<http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/wilczek09/wilczek09_index.html>Link
--Posted By johannes to <http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/01/talk-with-frank-wilczek.htm>monochrom at 1/20/2009 12:05:00 PM
Frank Wilczek, a theoretical physicist at MIT and recipient of the
Nobel Prize in Physics (2004), is known, among other things, for the
discovery of asymptotic freedom, the development of quantum
chromodynamics, the invention of axions, and the discovery and
exploitation of new forms of quantum statistics (anyons). He is the
author of Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces.
The most exciting thing that can happen is when theoretical dreams
that started as fantasies, as desires, become projects that people
work hard to build. There is nothing like it; it is the ultimate
tribute. At one moment you have just a glimmer of a thought and at
another moment squiggles on paper. Then one day you walk into a
laboratory and there are all these pipes, and liquid helium is
flowing, and currents are coming in and out with complicated wiring,
and somehow all this activity is supposedly corresponds to those
little thoughts that you had. When this happens, it's magic.
