Astrophysicist Garik Israelian. (source: ESET Science Award/Linda Kisková Bohušová)
"Only once you are inspired can you be educated. If it's the other way around it doesn't work. It becomes horrible, you are forced to learn," says Garik Israelian, an Armenian-Spanish astrophysicist and co-founder of the Starmus Festival.
The event combines science, art and music and will take place in Slovakia next year, promising to bring stars like Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, biologist Jane Goodall who studied primates, science populariser Bill Nye, and more.
In an interview Garik Israelian gave to the Slovak Spectator on the occasion of the October ESET Science Award ceremony, he talks about what made him choose a career in science, how science and art is connected, and what the festival has in store for Slovakia.
When you were younger, you preferred music over studies. But then you became an astrophysicist. How did that happen?
When I was at school I was not good at studying. When I graduated and didn't know what to, I worked at a theatre on decorations, the stage. One day I saw a sci-fi film, which impressed me a lot. I had no idea about science fiction before that. All I was reading was adventure stories.
What movie was that?
Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky. Then I started reading science fiction, everything I could get my hands on, almost a book a day. This led me to science and created an interest about the universe, space in general.
Did you want to know how much of what you were reading was possible?
Exactly. I wanted to know about relativity, how this works and those kind of things. But it was not my intention to become a scientist, my intention was to learn about physics and astronomy. It didn't bother me at all what would happen afterwards. In order to do that I started at home with math and physics because I knew nothing. It was very difficult, I didn't attend any private classes. In six months I learned enough to attend university and passed my exams with excellent grades, eventually becoming probably one of the top students. That was very strange, being one of the best.
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All this because you were inspired by a science fiction movie?
I really felt the power of inspiration. But at the same time, my life was full of music. I had a band, we were playing hard-rock stuff from the 1970s.
What was its name?
It was called 4Gs.
Was it related to any scientific concept?
We were just four guys and the S stood for the girl who sang.
Art and science play a big role in your life, they are intertwined. It's interesting because in school, we are usually taught various subjects as separate things. With the Starmus festival, you seem to think differently in this regard.
