Interview with the 2019 Nobel Laureate in Physics Didier Queloz on 6 December 2019 during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden.

Where do you get your passion for science?

Didier Queloz: I think my passion for science may be something that I had in the blood early on, because I think I was born very curious. I’ve always been very curious. I believe I’ve always been very creative. I love to play and doing stuff and always very curious about understanding ‒ how does it work? When I was a kid, I used to break apart stuff just to understand how it works. Of course I was not able to bring it back. It was not something very nice sometimes for my mother. But I think I’m a born scientist, I’m very curious and very math gifted, so I went naturally into physics because that’s something I feel at ease and that’s something that was responding to my internal voice that maybe that’s something I should be doing.

What do you like about science?

Didier Queloz: I can never stop asking myself, ”Why is that?” or ”How does it work?” and ”Why did we do that and not that?” I’m also curious about … It’s not about physics only, it can be about psychological patterns, about the way society works or the way the financial system works. I think I’m very eclectic, and it’s kind of a soft madness in a way that I always want to answer and obviously I very rarely got any answers, but I really want to answer. That does cause this kind of emotional drive or maybe even a bit obsessive drive that brought me to science.

Was there a certain person that influenced you growing up?

Didier Queloz: I cannot identify a specific person that had a specific influence, but I have had a lot of people that may have played some role. First, I have a very supportive family, so I think this is essential. I don’t think if you are under stress and under threat in your family, it’s not possible to do that, you have to get a free mind. I can really do what I want, which is what I wanted, which was certainly a good starting point. I have had very interesting teachers sometimes because it was the seventies, new teaching in the seventies, a new PhD theory, so they were kind of funny teachers. Maybe it helped to develop some creativity in me. I cannot really say I have had amazing physics teachers, but I remember very well my mathematic teachers and I liked them very much, I mean they really brought me to mathematics and then I went to physics. I realised that there were a lot of cool topics that I didn’t know. I read a lot of books, some of the almost public oriented writers like Carl Sagan for example, was one of them. I got very thrilled by this and all this together was a nice music to my ear. They all together brought me to to become a physicist and then working on astrophysics.

What was it like to work with your co-laureate Michel Mayor?

Didier Queloz: That’s the interesting aspect of working with Michel. I think I picked Michel because I think we are very similar in the way we operate, we’re very instinctive. We are kind of emotional and maybe we can say Michel is not very academic in that style, so it’s all by touch. It’s a bit like doing paintings. I cannot say something specific, but the whole touch paintings that you get by working with Michel ‒ bits here and bits there ‒ I think was amazingly useful. Still today, I just love being with Michel. I love listening to his perspective on things. He sometimes has an awkward perspective and I like it. I think we all need what I call a mentor, an inspiration. Michel was certainly a mentor to me. I learned a lot and he helped me at least to develop some skills, not directly but just by being with him and maybe having some discussions about something, and then they would help me to think in a different way and to develop other skills. I must say I’ve been very fortunate to work with Michel and I hope the same for him because I think the discovery was an amazing teamwork.

What advice do you give to your students?

Didier Queloz: It’s always difficult to give advice to students, but usually the way I interact with my students is that I try to do what’s called “light touch supervision”. This means you are always there when they really feel under stress, because that’s why we are here really, to do a net. But it’s also up to them to find a way. You can show the way, we can suggest the way, but very quickly I try to promote this kind of spirit, let’s say an artistic spirit, that they try their own way to go through with what they’re doing. In a bit of a provocative way, if I try to translate that it’s, don’t listen to your supervisor, in a way. Do it as you feel. Of course, you should not apply that strictly speaking, but I think it’s part of this kind of light touch. That helps to develop confidence in yourself, that you can do something without being told that you can do it. It also helps you to listen and to try to grab the advice that is the one that fits you the most. I think to me that’s a perfect interaction you should have between a student and a supervisor, and that’s something that all students have to understand, they should really develop their own perspective on things. They should not be afraid to build confidence. Quite often I’m facing a lack of confidence. The confidence is a matter of our self respect and also self build up, and the best way to build up confidence is just to do the things, so do the thing. Don’t listen too much to your supervisor, listen to your guts.

What do your students teach you?

Didier Queloz: The reason why I love working with students is that every day they teach me something. First, their brain is much more fresh than mine. They come with a very fresh perspective and sometimes bring new ideas. I got too spoiled because I know too much, which is bad if you want to be creative at some point. But they come with so much energy that is so wonderful. I just love working with students, PhD students and working teams. I think that makes my day really happy.

You received a Nobel Prize for your PhD. How can someone follow in your footsteps?

Didier Queloz: I was a PhD student, that’s true, but you know, in all discovery it’s a matter of luck, it’s a bit of a gamble. We have been lucky. We could have been scooped, other people could have found this before us. We have been lucky, we work right. I think the fact that I was a PhD student certainly played some role because I came up with maybe a fresh perspective. In another way, maybe that Michel would’ve done it, so this kind of teamwork that we had with someone way more experienced and somebody way more energetic and maybe more naive and creative in a way, was a terrific team. But there’s no rule, just do what you think.

When I was doing that, I never thought about a Nobel Prize at all. I just thought it was cool, what I was doing, because I just loved it. I was doing something new. I was pushing the boundary of the knowledge, and it was great because we were doing this work. We were excited about what we were talking and discovering and announcing to the world, but at no point, I thought I would build a career and have a Nobel Prize. So I think it doesn’t really matter if you’re a PhD or if you are a junior scientist, just do it because you believe you have to do it and just have fun when you’re doing it.

How did you discover that you had been awarded the Nobel Prize?

Didier Queloz: Oh, my day was really awful. I had a problem with my bike and I had to fix my bike and I was late and the day was starting really on the wrong foot. Then it turned completely in another direction after this phone call. Not from the Nobel committee, actually, they failed to reach me, but by the PR office of Cambridge, because I was at Cambridge, they called me and told me after the announcement, because I was not at all looking at that, I was in the middle of a meeting. I was really … The Nobel Prize was the last of my worries, and they told me, “Are you aware that you got the Nobel Prize?” At first I thought it was a joke, and then I realised it was the 8th of October and I said, “Are you sure?” I was not so convinced, in the way I asked them, “Are you sure?” For a moment, they said, “Oh, just wait for a minute, we’re checking,” and they came back. “Oh yes, that’s you, we see your face.” “Okay,” I said, “Oh, my god”, then I lost track of the day. They asked me what I would do with the prize, and I was so annoyed with this bike, I said, “I’m going to buy a new bike”. That definitely is in the plan, so I’m looking for buying a new bike.

Is there a Nobel Laureate that has influenced you?

Didier Queloz: This is a difficult question, see if there is any other past Nobel laureates. When you look at the list, there is so many great figures, so many great physicists. I cannot identify some specific one, but there are certainly a lot of great names that, when I was a student in physics, I learned the history and I learned what they did. Certainly the Nobel laureates is a good pool to pick a great lot of people from, but I don’t have a specific name to tell you right now.

How does it feel to be a Nobel Laureate?

Didier Queloz: I’m still learning what does it mean right now, to become a Nobel Laureate. It seems so extravagant right now, what is going around this. I don’t really know, I just saw the first effect. Everybody seems to be interested by me and they all want my signature, that’s what I see right now. I’m waiting a little bit for all this to go down because I don’t feel that very different. I’m still the same person. I don’t think my science will be very different. But certainly I do feel a sense of responsibility with this prize, and it will take a bit of time for me to digest absolutely everything, what it means and what I can do with this prize.

What do you do in your free time?

Didier Queloz: I don’t have a lot of free time, that’s my problem. The time I have left I try to dedicate to my family and to my wife. We love just taking care of the house, doing gardening and when we can, traveling a little bit. I save a bit of time to go in the mountains because I love to ski, so to do skiing. We are trying to save a bit more time to just go to a nice place when we can, just go to the beach and enjoy, a bit more relaxing time. That’s really optimizing the few time I have. Most of my time, it’s absolutely obsessive about science, it’s just a disaster, it’s just so obsessed.

Why should young people go into science?

Didier Queloz: I think people that have an interest for questions and like the rational reasoning and even if you are gifted for logical thinking and mathematics, which is not everybody, but if you are gifted, you have to do science because that’s where you will develop all these gifts the best you can. Science is essential to the society, it’s everywhere, all the science. Our society where we’re living is the outcome of science. Your cell phone is full of science. I think we need scientists and what we need the most is not only scientists, it’s scientists in the government making policies. Because when you look in the parliament, when you look in the governments, there is an absolute lack of scientists compared to the weight of science in our society. I really encourage people to do science, and if at some point they decide to become prime minister or president or parliament members, they should do it, because we need these people there to rebalance a bit of society. Really, and please do it, and please, please, please, if you are a woman, don’t feel science is not for you. This is all wrong. I mean, science is for everybody. We need all the bright men and we need you. We are missing women right now because we are missing certainly gifted women for science. For some social and family pressure, they don’t go into science, which is an absolute disaster. I think they should really join it and try. Diversity in science is essential to the science. When you look back, science is about traveling, freedom of travel, freedom of expressions and getting the best people in the world. There is a limited number of people gifted. They’re all around the world and we need to have them. If diversity is not represented in science, it means we’re losing capability, we’re losing people, we’re losing brains.

Do you think there’s life out there in our universe? How long will it take to find it?

Didier Queloz: We have so many planets that the question of life is obvious, that’s the next step. I’m absolutely convinced there must be life somewhere else because I can’t believe life is unique in the universe. There’s too many stars, too many planets; that’s pretty clear. Now what is still not very well understood is what is the origin of life? And what you need as ingredients? Life is chemistry. In a way it’s a kind of chemistry that is turning bad because the chemistry that leads to something that is evolving and then by itself, evolving to something more complicated. Now the question is, what do you need? We definitely can look at this in the lab, here on earth, and we can look at this on Mars, on Venus and Enceladus, there’s couple of other satellites in the solar system where you can look at that. Then you can try to look on other planets.

The question of what exactly do you look at is not very clear, but it is believed that at some point the geophysics of a planet should tell you something about whether there is life or not. It’s a long way, it’s a long path because we don’t even connect exactly the origin of life on the solar system. It’s something I’ve started spending quite a lot of time on. I started this project a couple of years ago because that was my main focus. When I moved to Cambridge I was trying to establish a new path here, and there has been progress. The interesting part of this progress, is that it doesn’t come from only astrophysics. It comes by combining what the astrophysicists are doing, with what other people not really dealing very much with stars, because they’re dealing with molecules in labs. It’s called molecular biology.

There has been a lot of progress on the origin of life from the molecular biology perspective, the ingredients, the unit, what is the simplest unit and how do you build them? What is the condition for that? Then the condition is something that the astronomers can provide. We’re trying to get an idea, what is the atmosphere about, what is the kind of planet we’re talking about? Do we have plate tectonics? Do you have magnetic field – all this does it. What is the role of all this to initiate the chemistry, to have the chemistry right? That’s a new field that I’m talking about, which is at the boundary between different fields, that connect different disciplines together. This is my next big goal. I’m not claiming I will find the answers to that, because these are big questions, but I will definitely work on this, I am working on that already.

The most obvious element that we are missing in the /- – -/ right now is to find another earth like us. We have failed right now because we have not been able to deploy the right equipment to do that. We know how to do it, we just need to implement it. I have built up an international program on that called Terra hunting. A lot of universities in the world are having new equipment being built, and we will dedicate a quest for that kind of object, a telescope doing only that, and there may be others in the future. Then we have to build up the equipment to analyse the atmosphere of these planets. There will be a next generation of space equipment and people are now talking about this. This is really my main activity where I’m moving right now. I’m trying to accrete people, young people on this, and hopefully this Nobel Prize will be helpful for that, to stimulate these new developments.

People are convinced that this is what is coming next, but it’s difficult to implement it because since we are building a new science it doesn’t really fit in the usual box. When you have a usual activity, it’s easy, but when you do something really new, like life questions, so, there must be life somewhere. We are going to make progress on the origin of life on earth and possibly to find life that could be like the life we have on earth or another kind of life, other kinds of chemistry certainly within the next 50 to 100 years.

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