Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A theoretical physicist who studies atomic particles using maths and computers and wrote a book to explain quantum physics.
On the island
Eight records
She's Not ThereFavourite
Growing up as a teenager in Iraq, I could get hold of pop music. I'd listen to some of the pops on World Service. But my maternal grandmother was coming over from England to visit us, and she asked me what I wanted brought over. And I said, Well, go into a record shop and find what the latest music is. This was 1977, and Santana was high in the charts. And this track is She's Not There.
The second track goes back to my childhood. I must have been about six or seven years old. And BBC World Service was a constant background in our home. And in 1969, Rolf Harris had this number one hit. And my mother wrote in to the BBC asking for it to be played as a request for two little boys, my brother and I. And it was played. And our names were announced on the radio.
My brother bought it for me when I think I was for my tenth birthday. And it was an E P from the film A Hard Day's Night. In fact, this track was the B side to A Hard Day's Night, so it's not so well known, but it's a great track, and it's the things we said today.
My fourth track is is a classical piece by Rimti Korsikov. My mother used to listen to this a lot and the only other Rumti Korsikov piece I remember was The Flight of the Bumblebee, which whenever I heard it, I'd get ever so scared and go and hide. There was something about that piece. But this one is Shah Razad, which conjures up these images of of Arabian Nights and and the life I've left behind.
This is from, I think it was my first album I ever owned. It's By The Temptations. And this track was one which I had on this first album I owned and then didn't hear it again for many years. And it's only recently that I heard it again. It's rather melancholy. It doesn't reflect any personal experience.
Okay, well this this next track is partly because of my favorite film of all time, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and the the track I've chosen is Frank Sinatra's cover version of it.
Um this is probably my favourite piece of music of all time. It's hauntingly beautiful and it always brings a lump to my throat. Uh and it's Rodrigo's Concerto di Aranjued.
Well, I'd chosen my other seven tracks and realized that I had nothing more recent than the late 1970s. ... I don't want to be judges on old farts, but but I don't believe any good music came out of the 1980s. ... And it wasn't until the nineteen nineties that suddenly there was good music again. So this track is for me symbolic of the nineteen nineties and proper rock music again, and it's Oasis Wonder War.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:27You mean literally, you're afraid you might want to blow yourself up [in a lab]?
Yes. When I was a student I spent a year working in a lab and one of my jobs was to clean bell jars covering some technical electronic equipment and I'd forgotten to unplug the electronics and I very narrowly missed being zapped by 4,000 volts. When I realized after I cleaned it, I just went weak at the knees and I thought, I don't think this is for me. I think I'd be safer in front of a computer.
Presenter asks
5:44How do you answer the question: What is the point [of abstract theoretical physics]?
Really, what is the point? It's wanting to know. ... For me, I can't think of anything more important than understanding our place in the universe. And it's part of an enlightened society to want to answer these questions.
Presenter asks
10:30What sort of connection do you feel with Iraq when you watch those pictures and you see what the people have gone through in recent times?
I was never against the two thousand three invasion because for me that was the opportunity to get rid of an evil dictator. For me, seeing what had happened to Iraq, particularly after the nineteen ninety one war and the devastation that caused, it was heartbreaking.
The keepsakes
The book
Roger Penrose
I've had it for five years on my shelf and I haven't got round to reading it... I'd love to have the time to wade through it carefully.
The luxury
I made a guitar when I was fourteen. I built one in Iraq out of scratch 'cause I was so desperate to have a guitar. ... I've owned several guitars, but this acoustic guitar is quite expensive. I've owned it for a few years and I haven't had the time to sit down with it, so I think it will be nice a nice opportunity to reacquaint myself.
Presenter asks
12:05How aware were you of the plans that were being made [to flee Iraq]?
My brother and I were told that we were coming over to Britain never to return. I have two younger sisters and they were too young to be told. But my parents had been planning it for a couple of years. ... a few months before coming over, we were told, and so I found it quite difficult to say goodbye to friends saying, Well, you know, I'll be see you in four weeks' time, knowing I probably would never see them again.
Presenter asks
22:58Why is it that when you look at [a particle], it changes its behaviour?
That's something that we still don't fully understand. Quantum mechanics is a mathematical theory that tells us the rules about how atoms behave. ... But at its heart, there's this mystery. Why? Why does an atom do these strange things? And why does it stop doing when we're spying on it?
Presenter asks
28:16Has [your wife's] illness made you more likely to say no to some things?
I hope so. She may she may argue that it hasn't enough, but I I I like to think that uh I also want to try and see if we can do more travelling together, even if it's through my work. Um if if I can bring her along with me, I think uh I want to share more of it with her.
“The ultimate goal is to find that one equation that you can wear on a T-shirt that will describe everything in nature.”
“We were of an age where we would have been conscripted, and because of my father not being a member of the Ba'ath party, my mother being British, and of course because of his Persian background, we would have been earmarked as front line fodder. We would have been quite expendable.”
“You get that thrill when you know something that no other human has ever known. It's a tremendous thrill.”