David J. Gross, Nobel Prize in Physics 2004: Interview from 2008

Interview with the 2004 Nobel Laureate in Physics, David J. Gross, in September 2008. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Chief Scientific Officer at Nobel Prize Outreach David Gross explains why Israel was a good location for a budding scientist, why theoretical physics needed a revolutionary approach in the 1960’s (7:38), why a beautiful and simple theory still “can’t be solved on the back of an envelope” (18:03) and why ill-defined intuition needs to be trusted (26:39). He also clarifies why there is a pending crisis in scientific enquiry (34:20), why part of his job is going back to school (38:42), and why students need to learn to ask questions, not answer them (52:00).