so if you leave here today with more
questions than answers I will have done
my job right when I was about 13 years
old I had a music theory teacher that
tried to teach me about music theory and
then he got upset and told my dad that I
will never be able to learn anything
because I asked way too many questions
allowed that to detonate in your head
for a second and tell me if you get this
feeling Wow
so I kept asking many questions and I
became a professional question asker
which is a definition of what a
scientist is that’s the job description
a professional question asker these
questions led to so many different
things beautiful things this is a subset
of them we made the world’s first and
most powerful natural bio solar cell
using dead grass and dead green things
which led us to make the world’s first
nose that was designed to beat the dog’s
nose and work the same way which was
this big and now it’s this big and it’s
trying to get into your cell phone so
you can smell you and make sure that
when you get the first instance of
melanoma that you don’t have to die from
this because if you detect these some
cancers early you can be saved and never
have to worry about them again we
accidentally invented the world’s first
pain detector we trained just awful of
Lies to identify and recognize isotopes
and many more things came out of
questions so clearly from my life
questions are important but other people
have also recognized this I should add
you may have heard of he says he has no
special talent other than being
passionately curious and that the
important thing is to keep questioning
her question is really more important
than answers how can that be
I’m here to tell you that perhaps yes
questions are powerful they drive you to
creep to creativity and creativity
cannot be dishonest when you’re building
something to answer a question the
universe tells you whether you’re being
honest with yourself or not
so curiosity forgets creativity begets
honesty and baguettes knowledge and the
right answers the knowledge that you get
out of this are the ones that create
more creativity and the loop keeps going
don’t get married to your answers
they’re not you they’re not your
identity your ideas and your beliefs are
not you you are you if you really don’t
believe that questions are that powerful
I will tell you that the Internet is
here because of a question that was
asked two and a half thousand years ago
by let’s keep us and Democritus standing
on the beach
in Greece and they said hmm if I break a
rock I get smaller rocks if I break the
smaller rocks I get sand if I mash this
and I get dust does that keep going
forever
that gave us CERN the Large Hadron
Collider out of this we were smashing
atoms out of this came the Internet yes
it existed before we had ARPANET we had
the infrastructure but the internet
browser is what set fire to the Internet
and that came out of there because
physicists had too much trouble sharing
all this knowledge and Tim berners-lee
invented the HTML we recognized this a
scientists that curiosities are
important so myself and several others
co-founded the molecular frontiers
inquiry prize which quickly became known
as the Nobel for kids because we had 13
Nobel laureates examining questions that
we asked the entire planet to send
anybody under 18 could do it and we
rewarded five girls and five boys for
the best questions we gave them a medal
that has our motto but curiosity
creativity honesty knowledge and
something interesting starting happening
I was a director of this prize
co-founder and director for the first
few years and I watched these questions
come in day in day out over years
thousands of them came to myself and I
would read them they reignited my
curiosity but I also watched the ones
that were being discussed by the Nobel
laureates and I sat in those rooms and I
try to understand which kinds of
questions are the ones that are good the
ones that are really powerful and it
ended up being that the ones that
challenge assumptions that look for
exceptions that examine the definitions
and across the boundaries those tend to
ignite your imagination and those tend
to produce fantastic results note also
that I have removed the names of the
children who submitted these questions
because questions
unlike ideas are not patented they’re
not owned you can’t have ownership of a
question it’s alive but they are rebel
minds and I let their ages be there so
notice that we didn’t care about how
well-crafted the English words which
were trying to get to the essence of the
thing we found also
that the questions that really resonated
with a Nobel laureates with the rest of
the eminent scientists and with the
public were the ones that had something
about nature
if nature does it can we take a hint
from it can we do something like this a
powerful way to ask questions is to ask
yourself can it be another way can it be
another way the question asked by this
rebel mind why aren’t plants black drove
us and drove my lab to research that is
still ongoing millions of dollars worth
of it we’re trying to now create biomass
without sunlight we are trying to
genetically engineer and directly evolve
algae to live on the ground and eat the
heat the waste heat of let’s say the tea
we also found that even though it’s hard
to approach the scientist in normal life
if you trust your own logic you actually
get results we as scientists if we
cannot explain to you or if we cannot
answer a question simply and tell you
now you know it’s too complex there’s so
much math you need to go to university
have a PhD to understand it that’s the
red flag always know that that means
that we don’t get it either if the
master complex for you it’s too complex
for us too it is a responsibility of the
scientists to explain it to people and
it is hard I asked my students to give
30 second pictures of what they’re doing
and it’s the hardest thing they do and
they hate it and some of them are here
and they know that’s hard but I have to
eat the dog food I’m talking about
questions so what is a question the
question is the result the outcome of
curiosity so what is curiosity
it’s a superpower I think community
makes you reach out babies learn about
the world by being curious you learn to
drive your own body by trying different
things and knowing how to what happens
when you touch something curiosity takes
you out of your shell it makes you touch
something it is the fear killing animals
humans even single cells learn by
exploration and the drive towards
exploration is curiosity if you look at
the brain and what happens while you’re
curious it actually goes by the same
pathway as in
H and H is there to tell you that
something’s about to bite you a
curiosity H it’s there to tell you you
need to pay attention to this you need
to give it life and how do you give it a
life well you ask a question a very wise
nine hundred year old frog or something
said fear leads to anger anger leads to
hate and hate leads to suffering and we
have a lot of that going around the
planet today curiosity is the fear
killer you cannot be curious about
something and afraid of it at the same
time in fact if you are afraid of
something try and be curious about it
and the fear will disappear and we say
this about science and yet and we all
celebrate curiosity as a joyful thing
and he had in our culture curiosity is
punished curiosity killed the cat the
doubting Thomas is the most reviled
character in the entire Bible not even
Judas is worse spoken of than Thomas
Thomas wanted to know he asked too many
questions just recently the spokesman
for the White House told us that is it
inappropriate to ask questions of a
four-star general and I want to say well
at how many stars do you stop being able
to ask somebody some questions it’s not
free the powerful are afraid of
questions and you the youth have a
natural advantage over the powerful
because you have this innate he hasn’t
been bitten out of you yet try and
reignite it if you’re an adult and see
what happens so I have to be honest I
have to be curious it causes me to be
honest I have to ask myself when we
created this prize the molecular
frontiers inquiry prize with all the new
bells this was in 2006 why was that the
first time in the history of humanity
that we ever rewarded questions we’ve
always been rewarding answers why is
that why is it that we have this climate
change deniers and we have these debates
and we give them more and more evidence
and have these people now who said the
earth is flat and we
I’m ignorant and we keep trying the same
thing over and over which is to call
them ignorant and to give them data how
many more times do you have to do this
before we start thinking that who is
responsible for this ignorant whose job
is to invent a new way of communicating
and bring us together is there another
way other than pushing you through books
and education that often times the same
book is read the same evidence is seen
and yet different conclusions are met so
how do you remain curious and how do you
become fearless well first of all don’t
panic
and second of all ask and if there’s no
one to ask ask me there’s a website you
don’t need to put your name in you don’t
need to give us your email just put your
questions out there in the universe and
I will read them and other people read
them you don’t own them but they might
very well be the next thing that saves
the world thank you very much
[Applause]
you
questions than answers I will have done
my job right when I was about 13 years
old I had a music theory teacher that
tried to teach me about music theory and
then he got upset and told my dad that I
will never be able to learn anything
because I asked way too many questions
allowed that to detonate in your head
for a second and tell me if you get this
feeling Wow
so I kept asking many questions and I
became a professional question asker
which is a definition of what a
scientist is that’s the job description
a professional question asker these
questions led to so many different
things beautiful things this is a subset
of them we made the world’s first and
most powerful natural bio solar cell
using dead grass and dead green things
which led us to make the world’s first
nose that was designed to beat the dog’s
nose and work the same way which was
this big and now it’s this big and it’s
trying to get into your cell phone so
you can smell you and make sure that
when you get the first instance of
melanoma that you don’t have to die from
this because if you detect these some
cancers early you can be saved and never
have to worry about them again we
accidentally invented the world’s first
pain detector we trained just awful of
Lies to identify and recognize isotopes
and many more things came out of
questions so clearly from my life
questions are important but other people
have also recognized this I should add
you may have heard of he says he has no
special talent other than being
passionately curious and that the
important thing is to keep questioning
her question is really more important
than answers how can that be
I’m here to tell you that perhaps yes
questions are powerful they drive you to
creep to creativity and creativity
cannot be dishonest when you’re building
something to answer a question the
universe tells you whether you’re being
honest with yourself or not
so curiosity forgets creativity begets
honesty and baguettes knowledge and the
right answers the knowledge that you get
out of this are the ones that create
more creativity and the loop keeps going
don’t get married to your answers
they’re not you they’re not your
identity your ideas and your beliefs are
not you you are you if you really don’t
believe that questions are that powerful
I will tell you that the Internet is
here because of a question that was
asked two and a half thousand years ago
by let’s keep us and Democritus standing
on the beach
in Greece and they said hmm if I break a
rock I get smaller rocks if I break the
smaller rocks I get sand if I mash this
and I get dust does that keep going
forever
that gave us CERN the Large Hadron
Collider out of this we were smashing
atoms out of this came the Internet yes
it existed before we had ARPANET we had
the infrastructure but the internet
browser is what set fire to the Internet
and that came out of there because
physicists had too much trouble sharing
all this knowledge and Tim berners-lee
invented the HTML we recognized this a
scientists that curiosities are
important so myself and several others
co-founded the molecular frontiers
inquiry prize which quickly became known
as the Nobel for kids because we had 13
Nobel laureates examining questions that
we asked the entire planet to send
anybody under 18 could do it and we
rewarded five girls and five boys for
the best questions we gave them a medal
that has our motto but curiosity
creativity honesty knowledge and
something interesting starting happening
I was a director of this prize
co-founder and director for the first
few years and I watched these questions
come in day in day out over years
thousands of them came to myself and I
would read them they reignited my
curiosity but I also watched the ones
that were being discussed by the Nobel
laureates and I sat in those rooms and I
try to understand which kinds of
questions are the ones that are good the
ones that are really powerful and it
ended up being that the ones that
challenge assumptions that look for
exceptions that examine the definitions
and across the boundaries those tend to
ignite your imagination and those tend
to produce fantastic results note also
that I have removed the names of the
children who submitted these questions
because questions
unlike ideas are not patented they’re
not owned you can’t have ownership of a
question it’s alive but they are rebel
minds and I let their ages be there so
notice that we didn’t care about how
well-crafted the English words which
were trying to get to the essence of the
thing we found also
that the questions that really resonated
with a Nobel laureates with the rest of
the eminent scientists and with the
public were the ones that had something
about nature
if nature does it can we take a hint
from it can we do something like this a
powerful way to ask questions is to ask
yourself can it be another way can it be
another way the question asked by this
rebel mind why aren’t plants black drove
us and drove my lab to research that is
still ongoing millions of dollars worth
of it we’re trying to now create biomass
without sunlight we are trying to
genetically engineer and directly evolve
algae to live on the ground and eat the
heat the waste heat of let’s say the tea
we also found that even though it’s hard
to approach the scientist in normal life
if you trust your own logic you actually
get results we as scientists if we
cannot explain to you or if we cannot
answer a question simply and tell you
now you know it’s too complex there’s so
much math you need to go to university
have a PhD to understand it that’s the
red flag always know that that means
that we don’t get it either if the
master complex for you it’s too complex
for us too it is a responsibility of the
scientists to explain it to people and
it is hard I asked my students to give
30 second pictures of what they’re doing
and it’s the hardest thing they do and
they hate it and some of them are here
and they know that’s hard but I have to
eat the dog food I’m talking about
questions so what is a question the
question is the result the outcome of
curiosity so what is curiosity
it’s a superpower I think community
makes you reach out babies learn about
the world by being curious you learn to
drive your own body by trying different
things and knowing how to what happens
when you touch something curiosity takes
you out of your shell it makes you touch
something it is the fear killing animals
humans even single cells learn by
exploration and the drive towards
exploration is curiosity if you look at
the brain and what happens while you’re
curious it actually goes by the same
pathway as in
H and H is there to tell you that
something’s about to bite you a
curiosity H it’s there to tell you you
need to pay attention to this you need
to give it life and how do you give it a
life well you ask a question a very wise
nine hundred year old frog or something
said fear leads to anger anger leads to
hate and hate leads to suffering and we
have a lot of that going around the
planet today curiosity is the fear
killer you cannot be curious about
something and afraid of it at the same
time in fact if you are afraid of
something try and be curious about it
and the fear will disappear and we say
this about science and yet and we all
celebrate curiosity as a joyful thing
and he had in our culture curiosity is
punished curiosity killed the cat the
doubting Thomas is the most reviled
character in the entire Bible not even
Judas is worse spoken of than Thomas
Thomas wanted to know he asked too many
questions just recently the spokesman
for the White House told us that is it
inappropriate to ask questions of a
four-star general and I want to say well
at how many stars do you stop being able
to ask somebody some questions it’s not
free the powerful are afraid of
questions and you the youth have a
natural advantage over the powerful
because you have this innate he hasn’t
been bitten out of you yet try and
reignite it if you’re an adult and see
what happens so I have to be honest I
have to be curious it causes me to be
honest I have to ask myself when we
created this prize the molecular
frontiers inquiry prize with all the new
bells this was in 2006 why was that the
first time in the history of humanity
that we ever rewarded questions we’ve
always been rewarding answers why is
that why is it that we have this climate
change deniers and we have these debates
and we give them more and more evidence
and have these people now who said the
earth is flat and we
I’m ignorant and we keep trying the same
thing over and over which is to call
them ignorant and to give them data how
many more times do you have to do this
before we start thinking that who is
responsible for this ignorant whose job
is to invent a new way of communicating
and bring us together is there another
way other than pushing you through books
and education that often times the same
book is read the same evidence is seen
and yet different conclusions are met so
how do you remain curious and how do you
become fearless well first of all don’t
panic
and second of all ask and if there’s no
one to ask ask me there’s a website you
don’t need to put your name in you don’t
need to give us your email just put your
questions out there in the universe and
I will read them and other people read
them you don’t own them but they might
very well be the next thing that saves
the world thank you very much
[Applause]
you
Please follow and like us: