding nuclear fusion, steps are being taken, but very very slowly and it will not solve the energy problem. Certainly not in this century. —What did you think of the last “historic” announcement of the merger in the US? —Well, every three months they make an announcement of that nature (laughs). And yes, they are making progress, but it is going to take a long time. The problem is not so much a physics problem but an engineering problem. Fusion, as is being attempted, consists of laser rays that hit a 'ball' sealed in a metal container. The problem is that each of these 'little balls' costs $30,000 and the energy they manage to produce would be equivalent to the cost of one cent on the dollar. It is not economically viable. It would have to be possible to hit millions of rays per second for it to be so. MORE INFORMATION news Yes Anil Seth, neuroscientist: "There will come a time when we will treat machines as if they had consciousness" news Yes In the house of the last Neanderthal girl —Are you still a convinced atheist? —I see the effect that God has on society and it is not good, especially for women today in the United States and a long time ago for Jews in this country. It is not by accident that cathedrals were built in Spain during the time of Isabella the Catholic.
