After leaving the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Britain over 20 years ago, physicist and physics teacher Sheila Holmes recently joined the U.K.'s Women Returners to Physics Open University program, determined to go back into scientific research and use her knowledge and understanding as a force for good.
Poshak Gandhi is an observational astrophysicist specializing in the properties of black holes. Born in India, he earned his PhD at Cambridge University in the U.K. and is currently on a fellowship at RIKEN (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) in Saitama, Japan.
The interviews were conducted separately.
How did you first become interested in your field?
Sheila: I wanted to become a physicist since I was about 15, when I first heard about the existence of small sub-atomic particles called quarks, which make up the nucleus of an atom. The whole world of the myriad existence of particles within the nucleus fascinated me, and I decided to work in particle physics then.
Poshak: When I was about five years old, I read that the universe is so big that even light from the nearest star takes four years to reach us. The nearest large galaxy to us is 2 million light-years away, and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. I remember being taken aback at the scale of things, and that sense of wonder stayed with me.
It's exciting that, sitting here on Earth, we are able to look toward the distant edges of the universe and draw inferences about the big questions, about how the universe formed, how our life on Earth emerged.
How would you describe the relationship between astrophysics and nuclear physics?
Poshak: Astrophysics is the study of the macrocosm, nuclear physics deals with almost the smallest particles we know of--the nuclei of atoms and their structure. Studies in astrophysics have helped us make advances in the field of nuclear physics as well, simply because nuclear reactions are a fundamental part of everything that happens, for example in the Sun and in distant stars. All the energy of the Sun comes from this process of nuclear fusion, in which lighter elements, like hydrogen and helium, are forced together under immense pressures to combine and form heavier elements.
Also, there are big explosions known as supernovae, which mark the end of the life of massive stars. In these explosions all the elements heavier than iron--uranium, for example--are manufactured, and then they are dispersed into the universe by this huge explosion.
How do you see the relationship between Buddhism and science?
Sheila: Buddhism has a different way of looking at the universe, different from a rational reductionist way of thinking. Scientists try to understand things by breaking them up into smaller and smaller bits. But then there is the Buddhist concept that the microcosm is the macrocosm, which I think science tends to lose sight of. I am trying to take that Buddhist principle into my understanding of subatomic physics while at the same time looking at quantum physics, which is part physics, part philosophy, from a Buddhist perspective.
Particle physics is all to do with the different forces between particles. The Holy Grail of physics is to unify those forces into a grand unified theory, which is what Einstein was trying to do and what people are working quite hard on right now. You can either look at particle physics by looking at these tiny subatomic particles at very high energy levels in big particle accelerators, or you can work back and theorize about what was happening when the universe was created.
One example in which the conditions are right for unification of these forces to occur is provided by the Big Bang theory in which it is thought that matter was condensed into a very small volume, while energy levels were extremely high.
Physicists seek a unified theory that can encapsulate the workings of the universe, in the same way as Nichiren Buddhists see Nam-myoho-renge-kyo as the "law of life" at the heart of the universe.
From a Buddhist perspective, the universe is life. So, therefore, even these subatomic particles are life. A physicist would see matter as separate from life; but as a Buddhist I think there is always some aspect there that has the characteristics of life. I am trying to understand this through the concept that the microcosm is the macrocosm.
Poshak: Buddhism and science are complementary ways of exploring the internal and external worlds. For instance, Buddhism--especially Nichiren Buddhism--emphasizes the truth and seeking actual proof, constantly asking questions. These are the core of the scientific method, and qualities I continually try to cultivate within myself.
Buddhism has the concept that all phenomena are impermanent and ever-changing, and this is something that observations over the past century have shown to be true--that everything, including stars and galaxies themselves, are born, and will eventually die.
Also, I talked earlier about the process of nuclear fusion by which the elements are created--all the elements in your body and my body and everything around us were probably created in the center of the same massive star soon after it died in a supernova explosion. So on the very physical, fundamental level, there's no difference between us. Buddhism stresses that all people are fundamentally equal, and here in science we have a very physical basis for this.
Incidentally, the process of nuclear fusion that creates the elements of life is the same process that we have harnessed to such destructive effect in hydrogen bombs.
Sheila, what was your experience of working at a nuclear weapons factory?
Sheila: I monitored radiation levels in the Aldermaston plant in the U.K. At that time I believed in the concept of nuclear deterrence. Living and working with the reality of nuclear weapons was very different from having an intellectual understanding. I lived on-site in the accommodation with the people who were working there. The whole work area was contaminated with plutonium dust, because that is where they are machining the plutonium to make the bombs. At that time there was no veto on pregnant women working at the site. The whole thing was nightmarish, seeing the bombs and the plutonium being machined and fashioned. I had a physical revulsion against nuclear weapons. I couldn't live my life that close to the weapons.
By the time I left, I no longer believed in the nuclear deterrent because I had come up against the actual bombs, the weapons themselves. That changed me. I will not work in the defense industry.
What do you see as the major contributions of your field?
Sheila: Medical physics has been hugely advanced by using nuclear technology in, for example, scanners to accurately diagnose cancers and other diseases. The use of radiotherapy in cancer has significantly increased survival rates.
Poshak: The worldview that it has given us. To me, it's much more interesting to know that we are sitting on a small, fragile planet going around the center of our galaxy at 220 km per second in a small region of a dynamic, possibly infinite universe, rather than a viewpoint that is Earth-centric, a universe in which everything happens for human beings. The first viewpoint is so much more full of the wonder and preciousness of life.
(Source: SGI Quarterly, July 2007)