 
INTERVIEWER: Today is
April 15, 2011.
And I'm Barbara Moran.
And today we are in the MIT
studio and speaking with Frank
Wilczek as part of the MIT 150
Infinite History Project.
Dr. Wilczek, considered one of
the world's most eminent
theoretical physicists, is the
Herman Feshbach professor of
physics at MIT.
Professor Wilczek received his
Bachelor's degree from the
University of Chicago and his
PhD from Princeton University.
When only 21 years old and a
graduate student at Princeton
in work with David Gross, he
defined the properties of
color gluons, which hold
atomic nuclei together.
He has received numerous awards
for his work, including
in 2004, the Nobel Prize in
Physics for the discovery of
asymptotic freedom in the
theory of the strong
interaction.
He is also a distinguished
science writer and poet.
Welcome, Dr. Wilczek.
Did I pronounce "asymptotic"
correctly?
WILCZEK: It's "asymptotic"
actually.
But you approached it closely,
which is appropriate because
it means "close approach."
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
Great.
Sorry about that.
I even spelled it
out for myself.
I wanted to start by
asking you about
winning the Nobel Prize.
And I know you've told the
story many times before.
But I'm wondering if you could
tell me where you were when
you got the call for
the Nobel Prize?
And tell us that story?
WILCZEK: I was--
well, that's the punch line.
I'll build up to it.
For several years I have
been anticipating
that that could happen.
So much so that knowing the
announcement was going to be
made, the night before I
would be very restless
and couldn't sleep.
And 2004 was no different.
I was tossing and turning
and not sleeping.
And we had a little digital
clock by the side of the bed
with the red numbers.
So every once in a while I would
look at it and see what
time it was.
And it got to be 5 o'clock.
And the announcement was going
to be made at 6 o'clock.
So I said well, look Frank,
you're not sleeping.
Why don't you just get
up and take a shower.
And just in case,
you'll be ready.
And so I got up and went
into the shower.
 
I thought that they didn't call
people up until after the
announcement.
But that turned us be wrong
because 10 minutes into my
shower, my wife came in,
holding the phone.
I didn't hear any ring
or anything.
She was holding the phone and
said, "There's a woman on the
phone for you with a
beautiful accent.
Sounds Swedish." I think
you should talk to her.
And so I did.
And that was it.
 
And the other thing
I didn't know--
INTERVIEWER: Did you
stay in the shower?
WILCZEK: No.
I got out of the shower.
 
But that's all.
I didn't dry myself
off or anything.
And I thought--
I think maybe actually I left
one foot in the shower.
I was kind of half in.
Anyway--
I turned off the
water for sure.
And the other thing I didn't
realize until it happened was
that I thought the phone call
would be of the nature of
congratulations, you've
won the Nobel Prize.
Goodbye.
But it wasn't that way at all.
They wanted to give me advice
on how to handle the press,
tell me to shut up until
six o'clock.
 
But that was just
the beginning.
There were people from the
Academy who wanted to
congratulate me.
Some of my friends in Sweden
wanted to have little
conversations, tell me that they
were responsible for it.
And so on--
INTERVIEWER: How long was
the conversation?
WILCZEK: It was 20 minutes,
half an hour, or
something like that.
And the whole time of course I
was dripping wet and cold.
But it was really only
afterwards that I realized I
was very cold because I
was all goose bumps.
But at the time I didn't
feel it at all.
INTERVIEWER: I'm sure.
So what did you do afterwards?
Who did you call first?
WILCZEK: I called my
parents right away.
 
And then--
INTERVIEWER: What
did they say?
WILCZEK: They were
very pleased.
I don't remember their
exact words.
But especially from my father,
I think it was tremendously
meaningful because he--
both of them grew up in the
Depression and really
struggled and sacrificed
on my behalf.
And they were extremely
supportive for many years.
And my father was kind of
a technical person.
He worked in radio
and television
repair kind of things.
And electronics.
And so to him, it was especially
meaningful because
of science.
This was kind of the
pinnacle of being.
If he had learned that I'd
somehow made a billion dollars
or something, that wouldn't
carry nearly the weight of
winning this prize.
INTERVIEWER: That's wonderful.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: That's nice.
So--
okay, so after you call your
parents-- which is good.
That's a lousy answer.
I wanted you to call
your mother.
 
Then what do you do?
What do you do when you
win the Nobel Prize?
Just go to work?
WILCZEK: No, you get ready
for the press.
Because at six o'clock
the announcement
was going to come.
And I knew that there would be
press conferences, and people
storming the door, and lots
of telephone calls.
So I dried off finally.
I got dressed.
And kind of gathered my--
I thought a little bit
about the next thing.
MIT called also.
Before the announcement
I believe,
if I remember correctly.
They had also been informed.
And they had scheduled a press
conference for that morning.
So I decided it would
be nice to walk in.
I walked in.
The press conference
was quite early.
So that was the first
concrete thing.
But in between, a
guy from AP--
a photographer from AP
arrived about 6:15.
He happened to be in
the neighborhood.
Lived in the neighborhood.
Based in the neighborhood.
And so we had to host
this photographer.
Couldn't really tell
him not to come.
And the phone just rang
continuously, starting
immediately--
from all over the world.
So we just--
after a few--
INTERVIEWER: Took it off?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
There's just no way
to deal with it.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
 
Do you remember what was your
primary emotion at the time?
Was it that you're
just ecstatic?
Or was it relief?
WILCZEK: It was relief really.
It was relief.
INTERVIEWER: And why?
I've heard you mention before
that you had been thinking the
call might come for
several years.
And why was that on your mind?
WILCZEK: I'd done
very great work.
And several people had told me
that they had nominated me.
They weren't doing any favors
really of telling me this.
But got--
and that speculating on you
know, trying to be nice,
saying how much I deserved
and all.
So it just built a lot of--
INTERVIEWER: I can imagine.
WILCZEK: --tension.
You know it's like being
pregnant for
five years or something.
INTERVIEWER: That's
very funny.
So I noticed that--
 
can you explain to a
non-physicist the work for
which you won the Nobel Prize?
And then do you have a--
WILCZEK: There are different
levels of explanation.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILCZEK: But I can first
tell you sort of in
quasi-historical terms.
There are four basic forces
of nature: gravity and
electromagnetism.
And then two forces that were
only really discovered in the
20th century because their
effects in most accessible
circumstances are only
on subatomic scales.
And these are called the
strong and weak force--
very unappealing names.
But you had to name
them something.
And one is strong--
the strong force is much
more powerful.
It's the strongest
force in nature.
It holds atomic nuclei
together.
So not atoms, but their
inner core.
It holds them together.
In fact as we understand it more
deeply, it holds protons
and neutrons-- protons
themselves together, made of
the basic things-- quarks
and gluons.
Anyway that wasn't known at the
time that I did my work.
What we did, David Gross and
I, was figure out what the
equations of the strong force
are and how to demonstrate
that those are the right
equations experimentally.
It's not so easy when
you're looking at
forces there really.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILCZEK: And that's
had all kinds of
consequences for physics.
For instance, knowing how those
forces work allows you
to talk sensibly about what
happened in the very early
universe where things were
really squeezed together.
It also has allowed us to make
more progress in fundamental
particle physics at accelerators
because most of
what happens is due to
this strong force.
So if you want to see subtle new
effects that haven't been
anticipated, you have to be
very, very confident that you
can sort of subtract
off accurately
what usually happens.
So the interesting events might
be one in a million or
one in a trillion and
at a place like the
Large Hadron Collider.
So you really have to understand
the background
extremely well.
INTERVIEWER: When you were
doing the work--
 
you talk a lot in your writings
about beautiful
equations and all equations.
When you were doing that work,
was there a moment when the
equation just clicked?
And it was beautiful?
And you said, "this is it?"
WILCZEK: There was a definite
moment when the equations gave
a beautiful surprise, let's
put it that way--
the equations we
were studying.
And this pointed to a very
interesting area of
investigation.
It took a few weeks, which
sounds like a short time.
But if you actually lived
through it and are working 15
hours a day on this, it's
actually quite a long time.
It took a few weeks to get
from that breakthrough--
which was kind of a mathematical
breakthrough--
to a theory of this force.
We sort of--
it was really--
it was very much almost
unimaginable a realization of
this idea that you look for
beauty in equations.
And then if you find beautiful
equations, you look for places
to use them.
But it was a stunning gift
from nature that this
phenomenon-- this asymptotic
freedom--
really pointed very uniquely
to a complete theory of the
strong force.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
It must have been--
I can only imagine.
Once you finished the equation,
it must have been
kind of stunning to realize--
WILCZEK: It was.
But this was at the very
beginning of my career.
I thought this was
the way it was.
This was always going
to be this way.
Okay, so this week we solve
the strong interaction.
Next week, we'll do the
weak interaction.
Then we'll do gravity.
And then we'll unify them all.
 
I wouldn't say it's been
a letdown ever since.
But was not--
I didn't realize how rare and
extraordinary it was to make
that kind of progress.
INTERVIEWER: That's
very interesting.
At what point did you begin
to think that that
work was Nobel worthy?
Was it at that point?
WILCZEK: Right away.
I should--
with a "if".
Or a big "but", I should say.
 
The experimental evidence
at first was very thin.
And in fact some of it
was contradictory.
 
If we really had supplied the
equations for the strong
force, that definitely
was huge.
 
But nature gets her say--
gets really the last word.
And it wasn't clear for quite
awhile actually that these
equations were actually
the right ones.
INTERVIEWER: And is
that because the
experiments didn't exist?
Like you didn't have the--
WILCZEK: They didn't penetrate
the high--
We could only really draw out
the consequences of these
equations in a convincing way
for behavior at high energy,
where high means really high.
Higher than was then
accessible.
So although in principle the
theory describes everything
about the strong interaction,
how nuclei work, and so forth,
in practice we can only solve
it accurately and make
numerical, quantitative
comparisons with experiments
at high energy.
So it had to rely on more
powerful accelerators, also
getting experimentalists to
organize their data in a
certain way so that we could
really compare the predictions
of our questions
to the reality.
 
INTERVIEWER: Now, you already
alluded to this a little bit.
But in several talks you gave
around winning the Nobel
Prize, you thanked
Mother Nature.
WILCZEK: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Are you thanking
Mother Nature for just
creating this world for you to
explore or for creating these
beautiful equations and giving
them to you somehow?
WILCZEK: Both.
 
It's a wonderful world.
But even on top of that miracle,
the fact that finding
this one phenomenon opened
up the whole subject.
And really, people have been
struggling with this strong
attraction for decades.
Decades of intense labor by
many, many smart people.
 
And then it turned out just by
focusing on this one fact and
trying to make it consistent
with everything else and have
beautiful equations for
it, we solved the
problem in a few weeks.
That didn't have
to be that way.
It's usually not that way.
People struggle to get more or
less approximate theories for
this or that.
 
There are only a handful of
incidents like that in the
whole history of physics
I think.
 
So that was very lucky.
 
It's even more than that.
It was a gift.
These equations had consequences
that I certainly
didn't anticipate at first.
 
I mentioned that the predictions
are clearest and
the behavior is simplest
at high energies.
That as I mentioned, opens up
new vistas in accelerator
physics because you can
calculate things.
And in the early universe,
because you can calculate, if
you have a speculation, you can
actually calculate what it
implies, which you couldn't
do before.
But also the particular
equations that govern the
strong force turn out to
be deeply similar--
although of course different.
But they have a kind of family
resemblance to the equations
for electromagnetism and
to the weak force.
So it's allowed us to think
about unifying all these
forces, and gravity too
for that matter.
And so that--
 
people have always dreamed of
unified field theories.
But now it's real.
INTERVIEWER: I want to get more
to that in the end and
about how you're going
to figure out how to
get gravity in there.
 
After winning the prize, did
it change your research or
change your life in any way?
Did it allow you to--
what did it do for you for your
career and your life?
WILCZEK: It opens
a lot of doors.
And it's also kind
of overwhelming.
I mean, it's overwhelming if
you let it be, which I did.
INTERVIEWER: How so?
WILCZEK: There are many
opportunities to talk to the
public, to write books.
Publishers are very interested
all of a sudden.
Instead of you approaching
them, they approach you.
 
And sort of within the physics
and academic world, there are
many opportunities to give
public lectures and represent
the community, represent high
energy physics within the
broader scientific world.
And so I've taken that
pretty seriously.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
You could pretty much leave your
work and just go become a
representative of physics
if you wanted to.
WILCZEK: Right.
And I sort of did that
for a couple years.
I didn't completely
leave my work.
But it really was pretty
consuming.
I wrote a book in that time.
And kept up some level
of research.
I was thinking.
And I built up a backlog
of ideas.
But as to writing them up,
that just didn't happen.
And I'm still sort of gradually
getting past that stage.
But for the first couple
of years, it was really
overwhelming.
 
But then--
you know, I really made a very
conscious decision that I
wanted to be a researcher and
not a full-time scientific
statesman or whatever.
And so I've really cut back.
That means saying no
to a lot of thing.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
Right.
Like cool stuff, too.
WILCZEK: A lot of
it is very cool.
That's right.
Exactly.
It's not easy.
INTERVIEWER: Are there
any downsides to
winning the Nobel Prize?
WILCZEK: That's it.
INTERVIEWER: That's it?
WILCZEK: I would say.
You have to really make choices
and say no to people
you like sometimes, and
things like that.
INTERVIEWER: One other Nobel
Prize winner once said that if
you win the Nobel Prize, people
think you're an expert
on everything.
And they're always asking him
like medical questions.
WILCZEK: They think
that briefly.
Then you open your mouth.
 
Anyway, I've tried also to
be careful about not--
INTERVIEWER: I imagine it's
a big responsibility.
Because a Noble Prize winner
says anything--
WILCZEK: It's taken maybe more
seriously than it should be.
Although you know on the other
hand, if I look around--
people who make pronouncements
and decisions for our country
and civilization are
not necessarily
qualified either, you know.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILCZEK: Who elected--
I don't know--
Tom Friedman or these guys.
 
INTERVIEWER: Along that note--
that's a really interesting--
has it allowed you--
given you a certain cachet or
power or something like that
to push a cause or promote
something?
WILCZEK: It might have if I--
INTERVIEWER: If you let it.
WILCZEK: If I had really
worked at it.
It's not automatic, at least
in my experience.
You have to work at it because
there are lots of people
grabbing the microphone.
 
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
Yeah.
Huh.
That's interesting.
So I wanted to talk to you
a little bit about your
upbringing.
I have read a bit about it.
But I wanted to just
ask you in person.
And I think it's also
interesting when someone wins
a Nobel Prize, people want to
know like, what did their
parents do?
How would I raise a child
that wins a Nobel Prize?
So I want to look at some of the
secrets of your childhood
that led to you winning
the Nobel Prize.
But can you just tell me a
little bit about where you
grew up, what your upbringing
was like, your parents?
WILCZEK: Yes?
So I'm a second generation--
well, third generation--
like how you count.
My grandparents immigrated from
Europe, all of them--
my mother's side from Italy, my
father's side from Poland.
INTERVIEWER: After the
First World War?
WILCZEK: First World
War-- thereabouts.
And they really struggled
in the Depression--
which was sort of
their prime--
the adulthood to my
grandparents.
INTERVIEWER: And they
came from New York--
living in New York?
WILCZEK: New York--
Long Island.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
WILCZEK: So some of it was just
barely in New York and
some barely outside.
 
INTERVIEWER: When you
say they struggled,
they didn't have any--
WILCZEK: Money.
 
I've learned about some
of this history.
My father's family had saved up
some money in the bank by
doing kind of odd jobs.
And my grandfather was a sand
engineer-- a stoker.
The sand that underlies
Manhattan and the skyscrapers
came from Long Island and
these big ditches.
And he was involved in
excavating that.
 
And my grandmother had been
a schoolteacher in Poland.
But of course wasn't
licensed here.
And just did housekeeping
and things like this.
On my mother's side, my
grandfather was a Mason.
So they didn't--
they were quite modest.
And also got wiped out.
Their bank went poof.
There was no insurance.
INTERVIEWER: Horrible.
WILCZEK: No nothing.
So it was really tough going.
And my father quit high school
to help the family work.
But kept up his education
in night school and got
eventually--
Actually when I was growing up,
he was studying calculus
and things like this.
And the books were
around the house.
That was one of the things
I picked up on.
Because I thought it was really
cool to compete with my
father by learning calculus.
 
Because of this experience in
part I think, they were very
concerned that I do--
get a secure living.
And also the time I grew up
with sort of the Cold War.
And competition and science was
extremely-- it was also--
the atom bomb was a relatively
recent memory for--
So science had enormous
prestige.
And not only among my parents,
but also with the other kids
and my teachers.
I went to excellent public
schools in New York.
We didn't have a lot of money.
But fortunately the schools
were really good.
And so I was blessed, I feel.
INTERVIEWER: So you always had
this early aptitude for
science and math--
WILCZEK: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: --or do you feel
like there might have been a--
WILCZEK: I could have done
something else probably.
But no.
But I always was very interested
in sort of abstract
reasoning and big numbers
and little numbers.
My earliest memories are of--
which I think are even preverbal
was sort of--
we had a percolator--
one of these coffee things that
has different parts--
six or seven different parts.
And I remember--
I have this vision of myself
sitting on the kitchen floor
and just taking this apart and
putting it together, and
taking it apart and putting
it together until I really
understood it.
 
It was really preverbal.
So I probably was less
than one year old.
That's what I remember.
And then I kept little
notebooks.
I invented ways of making
big numbers, I remember.
It was sort of--
INTERVIEWER: What does that
mean, invented ways of making
big numbers?
WILCZEK: You'd multiply--
so you'd start with two.
And then you multiply
two by itself twice.
Then you multiply that by
itself-- the number of times
that you had before.
So it was that kind of
way of doing it.
So the idea is iterating things
to make really huge--
I loved that idea.
 
I memorized the powers of
two to very high orders.
I didn't know what
I was doing.
I didn't know the proper
description of that.
INTERVIEWER: That didn't
seem like fun.
WILCZEK: But that's
what I was doing.
And another project I remember
because this
one is really fun.
I learned about money--
coins--
and you know like a quarter
is worth five nickels.
 
So I thought about changing
money from
one kind into another.
And then seeing if you
could come out ahead.
So if you could have this--
INTERVIEWER: Did you
figure it out?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
I had some things that worked.
But unfortunately when I
checked, it didn't work.
And what one time I came
out with less.
But I realized that's okay.
Because all you have to
do is do it backwards.
 
But anyway.
 
My father kind of put
a damper on that.
He said, "better check."
INTERVIEWER: Right.
You had it all figured out.
That's very funny.
Do you feel like your
parents had--
you talk with their experience
through the Depression.
And that they wanted you to
have a secure living.
Were there other kind of values
or beliefs in your
household that you feel
like shaped you?
WILCZEK: I'll mention
a couple of things.
One is--
my parents did a very
smart thing.
A very unusual and smart thing
that I think really changed my
live or molded it.
Once a week they took
me to a toy store.
There was a toy store
not far away.
And I could pick
out something--
not too expensive.
INTERVIEWER: One toy?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
 
It was actually I could
pick out something.
And then several weeks
later I'd save up.
I had an allowance.
So I could pick it.
So that really was I think a big
deal for me because I had
to think about which things
I wanted and how much.
So how long I'd have to
save up to get this.
And refrain from getting one
thing and get another.
But also it was just really
stimulating to the imagination
to think that at least you
could get these things.
Right.
The other thing is I would--
 
INTERVIEWER: Before you go on,
are there any toys that stood
out in your memory as the
most influential--
WILCZEK: I like the toys where
you could do things.
So there was there
was a kind of--
one thing I liked--
there was a kind of Cape
Canaveral thing with models of
the different rockets
that they had.
And they had stages and
little space men.
And maybe you could do that.
INTERVIEWER: You're all about
taking things apart and
putting them back together.
WILCZEK: At that time
I was, yeah.
A lot of the things I got
in fact were models of--
model airplanes, model rockets,
and things like that.
I remember there was a very
elaborate battleship
I got at one point.
And that it took a long
time to assemble.
 
There was a kind of truck that
was a missile launcher.
It had a light you could
turn on and off.
And yeah, I really
liked that too.
INTERVIEWER: It was good
to take Cold War toys.
WILCZEK: Right.
Exactly.
I had several different
kinds of missiles.
But the coolest thing-- it had
a spotlight that you could
project different images with.
And a telescope thing.
And you could look at.
INTERVIEWER: That is cool.
WILCZEK: Yeah, it
was really cool.
INTERVIEWER: That's worth
saving up for a
couple weeks for.
Not just for a--
WILCZEK: Yeah.
I had to save up for quite
awhile for that one.
I think maybe a couple
of months.
INTERVIEWER: So you were going
to say something else about
your parents?
WILCZEK: The other
thing is I--
it wasn't actually in
terms of time--
or in terms of my
parents really--
that big a fraction.
But it had enormous influence
on me-- was I grew up in the
Catholic kind of environment.
I went to the catechism
class once a week.
I didn't go to Catholic
school but just this
class once a week.
And that really also caught
my imagination.
Just the idea that there
was a secret
history to the universe.
Right.
That there was more than
everyday life.
That there were bigger
forces in play.
Bigger pictures.
Different things that weren't
obvious about the world that
really were its meaning
and deep structure.
INTERVIEWER: And maybe
order-- an order?
WILCZEK: Order.
Right.
Right.
INTERVIEWER: That there's
an order out there.
WILCZEK: Right.
So I took that very seriously.
Once I did take it seriously--
and at the same time as learning
about science in my
early teenage years.
There's something called
confirmation, which occurs
when you're 12 or 13.
And we went on a retreat and got
really intense training.
And at that point I realized
that the stories really didn't
agree very well with the
science I was learning.
And I had a crisis after that.
INTERVIEWER: Did you
get confirmed?
Did that make your parents
happy anyway?
WILCZEK: Oh, no.
I definitely got confirmed.
It was really only a few
weeks later that things
really came to a head.
 
But I'm grateful for that
because the sort of having to
wrestle with those questions
and that concept that there
are real issues about what the
universe means, somehow
really drove me.
INTERVIEWER: From your
early education--
you said you went to really good
schools and had a good
science education.
Were there any early teachers
that encouraged you
or helped you out?
WILCZEK: They all did.
It was really very fortunate.
INTERVIEWER: Were you pointed
out early on that you really
had an aptitude for--
WILCZEK: Yes.
 
I might get some people
in trouble.
But at that time they gave
IQ tests and so forth.
 
The teacher told my parents,
which they
weren't supposed to.
And my parents told me, which
they weren't supposed to.
Anyway, it was a very--
INTERVIEWER: So they
told you your IQ?
WILCZEK: Yes.
Very, very--
INTERVIEWER: Are you
going to tell us?
WILCZEK: No.
INTERVIEWER: Is it
above normal?
WILCZEK: It's way
above normal.
But anyway, the point
is that all my
teachers knew about this.
INTERVIEWER: I see.
WILCZEK: So I didn't realize
it entirely at the time.
But it's clear to me now that
they really were very
interested in this kind of--
INTERVIEWER: Boy genius?
WILCZEK: --strange character
that they had.
And they were kind of forgiving
if you did something
that didn't seem
to make sense.
Maybe it was because you had--
 
INTERVIEWER: So what age
did that happen?
Is that-- how old?
Like 10?
What are you 14?
When does that all happen?
Age 7?
At some point you became,
aha-- here's the--
WILCZEK: Well, I think
it was very early.
The test I think was
in second grade.
And I skipped several grades.
I only learned about it though
considerably later than sixth
grade because there was an issue
about whether to send me
to a different-- to a special
school, which we didn't do.
INTERVIEWER: Can you
tell me about that?
What was the--
WILCZEK: There were
special schools--
out further on the Island that
weren't public schools--
that were supposed to be
places that they took
precocious things.
I'm very, very glad that we
dodged that bullet actually.
INTERVIEWER: Why?
WILCZEK: Because the public
school worked very well.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting
WILCZEK: And let me stay home.
 
INTERVIEWER: And do you
have any siblings?
WILCZEK: Yeah, I
have a brother.
INTERVIEWER: And is your
brother also--
WILCZEK: He's a computer
technician.
And he works at University
of Florida now.
INTERVIEWER: Interestingly.
Huh.
All right.
So okay.
So your teachers
encourage you.
And did you go to--
you graduated from high school
a little bit early and--
WILCZEK: Yes.
Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Why University
of Chicago?
Why did you go there?
WILCZEK: They offered us money,
which was very nice.
And they had a special program
called University Scholars at
that time which allowed
a lot of freedom.
 
So that was quite appealing.
INTERVIEWER: So at that point
in your life were you are
already aimed toward physics?
WILCZEK: No.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
So tell me about how
that evolved.
WILCZEK: I want to do something
mathematical clearly.
I actually was torn between
philosophy, which for me meant
mathematical logic;
neuroscience--
I guess you'd call it-- anyway,
trying to figure out
how minds work; and physics.
I couldn't decide what I
really wanted to do.
All these were appealing
as an undergraduate.
I guess I mostly--
I thought probably figuring out
the mind-- how the mind
works-- was the thing I
really wanted to do.
But once I learned the state
of the subject and that it
really required experimental
work--
and when I tried to do some
experimental work I decided
that that wasn't the way
to go so for me.
I just don't have the
patience for it.
INTERVIEWER: Really.
It seems like--
because the equation
you could just do.
You don't have to set
up an experiment?
WILCZEK: Right.
INTERVIEWER: I see.
I see.
Did you have a--
was there a particular instance
where you actually--
WILCZEK: It was a graduate--
I just couldn't get
things to work.
I think it wasn't an elevating
experience.
The cathode ray tube didn't work
the way it was supposed--
I didn't understand it.
I didn't hook it up correctly
or something.
Nothing ever worked.
Gradually I got to be
able to fix things.
But it took so long to do
anything interesting.
It was just a very,
very slow process.
INTERVIEWER: Very interesting.
WILCZEK: And also, if you're
actually working with brains
they're this kind of
jelly like stuff.
And it didn't resonate.
 
I was spending time in a lab
trying to fix things that
didn't work.
And I could have been--
I always thought to myself--
I could have been learning some
beautiful mathematics.
So instead of learning
something, I was--
I was learning something.
But what I was learning it
wasn't as intense by a lot.
 
So anyway, the more theoretical
part just wasn't
right at that time.
Even I could perceive--
as an undergraduate, I could
perceive that it really wasn't
ready for mathematical
treatment.
INTERVIEWER: The theoretical
part of neuroscience?
WILCZEK: There just wasn't
enough structure.
No.
 
It was like physics in the 16th
century or something.
 
But I didn't really know what
I wanted to do except that I
wanted to graduate
and go into--
I don't know-- the next step.
I was always in a hurry
in those days.
And so I majored in mathematics
because that
didn't involve any lab work.
I could graduate quickly.
And keep my options open.
So I majored in mathematics.
 
INTERVIEWER: And in a
hurry to do what?
WILCZEK: Something big.
And I was looking for
opportunities.
That was my philosophy.
Okay.
I was like a hammer in
search of a nail.
I was going to build up this
kind of mathematical
sophistication.
But I didn't want to do
pure mathematics.
I wanted to do something else.
I wasn't sure what exactly.
But I was going to
go to Princeton
and look for openings.
INTERVIEWER: I see.
And so how old are you?
WILCZEK: And that's
what happened.
INTERVIEWER: So at this point
you're like 20, 19--
20?
WILCZEK: I graduated
when I was 19.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
And what year is it?
WILCZEK: That was 1970.
INTERVIEWER: Okay.
So at this point you're
19 years old.
You know you want to do
something big with math.
You're not sure what.
You're looking for
opportunities.
What were the big questions
or problems at the
time that drew you?
WILCZEK: That's what I went
to Princeton to find out.
INTERVIEWER: I see.
Okay.
WILCZEK: Why did I
go to Princeton--
because I don't know--
Einstein was there.
I had gotten advice from
professors at Chicago about
what to do.
And Princeton was certainly--
INTERVIEWER: Princeton
was the epicenter
of theoretical physics.
WILCZEK: At that time, yeah--
definitely.
And mathematics.
Especially mathematics actually
at that time.
So, yeah.
So I went there.
And I actually struggled for a
couple of years because this--
I was in the math department.
And this philosophy of just
hanging loose and not really
committing is not
the way graduate
schools usually function.
 
But fortunately for me the
math building and physics
building are actually connected
at Princeton.
It was very easy to walk over
to the physics building and
see what was going on.
And go to seminars.
 
And I very quickly realized that
this was a great time in
theoretical physics.
There were new ideas.
Powerful ideas that used
mathematics were blossoming.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
Yes.
WILCZEK: And so I jumped in.
INTERVIEWER: As you are kind
of in this period of
searching, were there any
particular professors that
stand out, or you went to one
lecture and it was like "ah
ha!"
WILCZEK: David Gross.
I went to this course
by David Gross.
At the time I thought it
was a very senior guy.
But he was 30 or something.
 
But he is extremely dynamic.
You know, very forceful
and brilliant.
And we just hit it off.
And we started working together
right away, even
though he knew a lot more
than I did, of course.
But I was pretty quick in
picking up on things.
INTERVIEWER: And what was the
class he was teaching?
WILCZEK: Quantum field theory.
INTERVIEWER: Quantum
field theory.
WILCZEK: That was
just the thing.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
And so it was there
you went to such--
WILCZEK: It was really
neat because he--
I guess in a formal way
it was maybe not a
highly polished course.
But he really gave a sense of
the excitement and the dynamic
of the subject.
Because it was absolutely
oriented to research.
That's what he was
interested in.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
So that kind of light bulb went
off with you in a way
WILCZEK: Yeah.
I said this is an
opportunity--
this is the sort of thing
you've been looking for.
Okay.
So time to commit.
So I did.
INTERVIEWER: You said
you hit it off.
Did you just go up to
him after class.
And did you just
say, this is--
WILCZEK: Not right away.
I was a little intimidated.
But I worked very hard
on the homework.
So I did beautiful homework.
And then once I'd done that and
I got his attention, then
I told him about my situation.
And we started talking.
INTERVIEWER: And he'd
already been working
on the strong force?
WILCZEK: Not as such.
He's been working on
the strong force.
But he had built up a lot
of the machinery that we
subsequently used.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
WILCZEK: In fact, the way I
thought about this project at
first was not really in
terms of trying to
solve the strong force.
I was trying to solve a much
more abstract problem,
actually about the weak force.
How did the weak force behave
at high energies?
But it turns out that in the
process of investigating that,
we came across this phenomenon
of asymptotic freedom, which
we realized would be a very
good thing to have for the
strong force.
INTERVIEWER: When you say that
this time-- like 1970--
this is a really good time for
theoretical physics, why?
Was it just a lot of things
coming together or was some
experimental thing catching up
with some theoretical thing?
Or were a bunch of
ideas converging?
Or what were the big questions
that were emerging?
WILCZEK: There were new ideas.
So an analog would be in the
period just before the '20s.
And then in the early '20s
itself, there was a great new
idea-- quantum mechanics.
And that opened up many, many
new kinds of investigations
and understanding of the
nature of solids and
understanding the fundamentals
of chemistry,
and many, many things.
In the late '60s and early '70s,
there were new ideas
that go by the names of Gauge
Theory on the one hand and the
normalization group on the other
hand that in retrospect
were extremely powerful.
What we did was basically put
those together and crack the
nut of the strong interaction.
 
But these were just great
mathematical ideas.
So I could recognize that even
without knowing much physics
or seeing where it was going
to head exactly, that there
were these mathematical ideas
that very much were in the
spirit of the mathematics I
found most beautiful and could
run with it.
Of course, all this was
based on accumulated--
the fact that we could make
such rapid progress in an
application to reality was based
on the fact that there
was this enormous accumulation
of poorly understood
experimental results
that were forming--
unexpected simplicities and
regularities that posed sharp
challenges to theory.
In fact, the key one for us was
the work on the structure
of the proton that Professor
Friedman here and Kendall and
Taylor won their Nobel
Prize for.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
When you there at Princeton,
were there other--
did you have like a cohort of
other young sort of physicists
your age that were all just--
WILCZEK: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: --churning
around together.
WILCZEK: Right.
At that time high energy
theory wasn't a popular
subject at that time.
I don't know why.
I guess the news hadn't
really spread.
There's a delay in kind of the
awareness at the graduate
student level in general.
But there were only three of
us really in high energy--
or-- yeah, three of us
that year and one
from a previous year.
Just a handful of people.
But we talked and hung
around at all hours.
 
My office mate Bill Caswell
especially was important to me
at that time.
INTERVIEWER: How so?
WILCZEK: He was just a smart
guy that I could exchange
ideas with.
 
INTERVIEWER: What was exciting
to you about the work.
Or what--
what made you want
to do the work?
Was it just this idea of being
able to do something big?
Or was just you felt like this
was the place to be?
You know what I mean--
like big things
were happening here?
Or something about--
WILCZEK: There were
external causes.
But I think the most
important thing--
the most important influence
was actually the inner
structure of the work.
That it was just a
beautiful thing.
 
I liked doing for instance
puzzles--
crossword puzzles--
especially these cryptic
crossword puzzles.
And just all kinds
of puzzles--
elaborate Sudoku puzzles
or programming things.
I just liked solving problems.
And was doing that.
But I didn't have to feel so
guilty about wasting time
because this was a recognized,
socially
valuable activity somehow.
 
INTERVIEWER: As opposed
to puzzles?
WILCZEK: Yes.
Because it goes somewhere.
You can publish it and you
get tenure and so on.
 
So there was that
inner appeal--
just beautiful ideas.
And not too easy--
play with them.
 
So that's really where
I was coming from.
And to some extent that's still
where I'm coming from.
But later the kind of
possibilities that these
discoveries opened up for
applications to the early
universe-- to what happens in
other extreme conditions--
they really caught
my imagination.
And I worked out that those
made new puzzles--
and applying the equations.
Unification is probably the
nicest puzzle of all.
INTERVIEWER: The big dog.
WILCZEK: And it really is almost
literally like a puzzle
because we have this scattered
knowledge and you have to try
and put it together.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
And I imagine if you push one
piece and that sort of--
WILCZEK: That's when you know
something is not working.
But actually I think there's
a way to do it that things
actually do fit together.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILCZEK: And it's an exciting
time right now
because we're finding--
we're going to find out whether
this vision that I've
been pushing for unification is
correct or not at the Large
Hadron Collider.
We should find out
pretty soon.
INTERVIEWER: So I wanted to talk
to you a little bit about
coming to MIT.
So you came here in
2000, I believe?
And could you just tell me
how that all came about?
WILCZEK: I came here from the
Institute for Advanced Study
at Princeton where I'd been for
about 10 years, which is a
very attractive place.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILCZEK: And I was kind of
surprised that MIT or anybody
would make me an offer because
who would move from Princeton?
But MIT just got me at the
right time somehow.
And they made a very
attractive offer.
And we went through
a process of
weighing pluses and minuses.
And I came here.
Part of it was family reasons.
My wife's family is based
in New England.
And our daughters were going to
school at Harvard and MIT.
 
But also scientifically it sort
of appealed to me to look
for new horizons.
The Institute for Advanced Study
is a wonderful place.
But it's a small place.
It's very kind of ivory
tower insular.
And I still had dreams about
understanding how the mind
works or doing something
more exploratory.
And I thought that would
be more feasible.
INTERVIEWER: I think you're
saying that the Institute for
Advanced Study is
like cloistered?
Is that the word?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: And here at MIT
there's a lot more interplay
among disciplines.
WILCZEK: Right.
Right.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
And was bringing you here part
of a larger plan to bolster
their theoretical physics?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
That was part of the idea was
that it's going to be an
opportunity to mold
things somewhat.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
That's a nice opportunity I
would think-- a nice feeling.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
Although I mostly work
in very small groups.
 
INTERVIEWER: Coming here,
was that your first
experience with MIT?
You hadn't done any previous
work here?
WILCZEK: Not really.
No.
INTERVIEWER: And have you been
struck by any differences of
MIT than other places
that you've been.
WILCZEK: It's very different.
 
It's very intense.
Very dynamic terms of people
doing things-- lots of
students and a kind of
engineering attitude in many
ways of getting to
the practice--
 
getting things underway as
opposed to dreaming.
I have a tendency to kind
of dream and play.
 
INTERVIEWER: So that's something
you like about MIT
or that's not a good
fit with you?
WILCZEK: I don't like it.
But it's good for me I'm sure.
 
INTERVIEWER: That's
interesting.
 
When you think about MIT or
describing MIT, is there a
specific example or anecdote or
something in your mind that
sort of captures what is
MIT to you or what?
WILCZEK: I should be prepared
for questions like
that, but I'm not.
 
For instance I really like
the whimsicality
sometimes of the pranks.
 
And the Stata Center.
And now these installations
all over campus.
 
I just like it that people can
do real things and yet also
have imagination.
So I think this kind of
disciplined imagination is
really extremely appealing.
INTERVIEWER: What is it about
the Stata Center?
I'm just saying it because
you're not the first person
who has said that to me.
There's something deeply
appealing to a lot of
mathematicians and scientists
about the Stata Center.
And I'm just wondering
what it is?
WILCZEK: It shows that
buildings can
be different somehow.
And it's just interesting
to look at and yet
never exhaust it.
You look from different angles
and different perspectives.
 
INTERVIEWER: It's kind of like
an analogy of your work.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
And our CTP--
our Center of Theoretical
Physics, since it's been
renovated is also kind
of a work of art.
It's a big open space with Sol
LeWitt mosaics on the floor.
It's kind of like
an art gallery.
It's really terrific.
INTERVIEWER: Just while we're
on this, you mention in your
first book--
I believe it's your first book--
about the harmonies
that I've been reading--
this interesting connection
between music and physics.
And you're talking about
art and your work.
I do see that in a lot of
mathematicians and physicists.
There's some kind of connection
between the two.
Can you just talk a little bit
about that within you or how--
WILCZEK: For me, it's not so
much a technical connection.
It's possible to study
the physics of music.
But I don't.
 
But the idea that
different worlds
correspond to each other--
it's not even an idea-- just
the reality that different
worlds correspond
to each other.
It's like when you're playing
the piano-- which is what I do
mostly musically--
 
you're looking at these
black marks on paper.
You're translating that
into motions.
You're thinking about
the structure.
And you're also hearing
something.
And all these things are sort
of an integrated whole, and
yet they belong to a completely
different domains really.
And that's the sort
of thing also in
physics that's so magical.
On the one hand, you have
equations and the concepts
they represent.
And then you have experiments,
which look
nothing like the equations.
This struck me very much
in my graduate student
career when I first--
or just after, when I first
visited the laboratory--
the Brookhaven Laboratory where
some of the relevant
experiments are actually
going to be done.
And you know, I scribble
things on paper--
little calculations
and things.
And then there was this gigantic
machine where they're
going to collide particles--
and detectors, and people
crawling all over
it to do this.
And it just hit me that their
activities are the same
activity as writing equations.
And you know that's how
the world works.
It was like almost a religious
experience to think that
there's this harmony between
different worlds.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
That's good.
It was a good experience
and not a disappointing
experience?
WILCZEK: It was a wonderful
experience.
No.
It's like Plato's Cave where
you suddenly realize that
you're seeing a projection of
something where the ideas
correspond to the
deeper reality.
INTERVIEWER: So do you
play the piano often?
WILCZEK: Oh, yeah.
Practically every day.
INTERVIEWER: Does it help you
with your work, do you think?
Or is it a separate thing
than your work?
Is it a relief from your work
or a part of your work?
WILCZEK: It's more a relief
than a part I would say.
I can't say that I've derived
any concrete ideas of
technical use from playing
the piano.
But it's a mood elevator.
And it also--
 
I often in the middle of the
calculation, I'll just wander
down and play the piano for
awhile if I'm stuck.
Or just tired or just looking
for something--
And it doesn't break the chain
so much that I can't after
playing for half an hour or
something go right back to the
calculation, refreshed.
So it really works that way.
Because somehow the same areas
of the brain are still
churning away when you
need different kinds
of activities usually.
INTERVIEWER: Very interesting.
WILCZEK: Whereas if I--
and the same thing
if I take a walk.
That's fine.
I can keep thinking.
But if I have to go pay the
bills or do something like
that, then it's hopeless.
You can't really pick up
where you left off.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
And when did you sort of
discover that about the piano.
Is that something you've
been doing since you
were 20 or is that--
WILCZEK: No.
No.
Piano--
I used to play the accordion
when I was a kid.
And I still have
the accordion.
Because we couldn't have a piano
in our little apartment,
with neighbors all
over the place.
So I played the accordion.
 
Although I haven't practiced
for many years, when I was
playing the accordion I reached
a higher level than
I've ever reached with
the piano I think.
INTERVIEWER: I wish
I had known that.
I would have made
you bring it in.
Have you done any recent
performances?
WILCZEK: No.
No.
No.
I would have to do a
lot of renovations.
 
I took up the piano only as an
adult when I was 30 or so.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
WILCZEK: So has been
a lot of fun.
Really, classical music has
been one of the joys of my
adult life because I didn't
do it when I was younger.
I was in a rock band.
And I played the keyboards
and accordion and drums--
all these things, but not any
really complicated music.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
Huh.
Why were you in a rock band?
WILCZEK: Why not?
Everybody was, right?
INTERVIEWER: Because you
wanted to play music.
Or because you thought it would
like be cool and help
you get girls?
Or like that?
WILCZEK: Yeah, like that.
INTERVIEWER: So did it work?
WILCZEK: Not so much.
 
INTERVIEWER: So when you play
the piano is this classical
music mostly?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
I'll play whatever
is on the rack.
INTERVIEWER: Whatever somebody
left on the sheet?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
 
But mostly classical.
And mostly sight reading
until recently.
 
Just the last couple of years
I've decided that I should
memorize things.
So I've learned quite a
few things by heart.
INTERVIEWER: That's
interesting.
I was just wanted-- this
is along these lines.
But I was just wondering if you
could tell me like what a
typical working day
is like for you?
Or how do you work?
Do you work at night
or during the day?
Do you work for a half hour
then play the piano?
WILCZEK: It's very
unstructured.
I'm blessed in that I have--
 
I can work any time.
And I do.
Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: You mean you can--
when you say you can,
you mean like your job allows
you or your constitution
allows you to?
WILCZEK: Both.
 
So I don't have to have any
elaborate equipment.
 
And also there's lots of
different kinds of activities.
There's reading books or papers,
there's going to
seminars, there's talking to
colleagues and students, as
well as just thinking
and calculating.
So all those things count
as work at some level.
And they all work together.
 
It's a spontaneous activity.
 
It's just something I derive
pleasure from-- playing with
ideas and trying to see
how they fit together.
And I really get annoyed if
things aren't fitting--
that's another thing.
And this has to do with
also solving puzzles.
It's really irritating if you
don't have the solution.
I just can't let go.
It just annoys the heck
out of me in fact.
Some loose end that I failed to
think that-- you know, it
should be better.
But I can't see quite how.
So that drives me a lot.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
So if you're stuck there on this
problem and trying to get
the loose end to fit, are you
the kind of the person who
stays up for like three nights
in a row working on it?
WILCZEK: I used to.
Not so much any more.
 
When I was a graduate student
and had a almost empty
calendar, I pulled all
nighters regularly.
And that was sort my style.
And for days at a time
I would hardly sleep.
You know three or four
hours a night.
And then crash.
INTERVIEWER: You mean crash
at the end of it?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
And then just sleep
for a long time.
 
But when you're an adult and
have a regular life, it's not
so practical.
Although I do tend
to revert to that
sometimes during the summer.
INTERVIEWER: When it's
less structured.
WILCZEK: Yeah when it's
less structured.
INTERVIEWER: So does like
coffee play a large
role in your life?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
I drink a lot of coffee.
A lot of coffee.
INTERVIEWER: What's
a lot of coffee?
WILCZEK: How much coffee
do you think a person
could drink in a day?
INTERVIEWER: Is it a
continuing IV drip?
WILCZEK: Probably 10 cups.
INTERVIEWER: So 10 cups.
WILCZEK: Something like that.
Four or five in the morning
and then through the day.
INTERVIEWER: God.
Four or five at once
in the morning?
Like--
welcome back.
WILCZEK: It's four or five
normal cups-- which means two
of my mugs full, really.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah, got you.
Yeah.
Huh.
WILCZEK: I make I make a pot
of coffee in the morning.
And then I basically
drink it all.
INTERVIEWER: All right.
So.
Wow.
So does that cause like other
problems in your life?
WILCZEK: No.
INTERVIEWER: No.
That's just you get to
your normal state?
WILCZEK: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
And what happens--
WILCZEK: If I don't get it, I
start to get headaches and
things like this.
So I have to have it.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
Wow.
And is that something that's
common among physicists?
WILCZEK: It's not rare.
INTERVIEWER: Probably
non-caffeinated is rare, I
would guess.
WILCZEK: Probably.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
 
Okay.
And now what about--
WILCZEK: I tried to--
INTERVIEWER: You
tried to quit.
WILCZEK: I tried to
wean myself of--
but I went back.
INTERVIEWER: Other than if you
tried to wean yourself-- other
than the headaches, do
you find that it
affects your work or--
you don't think?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
I was kind of a wreck
at first.
Although after a couple
of weeks, I was
functioning fine then.
And I guess I probably could
learn to do without it but I
just found myself you know--
 
Okay.
Okay.
So I weaned myself down to
a couple cups a day.
And then I said well, why not
have another one, and have
another one.
Like an alcoholic.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
Yeah.
WILCZEK: But they
don't have CA.
INTERVIEWER: CA?
WILCZEK: Coffee Anonymous.
INTERVIEWER: What would
they serve?
They'd serve vodka?
WILCZEK: That's right.
Serve sangria.
 
INTERVIEWER: That's
pretty funny.
Okay.
So what do you think
you'd be doing if
you weren't a physicist?
Have you ever imagined an
alternate life for yourself?
WILCZEK: Yeah, I have.
 
Probably something that
involves math somehow.
But it could have been
almost anything.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
WILCZEK: It could have been even
economics, for instance,
which has become very
mathematical.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
See that doesn't seem very far
off from where you are now.
There's no other sort of--
you really wanted to be
a vet or something?
WILCZEK: The thing I really
loved, but I never really
thought about taking up as
a profession, is history.
Just the facts and thinking
about what they mean.
So I could imagine some
quantitative form of history.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
 
If you like--
WILCZEK: But history is
also great stories.
So it doesn't have to
be quantitative.
So that's a different
direction.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
And you get to do a bit
of that in your
writing, I would think.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
In fact, I've been working on
a novel in recent months.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: I remember reading
something about it.
It involves physicists--
oh, right.
Something--
there's a murder.
WILCZEK: Right.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
WILCZEK: Maybe a murder.
Maybe a suicide.
 
INTERVIEWER: Do you want to
tell me about it or do you
want to keep it a secret?
WILCZEK: I can tell you
just a little bit.
I can tell you the main thread
that holds it together.
I hung a lot of stuff
around this thread.
The idea is that there are four
physicists who make a
great discovery.
They discover what the dark
matter of the universe is.
INTERVIEWER: That's big.
WILCZEK: And it's of
course verifying
one of my pet theories.
So if it's not true reality,
at least can be
true in this novel.
So it's clear that they should
get the Nobel Prize for this.
However, according to the rules
for the prize at most
three people can share it.
So somebody's got to go.
And then one of them dies
in kind of suspicious
circumstance.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
I'm sure it's not a suicide,
if he's going to
win the Nobel Prize.
Oh, all right.
Okay.
We'll have to find out.
So why do you write?
 
You're quite prolific
as a writer too.
And very accomplished--
WILCZEK: I like it.
And I get a lot of positive
feedback.
Also it's different
but it's a related
activity of solving problems.
You solve different
kind of problems.
Not mathematical problems, but
structural problems of how you
fit doing things together,
how you find the right
words, how you vary.
 
So I like that kind
of activity.
It's different.
But also it allows one
to loosen up and
explore ideas in a more--
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
Creative way--
not "creative."
WILCZEK: I'm not sure "creative"
is the right word.
INTERVIEWER: Relaxed?
WILCZEK: Somehow--
Looser.
INTERVIEWER: There aren't
as many rules.
In fact, the rules
can be not good.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
It doesn't scream back at
you that you're wrong.
If your equations don't agree
with experiment of if they are
internally inconsistent,
then you get
this immediate feedback.
You're wrong.
And that's in fact mostly
what happens
in theoretical physics.
If you're trying to do
exploratory or speculative
work, most ideas
don't pan out.
But in writing--
 
sometimes structures
don't work and so--
but its never so unambiguous
that you're wrong, so you're
allowed to continue it.
It's a different
kind of thing.
It's very different.
The other thing that's different
just at a technical
level is in science, you want
to write concisely and
unambiguously.
And it's kind of very
disciplined, very constrained.
In a way it's much more
straightforward to write this.
Although not many people
do it well.
But writing fiction
or writing for the
public is quite different.
It's almost the opposite.
You want to be expansive.
In fiction you don't want to
be clear and unambiguous.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
Boring.
 
So it looks like you're using
all parts of your brain for
different--
all your different pursuits.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
That's one of my aspirations--
there are these books about
1,000 places you need to visit
before you die.
And I want to do everything.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
Yes.
Visit all those places.
WILCZEK: Have different
experiences.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
Yes.
 
So I wonder if you could just
tell me a little bit about
what the big questions are today
in physics that you're
grappling with?
WILCZEK: Right.
INTERVIEWER: And talk a little
bit about the standard model
and what's going on with it?
What's the big picture there?
WILCZEK: So the standard model
is this remarkable synthesis
of the theories of the forces
that was achieved, mainly in a
period around the 1970s.
That at the time I certainly
thought--
and I think everybody involved
probably thought--
was going to be a
very provisional
structure that we modify.
 
Parts of it are kind of
ramshackle actually.
But it's turned out to
be just uncannily
accurate and powerful.
And even though experimenters
would surely win Nobel Prizes
for finding deviations from the
standard model-- they work
very hard to do it--
it's only been proved more and
more accurate as time goes on.
So it's pretty economical,
extremely powerful.
Even parts of it are
very beautiful.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
It should be like wow,
we got it right.
WILCZEK: Yesh.
We got it right.
And so it's close to
nature's last word.
It really describes an enormous
range of phenomena
pretty economically.
And nice equations.
That you can't change.
Very hard to change in
a consistent way.
But it's not as beautiful
as it should
be given that status.
It has lots of moving parts
and it's kind of lopsided.
So it's kind of begging to be
embedded in some framework
where all the parts
make sense.
I like to say it's--
INTERVIEWER: Lopsided meaning
some parts are better figured
out than other parts?
WILCZEK: The analogy I like
to use is we have-- a
dodecahedron is a
perfect solid.
It has 12 sides.
All pentagons that come together
in a regular way.
Suppose some evil spirit took
some of the parts away and
unfolded it.
If you knew about perfect solids
you would know they
were pentagons and they came
together three on a side.
Even if you only saw part of
it, you might be able to
reconstruct that it was meant
to be a dodecahedron.
Just some evil spirit has wiped
away parts of it or
hidden parts.
And it's like that.
The standard model has
a lot of symmetry.
But it has parts that--
it looks like
something is missing.
Right.
And if you fill it in
the right way, then
it makes more sense.
The different parts are lopsided
in just the way they
need to be fit into a larger
symmetrical structure.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
Interesting.
WILCZEK: So that's the vision
of unification.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILCZEK: And actually if you
build on it-- if you try to
implement that idea,
a lot of things
work beautifully actually.
It really does fit into
a compact structure.
And we know how to hide the
pieces, so to speak We know
how that could happen.
 
But to really make it work in
detail and quantitatively--
this is what I discovered--
 
you need extra particles
of a certain kind.
This is called low energy
supersymmetry.
So it kind of doubles the number
of particles in the
world in a very symmetrical
way.
And that's something that's
going to be tested now.
That's what we've been waiting
for a long time now.
Because those ideas kind of
jelled in the early '80s.
And we haven't had the
experimental power until now
to really see.
INTERVIEWER: I always get the
impression that there is a lot
of people like you just waiting
for the LHC to be--
WILCZEK: I have to find
other things to do.
But this particular work
really has just
been sitting there.
A lot of people have been trying
to extend it, but it
gets more and more speculative
because you're building
castles in the air.
And you can build in different
directions.
And at most one of
them is right.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILCZEK: And so we really need
experimental guidance.
There were hopes that just by
pure thought you'd be able to
figure everything out.
But I think we've had pretty
convincing evidence over 30
years that that's not
going to work.
And we really need some
more guidance from
experiment to progress.
So that's one thing.
And another in the same spirit,
but really quite
distinct is that within our
theory of the strong
interaction--
which is called QCD or quantum
chromodynamics--
 
there's also kind of something
that doesn't look right.
There's a possibility that the
theory allows for effects that
break the symmetry between the
forward direction of time and
the backward direction of time
that don't appear to be
realized in nature.
So there's this possibility that
the theory would allow--
it doesn't have to have
it-- but would allow.
And I find that--
all my colleagues find it--
extremely annoying that
there's this possibility.
Why doesn't nature use it?
So there's a theory of why it
doesn't and leads to the
existence of another new kind
of particle call axions.
And they are very interesting,
not yet discovered, but could
very well be the dark matter
of the universe.
And so that's another big idea
that's out there that I'm
hoping for.
INTERVIEWER: It's
interesting--
it seems--
I could be wrong about this
too-- but it seems to me that
maybe 30 years ago that particle
physics and cosmology
were quite distant
and didn't--
WILCZEK: Yes.
Right.
INTERVIEWER: --interact with
each other quite as much.
And now they seem to be
converging to some extent.
Is there a reason why
that's happening?
WILCZEK: The big reason
is that fundamental
physics came of age.
Asymptotic freedom had a big
part to do with this.
We learned how matter behaves
in very extreme conditions.
 
And so it became feasible to
think sensibly about the very
early universe.
So that's what really changed.
And then the other thing that's
happened is that some
very good ideas arose,
especially the idea of
inflation that Professor
Guth here came up with.
That's turned out to be
extremely fruitful.
 
So good things came out
of this opening.
And on the experimental side,
the technology has really
broken through--
that people have been able
to take advantage of new
techniques for observing
very subtle effects.
It's called the microwave
background radiation.
It gives a really, really
rich portal
into the early universe.
You can sort of see the early
universe and what its
structure was like.
And this is a relatively
recent development.
 
And it's turned out that the
early universe seems to have
been pretty simple.
That is, the first guesses about
what it might have been
turn out to be pretty
near to the truth.
INTERVIEWER: It's interesting.
It seems like a lot of the
solutions end up being simple.
Not to me-- but simple--
elegant or beautiful
in that way.
 
Do you think that
there's any--
 
I don't know what the word
is-- but once unification
comes, do you expect to
be another elegant--
WILCZEK: It is elegant.
Yeah.
 
We have candidates.
We have a candidate theory for
it that is extremely--
it's better than the
standard model.
So it's really nice.
It has other loose ends, but
definitely it would be a huge
step forward.
INTERVIEWER: What would
happen if--
WILCZEK: And axions too.
Even better because--
in a sense-- because
they are more unique--
a uniquely defined theory.
INTERVIEWER: What would happen
if five years from now you or
someone else--
 
it was all proven and done.
And your theory proved true.
And the loose ends
are tied up.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: And then
you're like, oh--
 
WILCZEK: The basic is nothing
would happen.
 
First of all, I don't think it's
a realistic possibility.
But--
INTERVIEWER: Because?
WILCZEK: There are just are just
too many loose-- there's
too much unknown--
too many loose ends that
don't look to be close
to being tied up.
There are some things that
look very right.
But there are many things that
don't look right at all.
 
Then okay--
but you could imagine
a world in
which we knew the equations.
And there would be a period
of experiments to
test them and so forth.
But eventually if they passed
all the tests, people would
get tired of wasting their
time testing the theory.
You just decide that
it's right.
And then okay.
So then you work on
neurobiology or--
INTERVIEWER: I see.
WILCZEK: --something else
more practical you--
I don't know-- you
set up websites.
You do something else
that doesn't--
the idea that you have to find
better and better fundamental
laws of nature and pursue
the reductionist program
indefinitely is not necessarily
the case.
It could go out with a
bang if we actually
achieve a complete theory.
Or could go out with a whimper
if people decided it's too
expensive to build these
accelerators.
And the loose ends are just
so esoteric, who cares.
Okay.
But another thing that's
conceivable is that--
and has often happened
in the past--
is that when you find the
equations, they're smarter
than you were--
that they contain more
than you put in it.
So that you get extra effects
that you didn't realize.
You know like Maxwell
put together
electricity and magnetism.
That when he put together the
laws, he discovered they also
described light and new forms
of light which hadn't been
discovered--
ultraviolet, infrared,
and so forth-- radio.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
Yes.
WILCZEK: And when Dirac put
together relativity and
quantum mechanics, he found
that you had to have
antiparticles.
 
INTERVIEWER: So new doors.
WILCZEK: There are new doors
that could open.
I don't know what they'd be.
I don't know.
People speculate different
things.
Within physics also I should say
just knowing the equations
is not the end of the
story by any means.
 
Sometimes when physicists
succeed in getting their basic
equations that part of
physics is ruled no
longer to be physics.
Like atomic physics--
figuring out how atoms work--
used to be physics.
Now it's chemistry.
 
It's called chemistry.
Other parts of physics--
Newton--
Newtonian mechanics used to be
the frontier of physics.
Now it's engineering.
So we might call it
something else.
But it would be coming
from physics.
And right now within physics
for instance, another
wonderful surprise from my own
work has been I took some of
the concepts that we use to
describe fundamental particles
and fields and it turns out the
same equations also govern
how matter behaves at
low temperature.
So you have exotic quantum
mechanical phenomenon--
these are called "anyons"--
that people have been exploring
for possible use in
quantum computers and other
kind of very exotic,
futuristic engineering.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
It must be really gratifying
to see this--
this little--
your baby from--
WILCZEK: It's the greatest
thing in the world.
It really is.
Right.
Exactly.
It's like seeing your
baby grow up.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
And do all these wonderful
things.
WILCZEK: Surprising you.
INTERVIEWER: It's like--
you know, it's your immortality
I suppose to be
able to have that--
an influence so far beyond your
personal self in a way.
WILCZEK: It's really nice.
INTERVIEWER: You have
two daughters?
WILCZEK: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: They both
went into science?
WILCZEK: Yes--
with a broad definition.
INTERVIEWER: Did you encourage
them to go into science or did
you let them--
WILCZEK: I didn't discourage--
 
they could see that I really
admired science.
I think that had
some influence.
They were embedded in
that environment.
But they haven't gone
into physics.
It's quite different
what they're doing.
 
I was going to support them
no matter what they did.
 
If they decided to become
beachcombers or Republicans I
might have raised an eyebrow.
 
But was happy to help with
almost anything they did.
But certainly I'm very, very
pleased with what they've
actually chosen to do.
My older daughter is a
professor of biology.
INTERVIEWER: Nice.
WILCZEK: And my younger
daughter, who went to MIT and
the Sloan School,
is doing kind of
technological business--
bringing high tech ideas
into practice.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, that's great.
And so your daughter was at MIT
when you were at Princeton
and then you came here.
WILCZEK: Right.
Just one year.
She was one year
in when I came.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, that's nice.
And she said, oh god, I thought
I got away and now --
WILCZEK: Yeah.
I think she had some
reservations about this.
But it worked out well.
INTERVIEWER: Interesting.
MIT has this idea of its role in
the world as bringing ideas
into practices, as
we discussed.
And how does your work
fit into that?
I'm just wondering if the people
here are looking at
your work for ways to
make it practical.
You talked a little
bit about it.
WILCZEK: Not really.
Not in any five or 10 year
horizon I would say, which is
usually what people are
interested in who will
invest money or--
The closest thing are these
anyons I would say that could
be important in the long run for
new forms of computing or
electronics.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
 
WILCZEK: Through that kind of
thing I've gotten interested
in the behavior of matter at
low temperatures and things
like this that might someday be
something practical maybe.
But that's not what
I think about.
And MIT has certainly not in any
way pressured me to try to
think on a shorter--
INTERVIEWER: On a short term.
WILCZEK: --horizon.
By the way before leaving the
subject of my daughters, I
think it's appropriate to
mention that my younger
daughter has met and married
another MIT student who was
also an undergraduate at
MIT and went to the
Sloan School as well.
And is also kind of in bringing
technology to practice.
INTERVIEWER: That's great.
That's great.
An accomplished family.
WILCZEK: I'm very gratified.
Actually.
Yeah.
 
INTERVIEWER: Did you do similar
things with them that
your parents did with you?
Do you used to take them to
the toy store once a week?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
I didn't regularly.
No, it wasn't so regular.
But I certainly encouraged--
INTERVIEWER: And were they
equally into taking things
apart and doing puzzles
as you?
Did you see that reflected
in your--
WILCZEK: Not quite as much.
No, I would say.
They didn't seem to quite as
obsessed as I was actually.
INTERVIEWER: No percolator
taken apart.
Do you have any sort of
principles that have guided
you through your career?
I guess I'm wondering is
do you find yourself--
how do you choose what problems
to work on it?
Are they obvious or do you
often have to choose?
Do you try to choose
what's more
interesting or what's more--
I don't know.
WILCZEK: It's sort
of all the above.
It's a very spontaneous
activity.
Actually one it one of
the things that's--
 
to call it a principle would
be giving it too
much dignity I think.
My principle such as it is, is
just to stay curious and try
different things and see.
And I work on things at
all different levels.
So some are grandiose--
trying to unify the forces or
think about how maybe quantum
mechanics could be modified or
making prettier equations of
this or that.
But I also just like
playing around.
 
And the other thing that people
on the outside probably
don't realize is that most
ideas don't work.
 
I have a saying which is that
if you don't have failures
that means you're not working
on hard enough problems.
 
If you know where you're going
so to speak, then you're not
exploring new ground.
 
I like to work on both ideas
that are big but may not pan
out and also at the same time,
projects that I know I can
finish in a finite amount of
time that will give some
tangible results.
INTERVIEWER: Sure.
Sure.
Sure.
That makes sense.
That's a good mix.
WILCZEK: And I spend a lot
of time exploring--
learning things that won't
necessarily lead to any
tangible work on my part.
But I have to decide
what I want to do.
I was very gratified actually
when I learned Einstein's
favorite joke, which is very
much along these lines.
I'll just give a
short version.
So there's a guy whose
car won't work.
So he takes it to different
garages.
He's very frustrated.
Nobody can give him
a straight story.
And he's spending
a lot of money.
So finally he's in desperation
and he goes to the local
garage, which is a kind
of ramshackle place.
But the mechanic looks at his
car, opens the hood, takes out
a wrench and tightens a screw.
And then the car
runs perfectly.
So the guy is very happy
until he gets the bill.
The bill is $200, which at that
time was a lot of money--
$200.
And he's extremely annoyed.
And he storms back to the garage
and says, "how dare you
give me a bill for $200?
All you did was tighten
a screw.
I want an itemized account of
why it cost $200." So the guy
pulls out his pen and
he writes down--
"labor, tightening
screw, $2.00.
Knowing which screw to
tighten, $198." So--
I like that.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
 
It's interesting--
how do you go about sort of
staying curious and engaging
yourself in these
different areas?
WILCZEK: Oh, I don't have
a problem with that.
My problem with anything is--
INTERVIEWER: How do you actually
physically do it?
WILCZEK: --converging.
INTERVIEWER: Do you try to
go to different talks?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
Go to talks.
I read books, talk to people,
all those things.
And in recent years, poking
around on the internet and
things like that.
Although that's dangerous
actually because--
INTERVIEWER: Because it could
just suck you in forever?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
And away from science too.
There's lots of interesting
stuff there that I don't want
to get interested in,
like politics.
 
Once you when you're
exposed to it,
it's hard to get pulled.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
Sure.
 
I believe your wife is kind
of active politically.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
She does a lot of work--
 
I don't know how much
I should talk about.
But she does a lot of work
maintaining the standards of
Wikipedia, for instance.
She does a lot of editing--
INTERVIEWER: Huh.
That's very interesting.
WILCZEK: --and making sure the
articles are accurate and
conform to the standards
and so forth.
INTERVIEWER: That's
very interesting.
WILCZEK: I think that's
important work.
INTERVIEWER: Right.
Because there is somebody
doing that.
You wonder about Wikipedia.
WILCZEK: And some of it has a
political component, but it's
political not in an advocacy
sense but just in terms of
keeping things honest.
But she also does scientific
things.
INTERVIEWER: Have you ever felt
this pull to be drawn
into politics?
Do you feel like you avoid it?
WILCZEK: It is a pull,
but I avoid it.
No, I can't--
it's not--
INTERVIEWER: Not appropriate or
just it will draw you away
from your work or both?
Or why do you avoid it?
 
WILCZEK: It's clear to me that
I can still accomplish things
in science.
It's not clear to me that could
accomplish anything in politics.
It can be very unpleasant--
so much arguing.
And so much of it is dopey.
 
It's really annoying to me
when people can set out
rational arguments and make a
case for a certain policy and
then just get blown
away or ignored.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
Yes.
 
A lot more emotional levels.
WILCZEK: Opposed with
emotional--
 
INTERVIEWER: Fear mongering
or whatever.
WILCZEK: Arguments that aren't
rational-- that don't really
stick to the point.
 
INTERVIEWER: If it didn't
make any sense for
you, you'd go nuts.
WILCZEK: Right.
I really admire--
there is a scientist who went
into politics who I really
admire, Rush Holt, who was our
representative in Princeton.
So he did it.
But his family was political.
And I guess he had planned
for a long time.
INTERVIEWER: I see.
He was sort of used to it.
 
Do you feel like there's certain
keys to a successful
career in science?
WILCZEK: Yeah.
It helps.
INTERVIEWER: Obviously,
being the genius.
WILCZEK: It helps to
be very clever.
INTERVIEWER: Yes.
WILCZEK: But not everyone who's
successful in science is
very clever and not everyone who
is very clever and decides
to do science, is successful.
There's more to it.
You have to be prepared
to fail.
 
You have to be willing
to take risks.
And I guess the thing is first
of all to recognize that
something is not working.
And secondly, to move on
if it's not working.
 
So it takes persistence.
It takes a certain kind of
character and not getting
discouraged too easily.
INTERVIEWER: Are there
particular failures that
you've had in your career
that have been--
WILCZEK: Oh, many.
INTERVIEWER: Is there any that
stand out as particularly
helpful to you that got you off
a path or that taught you
something about your work or
yourself or something?
WILCZEK: The ones that really
stick in my mind are more
missed opportunities
than anything else.
Things I could have done, I
really was in a great position
to do, but somehow I was doing
something else or I wasn't
smart enough.
I just didn't do it.
I could have discovered the
inflationary universe.
I was perfectly positioned
to do that.
I knew everything that
was required.
I just didn't think of it.
And there are many
lesser examples.
There are lots of things I could
have done that I didn't.
INTERVIEWER: And why do
you think you didn't?
Were you just too--
WILCZEK: I was thinking
about other things.
And how should I say, it's a--
there's a lot of luck
involved too.
It's like water going
down a mountain and
there are many paths.
But one of them become
the mainstream.
One of them breaks through
and happens to find--
And it might take
a long meander.
If you take the wrong choice,
you don't get there.
INTERVIEWER: Do you ever sort of
wake up and think you have
an answer and write it
down and then it's--
WILCZEK: That's happened.
INTERVIEWER: Is often
like right or wrong?
Like half and half.
WILCZEK: I've had both.
 
It's more often right
than wrong.
Sometimes it's just
ridiculous.
The most exciting instances
were just silly.
 
This has only happened
a couple of times.
But I think I really made some
grand piece of progress that
was very paradoxical.
And how can you--
And the most spectacular ideas
in science are sort of
paradoxical.
Things that you think can't
possibly make sense at first.
But then you see it from a
higher point of view that
somehow reconciles the
irreconcilable.
But dreams also will reconcile
the irreconcilable.
They just don't really do it.
So I've had dreams like that
where I think I've--
INTERVIEWER: Put it
all together.
WILCZEK: I'll have a new
theory of gravity or
something like this.
And there just doesn't--
INTERVIEWER: And you wake up--
WILCZEK: I wake up and there's
just nothing there.
INTERVIEWER: Bummer.
 
So I just want to ask you one
more question about gravity.
And then I want to ask you about
a sonnet, if you might
be up for it.
So can you just tell me a little
bit about the problem
or the issue of gravity
within physics today?
WILCZEK: The problem
with gravity--
there are a couple of problems
with gravity.
One is understanding why
empty space weighs
just a little bit.
 
There are some ideas
about that.
They're not compelling, but okay
so that it may be right--
kind of ugly ideas actually.
 
But another profound
problem is how
gravity behaves in extreme--
really extreme conditions
where quantum mechanics
becomes important.
These conditions are very
rare in the universe.
And they may have occurred in
the earliest moments of the
big bang or in the interior
of black holes--
things like this.
So they're not practical
problems, but they're
conceptual problems.
How do you reconcile these
two big theories
of physics in detail?
 
We had an experience like that
already with special
relativity and quantum
mechanics.
 
Special relativity tries to
treat space and time on the
same footing.
But in quantum mechanics, the
way it's formulated, it
doesn't work that way at all.
Time is treated very different
from space.
And so you have to work very
hard in order to make theories
that are consistent
with both special
relativity and quantum mechanics.
And really doing that is what
led to the standard--
the ideas--
the deep ideas that enabled
the standard model.
And so it's been extremely
fruitful
to make that synthesis.
 
It's not that either
one is wrong.
But putting them together
is very difficult.
 
And general relativity is even
harder because time becomes
even more mixed up with
space and less rigid.
So there are many different
times you could have chosen.
Quantum mechanics says you have
to choose one time and
work with it.
And then you have to show--
okay, if you build up this
elaborate structure
based on time.
Then okay, if you chose
a different time--
a different way of defining
time-- you'd get a very
different structure.
You have to show somehow that
they define the same world.
They don't look like
it at all.
And no one has succeeded
in really doing that.
I don't know where it will lead
if you do solve it, but
so far no one has really
solved that.
INTERVIEWER: I understand
you've
written a number of sonnets.
WILCZEK: Yeah.
INTERVIEWER: And why?
What is it--
I guess if I can see you have
this sort of sense of order.
And so a sonnet would
be appealing to you.
WILCZEK: It's fun.
It's short.
INTERVIEWER: And would you--
I know you said you had at
least one memorized.
WILCZEK: I think I have it.
INTERVIEWER: If you wouldn't
mind, can you tell me what if
it's about or why you--
WILCZEK: Yeah.
This is a sonnet entitled
"Virtual Particles".
And it's about virtual
particles.
Virtual particles are particles
that come to be--
that really are in our equations
but not in our
apparatus--
INTERVIEWER: Got you.
WILCZEK: --visible things.
But they play an important
role in formulating the
theory, they mediate forces,
and so forth.
So here's the poem.
Beware of thinking
nothing's there.
Remove all you can,
despite your care.
Behind remains an endless
seething.
Of mindless clones beyond
conceiving.
They come in a wink,
and dance about.
Whatever they touch is
touched by doubt:
What am I doing here?
What should I weigh?
Those thoughts often lead
to rapid decay.
Fear not!
The terminology's misleading.
Decay is virtual particles
breeding.
And seething, no mindless, oft
serve noble ends: This clone
exchanged, makes a bond
between friends.
To be or not?
The choice seems clear enough.
But Hamlet vacillated.
And so does this stuff.
INTERVIEWER: Bravo.
 
Was there an occasion that you
wrote that for or did you--
WILCZEK: I wrote it
for my book, for
Longing for the Harmonies.
Virtual particles
was part of it.
And I just somehow-- it was
so strange to write about.
How should I say--
it's one of those cases where
it's much easier to write down
equations than to articulate
in English what they mean.
INTERVIEWER: Very interesting.
WILCZEK: So to sort of make that
bridge, ordinary prose
somehow wasn't adequate.
 
INTERVIEWER: I think
it's nice.
You did a good job with that.
I think that's about all
the time we have.
Thank you very much for
sitting with us today.
WILCZEK: Oh, it's been a joy.
 
