Feiyang Huang, Class 19, Senior High Grade 2, Shenzhen Middle School

Humans, I think, realized their tininess when they first gazed on the glittering Milky Way. In the foreword of the book “Interstellar” written by Professor Kip Thorne, it reads that the farthest humans have ever been is less than the distance that light can travel within two seconds.

Regarding it as a sacred pilgrimage, I am honored to have had a meeting with Prof. Thorne, the 2017 Nobel Prize winner. His handshake was firm, implying that he is an energetic and healthy old man, which, it turns out, he was. From his fitness I admire his own discipline in controlling his body. As we sat down and began to chat, I realized that apart from pure scientific communication, it would be an inspiring, personal talk that would benefit my life.

In talking about his interest in physics, the professor said that he was inspired by his mother who took him, who at the age of 8 merely wanted to be a driver of a snow-clearer, to a lecture on the solar system that deeply intrigued him and planted the seed of scientific interest. From that experience, I realized that Prof. Thorne started his career in a normal family just like us, and his success was not due to the specialness of his origin.

I asked the professor how important a role talents play in our path to success, to which he responded that talents are a minor factor of success, illustrating with his own experience at Caltech. At that time he realized that he was not as brilliant and smart as other students. He decided to learn more slowly than others, while learning the knowledge deeply and firmly, which made his foundation of knowledge more concrete than others’, resulting in his success.

The professor then talked about his choice of career. He believed that young people should be able to choose their favored career. The pursuit of physics, he mentioned, was profoundly supported by his interest in the subject, and based on the fun he gained in astrophysics, which he persisted for 50 years. After that, he quit his job as a professor at Caltech and started to become a freelance writer and film producer.

The most astounding answer he gave to my questions is that when he received the Nobel Prize, he felt depressed about it and expressed his sadness to the prize committee. He said that the honor should not go to him as it belongs to the whole team with which he worked. And he said that he didn’t do the research in astrophysics to earn the prize; if so, he wouldn’t have succeeded.

The professor stressed the importance of teamwork. To build a big project like LIGO, the big gravitational wave detector, Thorne would have to unite scientists from more than 10 countries, since the measurement is for the minute fluctuation which is even less noticeable than quantum effects. The significance of teamwork is indisputable even in our daily lives.

There is a famous epitaph of Kant carved on his grave: “Two things fill the heart with renewed and increasing awe and reverence, the more often and the more steadily they are meditated on: the starry skies above me and the moral law inside me.” I imagine the fascination that grew quietly in Thorne’s heart when he first gazed at the brilliant stars — they should be extraordinarily beautiful. Prof. Thorne, together with millions of other scientists, never stopped chasing after the stars.