Lecture for insight into science
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger believes in fun - or at least a little bit of it.
The distinguished professor and Rutherford Medal recipient is the face of Massey University’s second public lecture in the ‘Fascination Science’ series, where he’ll be talking about the phenomenon of left-right asymmetry in space, time, and our own bodies.
This asymmetry - which is known as ’handedness’ or chirality - occurs at the macro and microscopic level. A chiral system is found in the basic molecules in the body, with amino acids being ‘left-handed’ and sugars ‘righthanded’.
‘‘Somehow nature chose amino acids to be left-handed and sugars to be right-handed, but it could have also been the other way around,’’ Schwerdtfeger says. ‘‘Of course, the question you can now ask is why do we have this kind of very distinct symmetry breaking in nature?’’
Schwerdtfeger says Louis Pasteur also battled with the question of asymmetry when he tried to grow anticlockwise plants that normally only grow clockwise, but he never succeeded.
‘‘Nature somehow chose to go to the left instead of to the right, and the question really is, why is that the case?’’
There are more than 50 hypotheses as to why molecules have this left-right asymmetry, however only a few have been disproved so far.
Hailing from Stuttgart in Germany, Schwerdtfeger now heads the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study at Massey University where he has been director of the Centre of Theoretical Chemistry and Physics since 2006. His interdisciplinary research interests date back to the beginning of his university career - helped by access to free education.
‘‘For me, it meant it didn’t really matter when I would finish university, so I could study chemistry, mathematics, physics, do a little bit of philosophy, [and] enjoy my life. I finished when I was 30 years old - I had three degrees, basically.’’
One of Schwerdtfeger’s parttime jobs was driving a taxi in the evenings, leaving him with time for study during the day. He is a strong proponent of students following their interests.
‘‘Life is all about having a little bit of fun at least, and science - to me - is fun,’’ he says.
Professor Schwerdtfeger speaks on October 18 at Massey University Albany campus.