Fascination of Science, page 3
For many years, you had hardly any private life at all. When did you decide to change direction, and was it at the expense of your career?
By my mid-thirties I'd achieved everything that was scientifically possible by that age. Before that, I couldn't have led a private life. I find it difficult saying, “That's enough.” I'm probably overcompetitive. Then, I realized that there would be little satisfaction in looking back on a life with only this one dimension, taken to excess. Now, fortunately, I have a family, and this has made my life richer. I'm somewhat proud that I managed to achieve that.
Have you changed your working hours because of your family? Are you still always the first to arrive and the last to leave work?
At the moment I'm doing regular hours at the Institute. I take the kids to school, then I'm at the Institute from nine o’clock onward, and I try to be home by six o’clock for dinner. When the kids are in bed at eight, I start working again. I work until eleven-thirty, sometimes until midnight or even longer. During this time, I'm undisturbed.
What advice would you give a young scientist?
I think people should do what makes them happy. The start of your career is strongly characterized by experimental work, then after becoming a professor you have to write a lot. Basically, a professorship in the natural sciences is almost like running a small company. You have to bring in the money, find employees, acquire projects, and in the end have to produce something. I advise everyone to try out physics, chemistry, mathematics, or biology. You shouldn't commit yourself too early.
I learned at MIT that you can achieve a lot with hard work. For someone originally from Franconia, it was great to realize that I can also swim with the big fish in the big pond. Self-confidence is important when you start out on your own and you have to lead a large group of people. Of course, you need to keep both feet on the ground so you don't become arrogant. There's a fluid transition between self-confidence and arrogance. Something always goes wrong when you play God, so there's also a lot of disillusionment.
“I had very high demands that I had to meet.”
Stefan Hell | Physics and Biophysical Chemistry
Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Göttingen
Director at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen
Director at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014
Germany
Professor Hell, you were born into a Banat Swabian family in Romania and moved to Germany in 1978 at the age of 15. Despite having to deal with a foreign language, you were one of the best students in your school, right from the start. What motivated you to always come out on top?
Well, with the language, it was actually the other way around. It was precisely because we spoke German and felt we were German that it was so liberating to be able to build a new life in that country. My new national language was certainly no foreign language but, rather, almost my mother tongue. I didn't want to be the best at everything, but I did want to be the best in math and physics.
For me, that was a way I could build my self-confidence. I was also the best in my German classes in the ninth and tenth grades—not least because I had enjoyed my excellent German classes in Romania. However, I was one of the last to be picked for soccer, even though I loved playing the game. That dented my ego, but I more than compensated for that with my achievements in math and physics.
Your parents placed great importance on education. How did that come about?
That also had to do with the fact that we were a minority in Romania—not a persecuted minority, but a disadvantaged one. Minorities anywhere have to assert themselves if they want to improve their way of life. And part of this assertiveness is to win the majority's respect. So, my parents told me that I had to be twice as good as the Romanians; then I couldn't be overlooked.
If I'd stayed in Romania, I'd have been a minority person all my life. But in Germany, that lower status was gone within one or two years. My origin no longer played a role—or if it did, maybe it was a positive one—not the least because postwar World War II Germany was full of German refugees and their descendants. The challenge for my parents, and later for me, was to build a new existence for ourselves. For that, I needed education and training.
As a child, did you often keep to yourself?
I certainly wasn't withdrawn or reclusive, but I was a bit shy with authority figures. My strength was—and probably still is—a better understanding of causality than most. And when I'm convinced that I understand something, I can formulate it confidently and concisely. I believe that the key to my success as a scientist has been that I always want to discover the essence of something, and I don't concern myself with more details than are necessary.
When did you feel you had reached the limit for your subject?
That's a nice way of describing my encounter with the Abbe diffraction limit, whereby the resolution of the light microscope can't be smaller than half the wavelength of visible light. In college, microscopy—as well as optics in general—hadn't really interested me. It was boring nineteenth-century physics. However, contrary to my normal inclination—and that's where my family background comes in—I wanted a topic for my dissertation that would make it easier for me to find a job later. That is, my father always expected to lose his job, and so lived with uncertainty. In the end, I chose a dissertation topic that had almost nothing to do with physics: how to integrate a precision mechanical stage into a light microscope.
I completed the dissertation, but I really suffered through it because the topic was so undemanding in terms of physics. After that, I wanted to do something more physics related. My PhD supervisor, however, didn't see me as a physicist; rather, he thought I was someone who had done some good technical work. So, he had me examine computer chips with an optical microscope—again, not real physics. I was in a really bad mood at the time, because I felt I was approaching my professional life in the wrong way—taking actions for the sake of economic security.
Out of desperation, I started wondering whether I could derive anything interesting from the subject. Then I realized there might actually be something incredibly exciting—namely, breaking through the resolution limit that had, supposedly, been set in stone. The thought of tackling something so fundamental, and maybe even being able to rewrite scientific history, helped keep me going. I realized that I might not be wrong with my idea—as far-fetched as it seemed at the time.
How did your discovery change your life at that point?
The idea of revisiting the resolution limit wasn't itself the discovery, but the choice of any problem to tackle does demonstrate whether you're adventurous or not. In my youthful exuberance—I was in my late twenties at the time—I was pretty certain: I can break through this limit if I just make an effort to think about it creatively. I tried to find funding for the project in Germany, but I wasn't successful because I wasn't part of the scientific establishment. That's why I went to Finland.
At the time, there were no opportunities for young scientists to work independently. You had to work for established professors, and if you weren't some sort of crown prince, you had a very hard time. I wasn't a crown prince, but I had my own ideas. Really, that was the only thing I had.
When you reached the stage at which you wanted to have an article published in Nature or Science, why do you suppose those journals declined your offer?
I already sensed that the idea for STED [stimulated emission depletion] microscopy was an important one, and I also feared that it might be stolen. Therefore, I submitted the basic idea to a less prestigious journal. The experimental results that followed a few years later would have been worthy of publication in Nature or Science, but both refused to even consider the work. That often happens when you're traveling through truly uncharted territory.
You immediately applied for a patent. What was your thinking then?
I had the naive idea that I could earn money with a patent. I didn't have a secure income in mind—from a patent, that wouldn't have lasted for long—but I did think the patent would lead to research funds. I led a spartan life in Finland because, at the beginning, I thought I'd be there only for half a year. But after a few weeks I had the decisive idea for the STED light microscope.
A few moments into my brainstorm, I realized I knew something that probably no one else knew and that it could become important. But I was grounded enough to approach the idea with some sobriety. Even two days afterwards, I kept thinking for a few seconds that maybe it was wrong after all—because it just seemed too good to be true. But I could find no inconsistencies in the idea; it was conclusive. But it would be a rocky road to the end. And it also involved fending off competitors.. Envious people and enemies in the field can hurt you, but they can also spur on someone like me, who thinks, I'm going to surprise you all.
“There were colleagues who went so far as to say, ‘Don't believe his data. He's putting on a show.’”
Before you ended up at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, you had applied in vain to twenty universities, true?
By this time, I was already 33, and there were no more fellowships for me in Finland. In this precarious situation, in 1996, I was lucky that the then-director of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, the American Thomas Jovin, and his colleagues at the time, gave me a chance. But Göttingen had their doubts, too. In 2000, they were still saying that I'd have to look for another position. And all my applications to German and foreign universities went unanswered.
In 2001, you gave a lecture at King's College, London, and immediately afterwards you were offered a job there. How did you feel about that?
That was a total surprise to me. I almost dropped my fork at dinner when I heard the news, because I thought it just couldn't be the case. I'd applied everywhere and had gotten nowhere—did they really mean me? That's one of those moments in your life you never forget.
But it's true you stayed at the Max Planck Institute and made the leap from junior group leader to institute director, correct?
The Institute wanted to keep me, probably because by then they had finally thought I was doing something original. But I'd already mentally prepared myself to leave Göttingen; I'd always indicated that would be the case. In the end, I got numerous offers. I had overlooked Göttingen, but then I reconciled myself to staying at Göttingen and I accepted the position of director at what was one of the most renowned research institutes in the world. They told me could do whatever I wanted scientifically. For someone who knows what he wants to do, that sounds like paradise.
In the United States, would you have needed to start all over again? And would you have had the kind of security that the Max Planck Institute offered you?
In the United States, I also had competitors who wanted to prevent me and my ideas from gaining a foothold there. If someone does nothing important in the United States, then they can't be important. The same was true in Germany, but at least there I had the freedom granted to me by the Max Planck Society.
I could tell you some really bad tales. There were colleagues who went so far as to say, “Don't believe his data. He's putting on a show.” There were even two colleagues who wrote in confidential reviews for professorships that my data weren't okay and that my science was a hoax. In the end, something like this happens out of envy. The truth is that only time will tell who is right. And that can take a long time . . .
Did winning the Nobel Prize justify so many years of struggle?
Strangely enough, no. The real satisfaction came when I realized that the idea worked. And if it worked, then it could come into the world independently of me. But that I was the first was also indisputable. After the Nobel Prize, I continued the work so as to reach a molecular resolution that can't be surpassed. Indeed, the resolution of our microscopes today is ten times better. My desire was to fundamentally revolutionize microscopy, not just improve it. I wanted to make scientific history.
Can you explain in simple terms why you were given the Nobel Prize?
It was previously thought that an optical microscope couldn't see finer details than one-fifth of one-thousandth of one-millimeter. But I discovered that it's possible to achieve molecular resolutions in fluorescence microscopy, which is important for biomedicine.
Why is science important for society and what can it do for us all?
People are always trying to improve their lives, and science is a direct consequence of that effort. That's why it can't be stopped. By gaining knowledge, I can expand my sphere of action and solve some of those problems. Of course, today's solutions may be tomorrow's problems. You can't get around this issue. And what's of advantage to one time can be of detriment to another. You always have to keep that in mind, but you can't stop the desire to gain knowledge. People have always found solutions, and I hope that will continue to go well for at least the next three to five generations.
You're an obsessive researcher; your wife is a busy doctor. How do you manage to have a family with four children?
I couldn't imagine life without a family. I got married at 38, which was a bit late. My wife is also ambitious in her field, but we don't just live for our work. In 2005, our two oldest children were born—twins—which of course distracted me from my research, but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
Regarding your work, have you been satisfied with your work results?
I've always been self-critical and full of self-doubt, and therefore not vain in the everyday sense of the word. On the one hand, my view of myself grounded me; it also has hindered me. When I discovered something great, it didn't make me feel I had to show others right away. That's why I was slow at publishing. But I had my high standards that I had to meet. And those standards were always very, very high.
What, in your opinion, are the ingredients for success in your field?
You need to enjoy what you do, and you have to want to succeed. Of course, you also need talent; you have to be able to do something better. I tended to ponder a problem until I thought I fully understood it—or, more precisely, until I thought I understood it better than anyone else who had ever dealt with it. That's why I focused on only one problem—that of resolution.
Why does scientific research in Germany lag behind that done in the United States—and in the future, perhaps in China?
There's a correlation between economic and scientific strength. In the twentieth century, America rose economically and politically, and was able to attract better scientists and pump a lot of money into research. You can't compare that to the situation in Germany, which is smaller, or in Europe, which is fragmented. The U.S. scientific community is large and well organized, and if you make your mark there, you're immediately global.
This may also apply to China in the future. With a knowledge advantage, the right economic and political decisions can be made. This is well understood in China, and there's a spirit of optimism there. Unfortunately, this spirit has faded in our country—for many reasons.
Would something have to be changed about Germany's educational system for it to catch up in the sciences?
Absolutely. As a father of school-age children, I have the impression there has been a gradual decline in standards over the last ten to fifteen years. We need to adapt our teaching to the new realities, free the system of ideology, and massively upgrade the teaching profession and the schools.
I also consider it a problem that many teachers have never experienced how competitive this globalized world is, yet they are supposed to prepare our children for that world. Another weakness of the school system is that teachers can only afford to teach canonical knowledge superficially, if at all. What good is a great idea if you don't have the tools to implement that idea? Ideas travel ever faster around the world, and in the end, the winner is the one who holds the outcome of that idea in their hands.
What problems does it pose for the future if a country's school system is so bad?
I fear we'll become dependent on those who have a massive knowledge advantage—just as it once was the other way around. This is neither “fair” nor “idealistic.” It's a weakness of Western democracies that take countermeasures only when something has already happened, because there are usually no necessary majorities for tackling problems preventively. And as a rule, those who are the first to recognize problems get stigmatized. By the time everyone else realizes that action is needed, it may already be too late—several generations too late.
If you fail to recognize the valid causal relationships in nature or in society, you always will lose. Nature punishes harshly. But if you recognize the connections correctly, she's our strongest imaginable ally.
“You must give opportunity a chance. That's more or less my personal motto.”
Antje Boetius | Marine Research
Professor of Geomicrobiology at the University of Bremen
Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven
Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen
