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During the Science Festival we caught up with particle physicist Brian Cox, and asked him about his recent rise to fame and what it’s like to be a Guest Director.
What does it mean to you to be Guest Director of the festival this year?
A: It’s wonderful because it is the biggest science festival in Britain and I assume it will get bigger, and bigger, and bigger. It’s the 10th anniversary next year isn’t it? So I’ll probably be asking to be Guest Director again because I’ve enjoyed it. It’s brilliant! I’ve done a lot this weekend. The Wonders [of the Solar System] event was great. I did two of those. [The Infinite] Monkey Cage, which I really wanted to do live – well, it was the first time we’ve done that in front of a live audience and it was brilliant, so brilliant that I think we want to do it always in front of an audience now. And I gave my usual talk, except it wasn’t my usual talk because I decided to invent a new one for Cheltenham and did a load of relativity and made it really hard. So I think everyone sat there going ‘Oh God, it’s maths’. I actually did vector identity. The vector, the differential form of Maxwell’s equations and derived the space-time interval. So there we go. I think it was alright.
Why do you feel events like this are important?
A: Science is of primary importance. I honestly think that economically and culturally speaking, it’s the most important thing to be doing in Britain. I think we should make Britain the best place in the world to do science. I think that should be an aspiration. David Cameron should stand up as Prime Minister and say ‘I will make Britain the best place in the world to do science’. The thing is, it’s affordable. We only spend, in total, about ten billion a year on universities, about three and a half billion on R&D. If you were to be bold and double it, Britain would be the best place in the world to do science and you wouldn’t notice in the bottom line of the country. Well, it wouldn’t impact the bottom line downwards. What it would do is impact the bottom line massively upwards. But I think in order to evolve and want to do that in Britain, you need massive public support because it’s a great bold project. And so things like Cheltenham and science on TV are building support for science. We’re going to lead the revolution and make Britain a better place in the world to do science and it will start here. In fact, this is probably the capital of the new Britain. It’ll be Cheltenham Town Hall if I have anything to do with it! Is that a bit overly ambitious?
Is this your first visit to the Cheltenham Science Festival and what do you think of it?
A: No, I was here last year. I did some stuff with Jim Al-Khalili. It’s brilliant. I actually like the fact that it’s quite informal. I like the fact that there’s this room in the Town Hall and everyone mixes together. There’s not a kind of a separation between speakers and the public and there often is at big festivals because it kind of has to be arranged that way. But I like here the fact that you just meet everybody.
Congratulations on your OBE. How does it feel to have shot to fame so quickly?
A: It’s actually beyond odd now. I was in a band before and we had a number one single so I’ve seen it a little bit, but not actually on the scale of after Wonders of the Solar System. I actually have to change my lifestyle because it’s a lot of hassle. That’s good because what it really means is that people are engaging with science. I’m kind of lucky in a way because I seem to have been the first person for a while who has managed to take these wonderful ideas and I’ve been kind of conduit for them. And although a lot of people have been doing it for a long time, you get over critical mass with viewing figures with the BBC. That’s what it is. Usually, you’d get at most about two million people – if you’re lucky, three million – watching a big science show and we had six and a half, if you add them up, for each episode. It’s still on. They just keep repeating it so it’s just consistently picking up an audience. That makes a huge difference. I’m really surprised because suddenly, you do get genuinely noticed like a celebrity rather than a scientist. In fact, my wife found a blog where someone had written ‘The BBC should stop having celebrities like Brian Cox presenting science programmes, they should have scientists’. That’s the funny thing – you get an audience that don’t know who you are. They don’t actually know you’re a scientist. They think you’re on Jonathan Ross so therefore you’re some kind of television presenter. It’s kind of an accolade in a way isn’t it? There’s a definite jump which I wasn’t expecting that has been made because of that programme.
Do you think the media’s recent love of science has been responsible for your rise to fame and do you think that will continue to happen with more and more people?
A: Definitely. It was a conscious decision by the BBC to have the World of Wonder season – which is this kind of year of science – and commissioning programmes with scientists. I mean Kathy Sykes did programmes, Jim Al-Khalili has done them, Marcus du Sautoy, Alice Roberts. The great thing is, because of programmes like Horizon, you can take people who are academics and allow them to grow. It’s not automatic that you can make TV programmes. It takes some practice. You have to learn. And the BBC are excellent at doing that. So it’s not a random thing. I think it’s been building interest for a while and it is primarily down to the BBC I would say.
We’ve tagged this post with Brian Cox, Conor Cahill, guest director, interview, science, Sue Harris on Tuesday 22 June 2010.
