“Learning the world as the little prince”

And that’s how you land in the prestigious British university city of Cambridge …

Can you imagine for a 22 -year -old kid? At the end of the first year of training, a competition selected the first ten students to whom a thesis scholarship was awarded. And I was lucky to be part of it. One of my tutors pushed me to make an appointment with Stephen Hawking, one of the top of the place.

I ended up at lunch – we ate Indian – that he organized every Wednesday with the students he accompanied. And then, in the afternoon, Hawking welcomed me for an exchange of several hours on the head. The Thésards he followed worked either on the first moments of the universe, or on the physics of black holes. And it was this subject he offered me.

What is it, with major lines?

When giant stars die, they collapse on themselves and create these amazing structures, so dense that they manage to “suck up” the light passing through the vicinity. Hence their name. These structures are also fascinating because we are there at the crossroads of many physical laws.

Did the Thésard that you were appreciated?

The pace was so supported that I was at times on the verge of exhaustion! In such a context, we are immediately plunged into the Grand-Bain, often touching the limits of our knowledge and our understanding. And one day, during a recent discovery in physics that had amazed the media, I was asked to come and talk about my work on BBC radio. A trying moment for me.

Since then, you have come a long way, by publishing popular scientific works and by becoming a speaker as well as a columnist on several radios in France. Have you tried to combine these activities with your scientific career?

Yes, but I quickly found that it was impossible. For me, sharing knowledge is more than ever necessary. Stephen Hawking showed me the way. This physicist was a brilliant theorist and pedagogue, despite the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis he had suffered from his childhood and who nailed him in his chair. This character with a superior spirit “locked up” in a paralyzed body fascinated. His popularization works have had a flat-hearted success.

Thereafter, it was also the surge of the Harry Potter saga that arrested me. She convinced me that it was necessary to explain to the children this world around us. With Lucy, the daughter of Stephen Hawking, I wrote a first educational book which was intended for them.

The magic of sorcerer Harry Potter seems to be light years from the science you practice …

Yes, but even this magic responds to rules without which it cannot work. It’s the same in science. The natural world is filled with laws that scientists seek and decipher. We find them, then we realize that there are other mysteries behind. And we take a new step to decipher them in turn.

However, some today dispute a good number of scientific evidences …

For my part, I have no problems with the fact that we can tell the world in several ways. But if a story, like that of the theories carried by the conspirators, who enter the category you evoke, is shaped to attack another, then we enter the field of manipulation and we break the trust necessary to live together.

The question is not to doubt personal convictions which can be respectable, but to wonder if they are scientifically honest. Sometimes this forces to recognize that certain discussions do not lead anywhere. However, is science still right? No, of course. But not to believe in science is catastrophic. Because then, we let private interests act freely. Look at how the carbon industries campaign to discredit scientific work on the reality of global warming.

In your work, you the physicist, you are investigating the mechanisms of biology. What path did you get there?

During my physics thesis, I had read a reference manual for biology studies that had amazed me. By becoming aware of what we know about the mechanisms of cells and molecules, I realize today that we are as far from what is greater as it is smaller in this universe. Our reality is to be there, this crossroads.

In the field of biology, does the theory of evolution bring lighting?

The engine of natural selection is a reality. But today, we know that he is not the only one. The microbiologist Lynn Margulis thus suggested in 1967 that during evolution, bacteria were able to cooperate to adapt together, giving birth to new forms of cell life. Since then, this intuition has been verified: the living world is well filled with cooperation phenomena allowing significant evolutionary jumps.

Why are we not more sensitive to it?

Our media has their share of responsibility. The BBC English channel broadcasts scientific documentaries every week in the first part of the evening. Do you think this is the case in France on our large national channels? In addition, the French school system highlights the success in mathematical studies, discouraging a large part of the students in their desire to understand the world around them.

I can testify, there is however a real joy to know, to understand. The lesson of the fox in The little princefrom Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, touched me: “It was only a fox similar to one hundred thousand others. But I have made my friend, and he is now unique in the world. We absolutely have to tame this living world in turn. How does the fox say: “You become responsible forever for what you have learned. »»