Inspiring students
Nobel Prize winner spends time with students upon return home to Sydney
Science is cool.
Just ask Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Art McDonald, who on Monday was afforded rock star status after addressing students at the same high school he attended some 60 years earlier.
Following a lecture that touched on everything from the ‘Big Bang’ theory to his work on subatomic particles called neutrinos, the 1960 graduate of Sydney Academy stepped down from the stage and was immediately swarmed by students interested in either having their picture taken with the famous scientist or in having a brief chat, or both.
“It’s always a pleasure to return home and especially to speak with the young people,” said the humble McDonald, a 1960 graduate of Sydney Academy, who encouraged students to pursue their studies in the scientific and technological fields.
“Science is fun and it should be fun — you can set yourself up for a career in science that is only limited by your imagination and energy.”
The 74-year-old Sydney native is the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute, where he and his team conduct research two kilometres below the surface
in an active Ontario mine. The ultra-clean underground lab allowed McDonald and his team to obtain “otherwise impossible measurements in the study of fundamental physics, astrophysics and cosmology” and led to the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics he jointly received with Japan’s Takaaki Kajita for their work on the discovery of neutrino oscillation, research that showed that neutrinos have mass.
While McDonald’s life work may be a bit complex for the average person, his passionate discussion of the opportunities in science proved inspirational for many of the almost 500 students who packed the Sydney Academy auditorium for his address.
During the question and answer period that followed the talk, Grade 12 student Aidan McNutt took advantage of the opportunity to ask McDonald for his thoughts on future jobs in the field of physics.
“This is great — it’s not every day you can talk with someone who won the Nobel Prize,” said McNutt, who later enjoyed a private chat with McDonald.
“I love science and I love physics — Sydney Academy is a great place to learn and things like this are part of the supportive environment we have here.”
Even though the presentation was for Grade 11 and 12 students, some Grade 9 students, including Mya Trimm, were not going to miss out.
“It’s really interesting that he said small town people can make a really big difference in the world — he was very inspiring,” she said.
For his part, McDonald seemed to bridge the generation gap. He immediately connected with his audience by displaying a picture of the Sydney house he lived in as a child. He also did some namedropping, but when you are a Nobel Prize winner it somehow seems normal to talk about having conversations with Stephen Hawking, widely considered to be one of the smartest people on the planet.
“Stephen Hawking is a very interesting scientist — he’s interested in the Big Bang theory (not the television sitcom) and I’m interested in the Big Bang theory,” said McDonald.
Sydney Academy principal Kevin Deveaux said the school had been interested in bringing McDonald in to address the students for some time.
McDonald met with other Cape Breton high school students on Monday morning at Cape Breton University, where he was on hand for the Power of Ideas tour, a travelling scientific exhibition presented across Canada by the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.