I think the most important thing
that I have learned
is that there's more to learn
that we should, that we.
That we should all be hungry
for a lifetime.
I mean, for example,my next birthday, I'll be 68.
All the great scientific discoveries made
by all the great geniuses were largelymade when they were in their 20s and 30s.
And yet
I became about two years agoobsessed with particle physics,
and I was determinedto understand it before I died.
I could not have done that if I hadn'tlearned to read when I was young,
if I hadn't had the opportunity tostudy science courses in my high school.
And I lived in the second poorest state
in the United States, which most peoplemy age in my state did not have.
I happened to go to a biggerhigh school with people who.
Understood, we had to get good science
and math teachers there,and if I hadn't gone to,
in my case, Georgetown University,which was a Jesuit university
and I hadn't been subjectto the kind of rigors
that the Jesuits imposed,which made me realize that however much I
thought I knew and how smart I was,I didn't know very much.
And I wasn't very smart.
I had a lot to learn.
So that's the mostimportant thing I learned.
Your brain is a gift,and we now know that people well
into their late 60s and 70s can form newneural networks
so that even though your brain beginsto shrink in your 30s and does throughout
your life, it's none of us ever useeven close to half of our brain power.
We got a lot left
and we will, in our light on our lastday on Earth, will have a lot left.
So the idea that we now know
as a scientific measure,because of all the brain scanning
technology,that we can form these networks
and that we form them best,we're most likely to form new neural
networks later in lifeby learning something new.
So if I said I was interested in particlephysics and also in astrophysics and I'm
trying to figure out what it means thatwe've located 20 planets outside our solar
system in the last five years that seemto have enough density and be far enough
away from their sons that theymight be able to support life.
That may be the answerto the Russia Ukraine problem.
An attack from out, an attack from outerspace will immediately unite us all.
Members of Congress in the US will
immediately start hugging eachother and singing Kumbaya.
But anyway,
I can form new neural networks doing
that because I don't knowanything about it or I did.
And when I started,a theoretical physicist would do better
going to Suzuki piano lessonswith his grandchild or her grandchild
and just playing if youknew nothing about music.
But this is an incredible thingthat the most important thing I learned
is that it's important to keep on learningthat you should stay hungry and that
the greatest gift can be evenas your body begins to fail.
If your mind's still working,you need to use it.