Science Communication, Humanism, and Time: An Interview with Prof. Jim Al-Khalili

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili CBE FRS Jim is a theoretical physicist at the University of Surrey where he holds a Distinguished Chair in physics as well as a university chair in the public engagement in science. He received his PhD in nuclear reaction theory in 1989 and has published widely in the field. His current interest is in open quantum systems and the application of quantum mechanics in biology.

He is a prominent author and broadcaster. He has written 14 books on popular science and the history of science, between them translated into twenty-six languages. One of his latest books, “The World According to Physics,” was shortlisted for the Royal Society Book Prize. He is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries, such as the Bafta nominated “Chemistry: A Volatile History,” and he hosts the long-running weekly BBC Radio 4 programme, “The Life Scientific.”

Jim is a past president of the British Science Association and a recipient of the Royal Society Michael Faraday Medal and the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal, the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. He received an OBE in 2007 and a CBE in 2021 for ‘services to science’. Here we catch up and talk about science communication and Humanism.

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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Only been about a year since last talking this time–an improvement! I am no longer at the horse farm and back from Ukraine. To today, though, our senses tell us one thing. Our systems of logic tell us another thing, at times. Our scientific methodologies pierce the veil better than either alone. Why does so much of science give us such counterintuitive and seemingly contradictory ideas about the universe?

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili: Well, what we regard as intuition and common sense are formed by our experiences of the world around us that we encounter. But our senses only perceive a narrow slice of reality. Think about vision: the human eye only sees those electromagnetic waves in the so-called ‘visible’ range. But visible light is no more real than radio waves or x-rays – they are all light. Similarly with length scales: what we are familiar with on the everyday scale is by and large explained by Newtonian mechanics, but reality on the quantum scale or the cosmic scale is very different. We therefore regard this as counterintuitive, but that’s just because we don’t experience reality directly on those scales. In general, I would argue that wherever we see contradictions in our scientific understanding of the universe, it is because we have an incomplete understanding of the laws of nature.

Jacobsen: Let’s take a case example from your Twitter October 30-31, ‘Physics in History’ said, “Does time flow in one direction because of entropy, or are there deeper reasons for its arrow?” You replied, “I think you mean does time POINT in one direction because of entropy. Flow is an illusion. Many physicists would say yes. But there may be deeper reasons that bake an arrow into the universe (possibly due to quantum entanglement) and then entropy follows the arrow.” These distinct ideas–flow, directionality, entropy, time, quantum, entanglement–are fascinating and subtle. What does your response mean more fully?

Al-Khalili: The way we perceive time in our minds – what is often called manifest time – can often be very different from what we know about the true objective nature of time, our physical time. So while we have the strong sense that time flows (and we can debate whether this feels like time flowing past us or us moving through time) there is nowhere in the laws of physics that says time actually flows at all. In fact our current best theory of time, Einstein’s relativity, says that time just ‘is’. It exists. But what we do have is an ordering of events in some sequence: cause comes before effect, yesterday is different from tomorrow, and so forth. So even if time doesn’t flow, it at least has a direction. Think of a deck of cards arranged in increasing value in a line on a table; there is a direction to this increase in value, say left to right, but nothing is flowing. Our current view of physics is that time is like this. But to delve deeper into the origin of this arrow of time and whether it is solely down to increasing entropy, or disorder, in the universe, or something deeper, requires more subtle debate. Thankfully for humanity, I am currently writing just such a book that will be out next year!

Jacobsen: With that case example, what is the process there when breaking down science into manageable bits for those without the training?

Al-Khalili: I think for short, sharp and impactful posts on social media, all one can do is whet the appetite for a deeper understanding: to hint at exciting ideas that need a little more time and effort to absorb. I see such posts as a way of provoking discussion and thinking. Hopefully, firing up people’s curiosity can then lead to a more measured discussion.

Jacobsen: Here’s something I haven’t asked you. Nature is non-supernatural, so naturalism is reality and vice versa. From a physics argument, to quote Schrodinger, “What is life?” How does physics and the physics of biology inform an evidence-based distinction between life and death?

Al-Khalili: I think that science has yet to fully understand the distinction between life and non-life. We have many definitions of what it means to be alive – and by this I don’t mean human life with consciousness, but anything that can make copies of itself and evolve according to Darwinian evolution. From a physicist’s perspective, life means a complex system that can maintain order, complexity and an off-equilibrium state of low entropy. There is no magic here; no ingredient of vitalism that endows matter with ‘lifeness’, But it is still a puzzle. It’s the reason we have not been able to create artificial life yet. So, although Schrödinger posed that question in the title of his book, we are still trying to find a definitive answer 80 years later.

Jacobsen: Following from the previous question, a pertinent issue to British humanists is dying with dignity. Most Brits support assisted dying. How does a naturalistic, evidence-based view inform the humanist position and the humanistic option of assisted dying, i.e., most Brits are humanistic on this issue?

Al-Khalili: This is an interesting question. Yes, it is certainly the case that most Brits, according to recent surveys, support assisted dying. And I would also argue that the majority of Brits, if you asked them and analysed their worldviews, would probably identify with humanist thinking. But the puzzle is that for a humanist, like me, this life is all there is; there is nothing after we die. So some might find it strange that we support assisted dying. Surely a humanist would wish to prolong life for as long as possible since it is so valuable. But I think that is to miss what humanism is also about, which is a respect for all human life, and part of that is to allow people to choose to die with dignity. We are all going to die one day and we do not exist, in any sense, after we die any more than we existed before we were born. While we are alive therefore, we should make the most of it, and part of that is to alleviate suffering for those at the end of their time.

Jacobsen: Why was Neils Bohr wrong when he said, “It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we say about nature”?

Al-Khalili: This view, which grew out of the philosophy of logical positivism and instrumentalism, is one that was pushed by the Copenhagen school of quantum mechanics, led by the likes of Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Paul. It is known in philosophy as epistemology. But I have always disagreed with it. I prefer an ontological philosophy. On this point, I side with Einstein who always argued that it is indeed the job of physics to get as close as possible to the truth of what nature is. There is an objective reality out there. We may never fully understand it but we can try to get closer to it. In this sense, when it comes to how we understand the universe, particularly on the quantum scale, I am a realist. There is a real world out there that exists independently of what I think. I want to know what that real world is.

Jacobsen: What would constitute an ontological interpretation of quantum mechanics?

Al-Khalili: There are several ontological interpretations of quantum mechanics, which oppose the epistemological Copenhagen view. The best known as probably the Everettian many worlds interpretation. There is also the ’spontaneous collapse’ model or, my personal favourite, Bohmian mechanics. All these interpretations of quantum mechanics assume there is an objective reality independent of our senses and that we can say something about it that is more than just predicting results of observations. They are real descriptions of reality rather than just a recipe for what we should expect when we carry out a measurement.

Jacobsen: What are the newest updates on emeritus status now, and the book on time mentioned in the previous interview?

Al-Khalili: Well, after 32 years of unbroken undergraduate teaching and an increasing administrative load at Surrey, I am enjoying my new-found freedom to focus only on those activities that I enjoy: my research, interacting with my PhD students, my writing and my broadcasting. My wife keeps reminding me that I am officially now retired, but I am as busy as ever (well, OK, not quite as busy, as I can pick and choose how I use my time now). On that front, most of my time is currently being spent writing my new book on the nature of time, which I need to get back to after this interview! It’s coming along nicely and I keep thinking of more things to say, so it’s probably going to end up being my most ambitious writing project to date.

Jacobsen: What are your favorite humanism coda quotes?

Al-Khalili: Probably the usual suspects:

You don’t need God to be good. 

This is the only life we have so let’s not waste it.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Jim.

Al-Khalili: It was nice chatting to you. Now back to the mysteries of Time.