Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A Cambridge physicist and Fellow of the Royal Society, known for studying the structure of everyday objects like plastic, food, and plants.
On the island
Eight records
When I was in the States I was having a fairly rough time and I threw myself into singing barbershop. And again, I made a group of very close friends.
Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (Pathétique)
part of Beethoven's Platitique, which both my grandmother played and indeed, much more recently, my daughter.
Requiem in D minor, K. 626: Dies IraeFavourite
this was the first full scale choral work we did. When this music master turned up, he got us involved, I guess, in some inter school event.
Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
London Schools Symphony Orchestra
this was something I played the first concert I played with them, and it was just fantastic to be surrounded by this wall of sound
String Quartet in D major, Op. 64, No. 5, Hob. III:63 'The Lark'
When I was living in the States in particular, my husband and I formed um a quartet, I mean a very amateur one with another couple who were the other half of the quartet, and we played Haydn and Mozart's string quartets and had great fun.
Siete canciones populares españolas
there is no real connection with anything with this one. It's just music I came to relatively recently and I thought was absolutely wonderful.
String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810 'Death and the Maiden'
When I went into hospital to have my son James, my husband put together what you might call a birthing tape, and this was one of the pieces of music we put on that.
Dona Nobis Pacem: Dirge for Two Veterans
It is music I sang when I was eighteen, but it's something I've very much come back to recently. ... It's a plea for peace, and it's still highly relevant, and it still sends shivers up my spine.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:01What happened in that first physics lesson when you were thirteen?
I just know that once I did separate sciences and was introduced to physics, it all made sense to me. It was just that's what really turns me on.
Presenter asks
5:17How did your parents' separation affect you when you were ten?
I felt, if you like, very ashamed about it, and I never told anyone at school. ... I realized for two years I had never told anyone at school. ... It was something I internalized.
Presenter asks
12:49Did your academic and musical talents get in the way of making friends?
Yes, I think it it did. I think definitely at my primary school I was always called teacher's pet. It's it's a terrible thing to stand out and you get rather shunned.
Presenter asks
23:28How did you feel about having children while pursuing a demanding academic career?
The keepsakes
The book
Dorothy Dunnett
because these are a wonderfully intricate series of historical novels, and I think it would give me plenty to mull over on that long time I'm stranded there.
The luxury
I feel I shall get very dirty and sand on my skin and I'll my eczema will be terrible. I'd like a bath so I can sit and read.
I think probably there was an element of naivety. I don't think I realized how hard being a mother was going to be. And I just felt my husband and I could work around this, as indeed we did manage to, but it's a challenge. It's very hard.
Presenter asks
25:37Do you feel guilt about balancing your work and your children?
Yes, there is of course guilt. One never gives enough time to one's children and I know because I'm obsessed about my work at times, I can be short with them or come home really stressed by something and feel you're not as receptive to their worries as you should be. Yes, there would be guilt. And you should ask men that.
“I've always felt as if I was on the fringes.”
“I would hate the thought that they were going to lower the bar to try and get more women in. And any woman who was elected under that system would hate it too, because they would always feel second-class citizen.”
“When people ask me, what have you done? I say it's not a single Eureka moment, it's trying to draw together ideas from different branches.”