Alessandra

Alessandra is a 20-year-old Physics student with a strong background from her scientific high school education. She has a clear passion for astrophysics, particularly in the areas of cosmology and energy. Although she is deeply interested in theoretical physics, she is also strongly oriented towards experimental research, aiming to merge theoretical knowledge with practical experimentation. Having experience in various laboratory courses, including Thermodynamics, Computational Physics, Computer Science, and Mechanics she developed a practical approach to scientific challenges, preparing her to tackle complex problems with both theoretical and experimental tools. Particularly interested in research she is interested in focusing on experimental investigations within cosmology and energy.

What made you want to pursue astrophysics? Have you always been sure it was the right choice? 

I’ve always been sure I wanted to study this, I mean ALWAYS. More generally, physics, but specifically I already know I will end up in astrophysics and I particularly like cosmology. I’m not sure yet if I’ll be an experimental or theoretical physicist, but I think it will be kind of a mix, doing things like high energy physics, which is quite in between. Actually, in experimental physics, you also do a bit of theoretical work. I'm not interested in particles and things like that, but I’m very interested in the big things, space-time, large distances. The thing that I think will really excite me is statistical mechanics, which is also behind much of cosmology, probability, entropy, those kinds of topics, to give you an idea. Even at a particle level, it’s still very macroscopic things, like the concept of entropy, which in the end is a macroscopic concept. I don’t know how to explain it, because it’s not strictly macroscopic, but it has to do with the diffusion and dispersion of microscopic objects and you can also talk about entropy in the context of the universe.

You said you were uncertain whether to follow the experimental path or the theoretical one, even if you feel drawn towards experimental physics the most. What could the pros and cons about those different specializations be?

Certainly, the most obvious advantage of experimental physics is that it’s really a mix of both, in fact physics is exactly what connects theory to experiment, there are experiments in the search for a mathematical truth behind it. The beauty of being an experimental physicist is that you find pragmatic solutions; you find them on a practical level, but that always happens with a theoretical analysis, because if you’re doing experiments, it’s because you want to test a model, and in doing so, you might find problems with that model and that’s when you also need theory. So, in my opinion, the experimental aspect is fascinating because you get to ask questions based on what you observe. Theory might be very interesting because there’s a lot of mathematics, and above all, theory is fundamental in opening up many areas of thought, meaning that mathematics has already made progress on many things. To give you an example, mathematics already had answers for a physics that didn’t even exist in the last century, and when certain theories were developed, there was already some maths theorems available to explain them. However the downside of theory is that you can get a bit too absorbed in the mathematics if you’re too closed off. And regarding experimental physics, the disadvantage is that you might lose some interesting theory. So, in the end, I believe that the beauty of physics lies in the middle.

If you could choose a different study path and career, what would it be? Or maybe there is nothing else you’d want to do. 

Oh my, well, I think in another life… Actually, I wouldn’t do anything else because nothing would satisfy me the way physics does, but perhaps as a hobby… I mean, if there’s a documentary, I watch it, if there’s a film, I watch it. I also really like history, especially the Middle Ages (I’m obsessed with the Middle Ages) and I also like contemporary history, like Italian history, the mafia, things like that. I also enjoy literature, so maybe in another universe, I would have done something related to literature, books, maybe publishing, or something like that. But I’m not really sure, honestly, it wouldn’t have fulfilled me as much. Maybe I would have found it easier, but it wouldn’t have been what I really wanted. I think it’s nice to engage with these things on a superficial level, kind of like we do in high school, but I wouldn’t be able to study them at university. You really have to sit down and study the language. Theoretically, it’s nice to know little facts about some niche interests of mines, but as a deep study, I’d probably get bored. For example, I like listening to Barbero (a famous Italian historian), but I could never read a history book and memorize it, or at least learn it in-depth. 

Is there any important figure in the world of science who has particularly inspired you?

I actually don’t know… I’m not really a huge fan of any specic figure, I mean, them as a person. I do like someone, but for example, everyone believes Margherita Hack should probably be my role model, you know, a woman who did astrophysics, but, not considering the important disocoveries she made, I’m not that interested in her as a figure. However, I really like Marie Curie, even though she is not related to anything I study. I really admire her, though, mostly because she’s such a strong, talented woman and she literally died for what she was discovering and she never stopped. I truly admire her.

Do you have any idea about the type of environment in which you'd like to work? Would you continue in a university, research institutes, maybe space agencies, or something else?

Well, I’d like to work in research, I really want to do research honestly. Maybe one day they’ll ask me if I want to go to space like in Interstellar, I think I would do it, but maybe not. I really want to work in the lab, so I’m saying, whether it’s experimental or theoretical, it’s still working in a lab. But I believe I really want to study. That’s why I say I have an experimental mindset because I really want to receive data, collect things, guide experiments and draw conclusions, ask questions and make suggestions to theorists. Then maybe I’ll also explore theorethical physics, but you see, I like more the fact that you address problems that come from experience.

How was the transition from high school to university? What changes when studying physics in high school versus university?

I honestly don’t remember much about how physics was studied in high school, I’ve literally erased it from my memory and I imagine it was done in a very mnemonic way. I only remember doing exercises where you had a series of formulas and you would do them. In the end, you kind of understood what was going on, but not entirely, like, you understood that it worked in a certain way, but you didn’t know why. Studying physics at university is completely different, and it's much more beautiful. It’s much harder, much deeper. Now Ireally know why those formulas are derived, I can derive them from scratch. Everything is derived from scratch; in high school, it’s impossible to do things in a normal, decent way, like really decently, because you don’t even know what a derivative is. You never do physics with the mathematical knowledge that, for me, is now basic. So obviously, everything is a step up from that. Moreover, it’s really different because you really realize how mathematics allows you to see things, why that formula means what it does, why that formula, written in that specific mathematical way, really represents something and you really understand it when you study physics at university. Then you understand a whole series of much broader concepts. It’s like going on a real journey into the mathematics of things.

Even though you’re only in your second year, is there a particular subject or topic that has fascinated you the most and why?

Let me explain a bit how it works in my university. For example, up until now, I’ve done mechanics, analytical mechanics and next year I’ll be doing statistical and quantum mechanics. So, mechanics is basically the same as what I did in high school, but in a better, more advanced way. Analytical mechanics is the same concepts, always with the classical approach, but done even better. Then, in the third year, the approach changes with statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics. I think I’ll fall in love with statistical mechanics because I really like statistics, and I like mechanics. Focusing on what I studied, I think analytical mechanics is the best subject I’ve ever did; it’s wonderful, it’s beautiful and it’s the first theoretical physics exam I’ve taken. Then thermodynamics is very close, in my opinion, to high school-level physics, at least relatively speaking. But it has a more qualitative approach, just thermodynamics as a science, and I don’t like that very much. I think when I’ll do statistical mechanics, which is like the advanced version, I’ll like it a lot more. It will probably become my favorite subject. I quite like everything though. One thing I can say, I hated analysis, but analysis 2, which I’m studying this semester, is more interesting, it’s not really my subject, but it’s cool. So, in the end, I would say that analytical mechanics is my favorite.