1 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:08,240 What does it take to be a scientific pioneer? 2 00:00:09,480 --> 00:00:13,800 To reframe and popularise evolutionary theory? 3 00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:21,480 To reveal a new material and win science's most coveted prize? 4 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:27,440 Or discover one of palaeontology's elusive missing links? 5 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:34,960 Is the key to brilliance talent, ego or just plain good luck? 6 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:38,880 What makes a beautiful scientific mind? 7 00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:48,120 Professor Andre Geim hit the headlines in 2010 with graphene, 8 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:50,200 a groundbreaking new material. 9 00:00:51,880 --> 00:00:54,360 The discovery of graphene is one of those wonderful, 10 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:58,320 quite rare occasions when you do something very simple, 11 00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:02,960 almost playful, and yet make a profound discovery. 12 00:01:04,080 --> 00:01:08,040 It's a discovery that won Geim the highest honour in physics 13 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:11,080 and made him a scientific superstar. 14 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:15,880 The Nobel Prize is THE biggest thing you could get as a scientist. 15 00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:17,320 It's like having ten Oscars. 16 00:01:17,320 --> 00:01:22,560 But Andre Geim's path to the top has been anything but orthodox. 17 00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:26,440 A Russian emigre, he's a scientific entrepreneur 18 00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:29,640 who's had to constantly reinvent himself. 19 00:01:29,640 --> 00:01:34,200 His originality, his creativity, is extremely important. 20 00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:39,080 His experiments have led him to bizarre discoveries - 21 00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:44,240 from levitating frogs to a tape that sticks to surfaces 22 00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:46,200 like a gecko's foot. 23 00:01:46,200 --> 00:01:48,680 Watch how it goes in. 24 00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:54,200 Playfulness has been central to the way he's challenged the orthodoxy. 25 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:57,360 Andre exemplifies all that is not logical, dull and boring. 26 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:01,480 With a little bit more experience, you can drink liquid nitrogen. 27 00:02:01,480 --> 00:02:03,720 'Andre is different. 28 00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:07,400 'He is a sort of entertainer and a showman.' 29 00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:10,440 He likes this. He enjoys these kind of things. 30 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:12,960 Loves to provoke people, 31 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:18,360 loves to poke their finger in them and look whether he can stir them up. 32 00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:23,160 Annoying your colleagues is one of the pleasures I will never give up. 33 00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:25,320 He doesn't suffer fools gladly. 34 00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:29,120 I should imagine that if you don't shape up in Andre's lab, 35 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:30,800 you probably get the boot. 36 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:34,120 How did developing his unique approach to science 37 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:37,640 enable Andre Geim to work the system to his advantage 38 00:02:37,640 --> 00:02:42,080 AND make the discovery of a lifetime? 39 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:10,120 Andre Geim's life's work has been to gain a better understanding 40 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:13,120 of the materials that make up the world around us. 41 00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:22,680 Ultimately, it's related to the question, what is life? 42 00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:28,120 How life is organised, how we function, how our brain functions. 43 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:31,000 The study of materials 44 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:35,040 is part of a discipline known as condensed matter physics. 45 00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:40,880 We know that trees, forest, everything consists of atoms 46 00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:45,560 and molecules, but understanding how individual atoms 47 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:49,120 and molecules behave, doesn't help you to understand 48 00:03:49,120 --> 00:03:52,120 how this pine cone grows. 49 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:57,680 That's where condensed matter physics comes into play. 50 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:09,320 Condensed matter physics is broken up into many areas. 51 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:14,840 Just one subject can be a scientist's life's work. 52 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:21,120 But Andre has made switching fields a feature of his career. 53 00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:28,040 One thing that you find in science is that many people 54 00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:30,280 spend their career doing research on what they did 55 00:04:30,280 --> 00:04:34,360 as an undergraduate research project or their PhD and they stick with it. 56 00:04:34,360 --> 00:04:38,840 Andre's dramatically changed fields several times and that is unusual. 57 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:45,240 Andre Geim's Nobel Prize is partly as a result of his ability 58 00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:49,800 to see the bigger picture, to look at different areas 59 00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:53,200 and see how different phenomena in science are interconnected. 60 00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:59,280 Andre is driven by a relentless pursuit of new ideas. 61 00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:07,480 Studying physics is my daytime job and it's my hobby as well, 62 00:05:07,480 --> 00:05:10,760 and you need to enjoy your hobby. 63 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:17,120 And so, if you do the same thing all over again during, whatever, 64 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:21,080 40 years of your active career, you get bored. 65 00:05:21,080 --> 00:05:24,040 I am trying to search for new phenomena 66 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:30,040 and to search for new phenomena, you have to stray from the trodden path 67 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:34,360 into some unknown areas. And each time, when there is a possibility 68 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:40,240 to stray away, I try to do that. 69 00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:45,160 But while straying from the conventional path can be risky, 70 00:05:45,160 --> 00:05:48,880 Andre has repeatedly turned it to his advantage. 71 00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:53,040 To survive and get funding and to get papers in good journals, 72 00:05:53,040 --> 00:05:55,400 we've got to be the first to do the stuff. 73 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:57,480 So there is this very competitive element. 74 00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:00,120 I would say almost a sporting element about it. 75 00:06:00,120 --> 00:06:02,200 So, there's this combination of creativity 76 00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:06,200 and this feeling of competitive sportiness in science 77 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:08,240 that's very exciting, I think. 78 00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:11,400 Andre is exceptionally, exceptionally, exceptionally driven 79 00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:13,840 and exceptionally competitive, I would say. 80 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:22,560 The roots of this ambition were nurtured by an unconventional, 81 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:24,560 yet idyllic, upbringing. 82 00:06:26,840 --> 00:06:30,640 In 1950s communist Russia, Andre's city-based parents 83 00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:33,240 thought he'd be better off with his grandmother in Sochi 84 00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:35,480 on the shores of the Black Sea. 85 00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:40,400 It was a pretty happy childhood. 86 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:47,400 I was left by my parents to live with my grandma 87 00:06:47,400 --> 00:06:50,560 for the first seven years of my life, 88 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:56,640 and every summer I returned for three months to stay with her. 89 00:06:56,640 --> 00:07:00,960 Andre's interest in the scientific method was cultivated by days 90 00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:03,320 spent on the beach, near the weather station 91 00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:05,480 where his grandmother worked. 92 00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:09,560 She was a meteorologist responsible for the weather station 93 00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:12,960 on the Black Sea coast. 94 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:19,320 The weather station was sort of 10m away from the sea, 95 00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:25,680 because she needed to take twice a day how high the waves were 96 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:27,800 and the temperature of the sea. 97 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:33,960 These recordings went somewhere to the centre of the city or so on. 98 00:07:33,960 --> 00:07:39,760 So that's... That's a pretty nice time. I'm missing it very much. 99 00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:48,560 Andre had excelled in physics at school, 100 00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:51,400 so it was a natural choice for a degree. 101 00:07:55,440 --> 00:07:58,040 HE SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN 102 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:04,680 But getting into a Moscow university would prove a test of character. 103 00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:09,840 Initially, he decided not to aim for the very top. 104 00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:15,760 I was from a rather provincial city which was what, 105 00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:21,080 maybe 1,000 miles away from Moscow, so confidence wasn't there. 106 00:08:21,080 --> 00:08:26,360 So, I went first to the second-tier, 107 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:30,120 but still a very good university in Moscow. 108 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:32,720 LECTURER SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN 109 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:38,920 I took the exams and I failed. Failed miserably. 110 00:08:44,960 --> 00:08:47,800 Faced with the unappealing alternative 111 00:08:47,800 --> 00:08:49,760 of conscription into the Red Army, 112 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:54,280 Andre went back to his parents for a year of intensive study. 113 00:08:54,280 --> 00:08:57,280 But when he sat his retakes, he got a shock. 114 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:04,480 Problems were difficult, OK? Surprisingly difficult, yeah. 115 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:09,880 So I got a pretty low mark, not a fail, but a low mark 116 00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:14,880 and I realised that this was not enough 117 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:21,000 to pass through the exams and get accepted to the university. 118 00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:26,440 Andre was uneasy, 119 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:30,360 and after the exams, his fears were confirmed. 120 00:09:33,960 --> 00:09:39,200 I remember I came from this exam back to the hostel 121 00:09:39,200 --> 00:09:43,280 and there were people whom I explained to previously 122 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:46,880 how to solve those problems for them 123 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:51,840 and they got highest marks and I got very low marks. 124 00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:55,080 He could think of only one explanation. 125 00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:58,360 Every Russian passport stated its owner's ethnicity. 126 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:00,720 Andre was of German descent. 127 00:10:00,720 --> 00:10:04,240 In this Cold War era, he was viewed with suspicion. 128 00:10:04,240 --> 00:10:10,520 For the state of the Soviet Union, I was a German 129 00:10:10,520 --> 00:10:18,080 and I was a potential immigrant and a threat to the system. 130 00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:26,760 It was a pretty unpleasant experience to learn this policy 131 00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:31,560 for the first time in your life 132 00:10:31,560 --> 00:10:37,680 as a sort of idealistic person who comes to a university 133 00:10:37,680 --> 00:10:40,320 and thinks that he's equal to everyone else, 134 00:10:40,320 --> 00:10:45,560 and then you find out that some animals are less equal than others, 135 00:10:45,560 --> 00:10:49,680 only because they have this different ethnicity. 136 00:10:53,440 --> 00:10:57,800 Convinced of his ability, Andre took an unusual step. 137 00:11:01,880 --> 00:11:03,200 He applied to Phystech, 138 00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:05,880 the top physics and maths institution in Russia. 139 00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:17,160 I think that Phystech was a sort of elite institution 140 00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:20,600 because of Phystech's system. 141 00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:27,040 If you are lower in standards, you just simply don't get there. 142 00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:34,360 You have to work hard to reach the level to get through the entry exam 143 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:37,600 and then to survive in Phystech. 144 00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:41,640 The gamble paid off. 145 00:11:41,640 --> 00:11:45,800 Phystech were more interested in Andre's talent than his ethnicity. 146 00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:47,320 He was in. 147 00:11:50,440 --> 00:11:53,760 Now he had to survive. 148 00:11:58,080 --> 00:12:05,600 Our group was around 100 people which entered to deal with physics. 149 00:12:05,600 --> 00:12:10,880 And within this group of 100 there were winners 150 00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:15,760 of international Olympiads in maths and physics and so on. 151 00:12:15,760 --> 00:12:22,480 So essentially, creme de la creme of the brightest kids. 152 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:30,600 We all incredibly suffered during this first half a year 153 00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:35,160 when we had to be brought up to the level of those kids 154 00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:37,840 with a strong background. 155 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:40,280 Being amongst an elite 156 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,960 ignited Andre's naturally competitive streak. 157 00:12:43,960 --> 00:12:49,520 After half a year, there was half-year exams. 158 00:12:49,520 --> 00:12:51,680 Five or six of those. 159 00:12:51,680 --> 00:12:53,840 I managed to get Excellent, 160 00:12:53,840 --> 00:12:57,200 the highest mark you can get in all of them. 161 00:12:57,200 --> 00:13:01,560 And then it was, "I can do it." 162 00:13:02,880 --> 00:13:06,480 At Moscow's state science park of Chernogolovka, 163 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:12,200 Andre embarked on a PhD into an obscure area of metals research. 164 00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:18,680 But he quickly realised there was little here he could make his own. 165 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:25,200 The PhD subject was probably one of the most boring subjects 166 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:27,240 one can invent, OK? 167 00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:30,720 It was really a ridiculous exercise 168 00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:36,400 trying to dig very deep into the area. 169 00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:39,280 It was not interesting to anyone, 170 00:13:39,280 --> 00:13:43,560 including some people like myself who were involved in the subject. 171 00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:50,040 But there was an upside - he learned skills that would prove invaluable. 172 00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:55,720 His supervisor, Victor Petrashov, noticed Andre's talent in the lab. 173 00:13:55,720 --> 00:13:59,200 He was an extremely quick learner. 174 00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:03,520 He learned how to make samples, 175 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:08,640 how to grow crystals, how to mount them in a cryostat, everything. 176 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:12,240 So, at the end of day, he got all the... 177 00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:18,720 He got all the skills to do professional research. 178 00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:23,880 While doing this exercise, I learned how to do all sorts of things - 179 00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:29,640 machining, microscopes, tiny, nice devices and so on, 180 00:14:29,640 --> 00:14:34,480 and this skill I picked up from Victor, who is one of the, 181 00:14:34,480 --> 00:14:40,680 probably, most green fingered experimentalists I have ever known. 182 00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:44,360 Andre had met his wife, 183 00:14:44,360 --> 00:14:48,200 fellow physicist Irina Grigorieva, at university. 184 00:14:48,200 --> 00:14:51,920 She recalls how he already stood out from the crowd. 185 00:14:53,120 --> 00:14:58,880 I remember people were saying then, and Victor Petrashov also said, 186 00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:04,000 that Andre has this very rare combination of very green fingers, 187 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:08,120 so he can really do things with his hands, but at the same time, 188 00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:10,800 has a very, very good understanding of what he is doing 189 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:14,640 and a very broad overview of things. 190 00:15:14,640 --> 00:15:16,520 So, it... 191 00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:21,720 Yeah, people said already then that he was quite exceptional, yes. 192 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:28,960 Communist Russia regarded science as a vital asset. 193 00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:31,560 But at a time of deep economic hardship, 194 00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:35,360 research institutions were chronically under-funded. 195 00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:40,720 It's very hard to explain how bad it was, 196 00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:45,960 because that's the only... Wax and shoestring is the only... 197 00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:51,440 is the only description I can think of for this one. 198 00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:53,760 You need... 199 00:15:53,760 --> 00:16:00,200 something really minor, like a different type of screw, 200 00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:03,360 you won't find it, you need to make it yourself. 201 00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:09,480 You need a different type of glue, or any glue, 202 00:16:09,480 --> 00:16:15,120 it's a search which would last for a year or something like that. 203 00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:19,800 You need a piece of rubber, it's again...it's a whole problem. 204 00:16:22,920 --> 00:16:25,240 We had to do everything ourselves, 205 00:16:25,240 --> 00:16:32,960 starting from tiny soldering iron to some electronics. 206 00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:35,560 And it took time. 207 00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:38,560 And that was actually a huge problem. 208 00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:42,520 This is why ratio of scientists and supporting staff 209 00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:45,080 in Chernogolovka was one to five. 210 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:48,400 So five people worked for one scientist 211 00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:51,840 to provide everything for his research. 212 00:16:51,840 --> 00:16:56,560 And this actually worked but some people were frustrated. 213 00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:06,960 Although Andre continued working in Chernogolovka after his PhD, 214 00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:10,600 staying in the Soviet Union was going to hold him back. 215 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:22,440 But in the late 1980s, the Russian political landscape was changing. 216 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:26,280 Economic and social reforms under Gorbachev 217 00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:28,320 gave many Russians new freedoms. 218 00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:37,200 More Russian scientists were able to travel on an exchange programme 219 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:38,720 with the Royal Society. 220 00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:44,680 And in 1990, Andre was granted a six-month visiting fellowship 221 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:46,400 to Nottingham University. 222 00:17:48,360 --> 00:17:51,840 The young Russian quickly made an impression. 223 00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,480 Yes, I remember very well when Andre first came to us 224 00:17:55,480 --> 00:17:58,800 on his Royal Society visiting fellowship. 225 00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:01,200 I mean, he's physically a large presence 226 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:02,920 and he's got a very loud voice 227 00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:08,600 and he was a very memorable person when he first hit the labs. 228 00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:12,760 I've got a very vivid recollection of that in the mid '90s, yes. 229 00:18:12,760 --> 00:18:16,000 And Nottingham made an impression on Andre too. 230 00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:21,640 Its state-of-the-art facilities for researching semiconductors - 231 00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:25,360 devices that lie at the heart of modern electronics - 232 00:18:25,360 --> 00:18:28,440 were in stark contrast to Russia's underfunded labs. 233 00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:33,600 It would prove a turning point. 234 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:37,800 I always try to be in the top tier, 235 00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:42,200 but without really trying to excel. 236 00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:46,560 How can you excel when you get such limited resources 237 00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:48,800 like wax and a shoestring? 238 00:18:50,120 --> 00:18:52,920 And then you go to Nottingham, 239 00:18:52,920 --> 00:18:57,120 then you immediately find out that you can compete 240 00:18:57,120 --> 00:19:00,440 and you can compete at international level. 241 00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:08,040 So it changed not only scientific possibilities, 242 00:19:08,040 --> 00:19:12,560 it changed sort of my whole perspective 243 00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:16,040 on what I could do with my life, 244 00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:19,640 I found out that, wow, I can compete. 245 00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:24,000 I can do something more what I'm trained to do. 246 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:27,360 I can...yeah, I can realise myself. 247 00:19:27,360 --> 00:19:31,360 And that was the moment 248 00:19:31,360 --> 00:19:37,520 when I sort of switched from being in the top tier 249 00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:43,640 trying to really doing my hardest and trying to doing my best, 250 00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:45,360 trying to excel. 251 00:19:45,360 --> 00:19:49,960 Despite only having a background understanding of semiconductors, 252 00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:52,560 Andre threw himself into lab work. 253 00:19:54,600 --> 00:19:58,640 It was pretty clear that when Andre came to us he was something special. 254 00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:01,080 It was obvious from the very beginning, 255 00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:03,320 he was a really committed scientist 256 00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:06,040 who worked very hard, with a very good knowledge of the field. 257 00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:09,360 It was remarkable how quickly he moved from his subject 258 00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:13,640 that he did in Chernogolovka into semiconductor physics 259 00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:16,800 and become familiar with it very quickly. 260 00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:21,040 Andre brought his own unique perspective to the research. 261 00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:25,200 The main thing was that he was able to take some of our ideas 262 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:26,880 and run with them himself. 263 00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:29,160 So I was always very interested at that time, 264 00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:32,760 and still am, on resonant tunnelling and Andre did some very nice 265 00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:36,200 experiments at lower temperatures than we'd bothered to do. 266 00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:40,200 So he was always able to find, to turn up some new thing 267 00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:42,160 and delve deep into it. 268 00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:46,880 And he managed to publish two papers in six months. 269 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:53,720 For anyone, OK, especially as a post doctoral researcher 270 00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:59,800 to publish two papers in a journal within such a short spell of time, 271 00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:02,480 it was...it's an exception. 272 00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:11,160 It was becoming clear that he had to find a way of staying in the west. 273 00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:15,680 I think by the end of the period, I realised that there was no way back. 274 00:21:18,360 --> 00:21:22,000 So by the end of six months I started looking 275 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,200 for post doctoral positions around. 276 00:21:25,200 --> 00:21:30,920 So, for me, I knew that if I like to work and enjoy work, 277 00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:35,360 I have to find a place where it's possible to work. 278 00:21:35,360 --> 00:21:38,280 And Russia was not an option at that time. 279 00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:45,040 At the age of 36, Andre applied for his first permanent position 280 00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:47,440 in Nijmegen in the Netherlands. 281 00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:55,920 His unconventional approach divided the panel that interviewed him. 282 00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:57,480 I remember quite well. 283 00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:01,160 It was sort of a controversial nomination I would say 284 00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:04,560 because, well Andre is not a standard character, 285 00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:07,360 so he definitely was different from anybody else. 286 00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:11,400 I sort of liked him and found him interesting 287 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:13,320 and funny and intelligent, 288 00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:16,840 but there were also some other people who were very much in doubt 289 00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:18,240 that he was overdoing it 290 00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:23,360 and overselling himself, and some people shared my belief, 291 00:22:23,360 --> 00:22:27,800 so I was sort of torn between two opinions, either this is a genius 292 00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:31,640 or the others thought this may be the biggest miss in your life. 293 00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:35,080 And eventually I called other people to get the same advice 294 00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:38,200 and I roughly got the same contradictory advice 295 00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:41,240 and in the end said, "Well, let's just give it a try." 296 00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:47,080 Once installed, Andre had to adapt to the Dutch way of life 297 00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:50,080 and the constraints of the job. 298 00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:56,080 In some sense, when you are a post doc you are sort of like a buccaneer 299 00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:58,200 which goes for treasure hunts 300 00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:01,920 and you don't care about the casualties around you. 301 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:05,000 Whereas, when you go in a permanent position, 302 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,880 you have a bit different responsibility 303 00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:10,080 so you have to get used to that. 304 00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:17,240 He was expected to sort of fit in the existing structure 305 00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:19,000 and start contributing 306 00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:22,240 and I don't think that's what he wanted to do. 307 00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:25,080 What the group was doing, he wasn't interested in that. 308 00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:28,520 He didn't think it was worth his effort. 309 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:32,280 He did not want to work on that, 310 00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:35,120 he wanted to work on something else and that wasn't possible. 311 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:47,040 To make his mark, Andre needed to find his own area of research. 312 00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:58,400 The lab wasn't equipped to study any of his previous specialisms. 313 00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:05,680 But it did focus on the study of materials in magnetic fields 314 00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:09,080 and Andre was able to create his own research niche, 315 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,560 investigating the behaviour of superconductors. 316 00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:24,880 Not a huge boom or big bang, 317 00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:30,920 it was a relatively minor niche area but it was new. 318 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,280 It is attributed to myself. 319 00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:41,520 Repeatedly moving departments was beginning to pay off. 320 00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:45,840 Each time you move from one country to another country, 321 00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:48,480 from one university to another university, 322 00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:55,000 from one city to another city, you are forced by your life to adjust, 323 00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:58,440 to adjust to different environment, 324 00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,440 whether it's social or academic environment. 325 00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:07,360 And especially initially, you are forced to change your direction. 326 00:25:07,360 --> 00:25:09,560 You are forced to learn a new subject, 327 00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,360 you are forced to get some additional piece of knowledge 328 00:25:13,360 --> 00:25:18,120 and after a few times, it becomes sort of like riding a bike. 329 00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:26,240 And changing direction brought Andre his first taste of the limelight. 330 00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:32,520 He started to look for more areas he could investigate, 331 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:38,320 and came across the idea of magnetic water - 332 00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:41,360 the claim that a magnet can change the interaction 333 00:25:41,360 --> 00:25:45,000 of water and minerals, helping to prevent limescale. 334 00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:54,000 Allegedly, when you put a magnet on top of your tap with normal water, 335 00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:59,960 at least some people claim that there is no more scale in your kettle. 336 00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:03,080 Andre thought that if this effect really existed, 337 00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:07,360 the place to test it would be in the lab's powerful high field magnet, 338 00:26:07,360 --> 00:26:09,680 so he did something radical. 339 00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:12,880 I just pour water inside the magnet, 340 00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,200 it's apparently not a very scientific experiment to do, 341 00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:20,440 it's pretty expensive equipment, and you won't find many scientists 342 00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:23,840 who will pour water inside their expensive equipment, 343 00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:28,240 and astonishingly, instead of water ending up on the floor, 344 00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:33,720 we found out initially small droplets of water levitating. 345 00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,080 To his surprise, 346 00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:38,640 the water didn't fall through the hollow centre of the magnet. 347 00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:47,200 Then starting putting whatever, from beer to wine to cheese 348 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:52,800 to sweets to bread to tomatoes to strawberries inside magnetic field. 349 00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:00,960 They came home saying, "Everything is flying! Everything is flying! 350 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:04,280 "Bread is flying! Cheese is flying! Tomatoes are flying!" 351 00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,480 So it took me some time to understand 352 00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:10,120 what they were actually doing. But they started with water, 353 00:27:10,120 --> 00:27:12,680 and then they found that everything was levitating. 354 00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:20,360 Andre recognised that this was diamagnetism. 355 00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:25,520 It's well known that everything in life is a tiny bit magnetic. 356 00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,000 But this phenomenon can only be seen 357 00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:31,440 when an object is placed close to a magnetic field. 358 00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,480 Until Andre put water in the high field magnet, 359 00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:46,560 few people believed diamagnetism 360 00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:49,880 could possibly be strong enough to levitate an object. 361 00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:01,280 People, even my peers, 362 00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:05,560 at some conferences where I presented this result, 363 00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:07,400 couldn't believe that. 364 00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:11,280 People thought, I think many of them thought it was a hoax 365 00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:17,440 and try to find out that it's manipulation of images and so on. 366 00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:21,960 Next, to make his point, Andre did something really bizarre. 367 00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,040 It was probably first time when I realise 368 00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:32,200 that it's important to add to scientific research 369 00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:33,960 a sort of wow factor. 370 00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:39,680 So you think it should be something alive, 371 00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:45,960 and frog was the smallest thing we could find to fit inside the magnet. 372 00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:51,280 My face couldn't fit inside the magnet by any means, 373 00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:57,760 it was something like that, a hole, and yeah, the frog was an image 374 00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:02,080 which catched the imagination. We tried many, many different things, 375 00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:07,160 spiders, grasshoppers, even hamsters, 376 00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,320 but the frog was both small enough and alive enough 377 00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:14,840 to appeal to general public, especially school children. 378 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,680 That was very exciting time. It was very exciting. 379 00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,440 Of course, all the headlines and the papers, 380 00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,720 he liked that, I think he liked the effect of it, it was nice, 381 00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,560 but I think he liked that it was possible to make science 382 00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:39,200 so beautiful and interesting to so many people. I think he liked that. 383 00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:41,880 Watch how it goes in. 384 00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:44,600 Andre had hit on a winning formula. 385 00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,200 Again inside the magnet. 386 00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,840 Exploring ideas away from his core expertise could lead to 387 00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,120 attention-grabbing discoveries. 388 00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:54,800 Andre is different 389 00:29:54,800 --> 00:30:01,680 because he's a real, actual scientist of the 21st century, 390 00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:07,920 because, er, now we have to 391 00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:13,920 have more publicity to popularise science 392 00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:20,000 and say, in 19th century or 20th century, 393 00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:26,000 you could be a sort of monk, you could work with your science 394 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,520 and you wouldn't care what other people think about it. 395 00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,800 Yeah. So, liquid nitrogen... 396 00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:38,400 So, without glass... 397 00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,760 Inside, no problem. 398 00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:45,880 APPLAUSE 399 00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:48,480 But Andre is different. 400 00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:52,320 He is sort of entertainer 401 00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:56,240 and showman - he likes this, he enjoys this kind of things. 402 00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:00,240 He enjoys doing things for public, and it's great 403 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:04,120 and example is his levitation of frogs. 404 00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,000 The Physics Prize... 405 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,240 Along with a colleague, Andre won an Ig Nobel. 406 00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:16,200 The Ig Nobel Physics Prize is awarded this year to Andre Geim 407 00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,080 of the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands... 408 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,160 A light-hearted award given each year 409 00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:24,080 for unusual achievements in scientific research. 410 00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:27,520 ..for using magnets to levitate a frog. 411 00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,320 After accepting it, I think we both were proud 412 00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:35,800 that we had enough sense of humour 413 00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,840 and whatever it's called, 414 00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:44,400 the sense of self-deprecation, to accept this prize. 415 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:49,040 Many of Andre's colleagues believed that no serious scientist 416 00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,000 should accept an Ig Nobel. 417 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,800 I like to have fun in my life, OK, 418 00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:58,160 so sometimes I say there are few pleasures in our life, 419 00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:03,720 and three of them we know - good food, wine, and women or men, 420 00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,400 depending on your position in this world. 421 00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,680 But people forget about the fourth pleasure, 422 00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:12,720 it is pissing off your colleagues, 423 00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:17,320 and I had a lot of this due to Ig Nobel prize. 424 00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:21,360 Annoying your colleagues is one of the pleasures I would never give up. 425 00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:26,720 However irritating he might have been, 426 00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:29,200 Andre was now juggling several job offers. 427 00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:39,160 After six years in Holland, I already sort of acquired a reputation 428 00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:45,240 and had been offered several positions around the world, 429 00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,480 and Manchester... 430 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,120 came as one of many. 431 00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:55,240 But it was special that... 432 00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,960 ..people offered this position together with Irina. 433 00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:06,560 A job at Manchester University 434 00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:10,520 didn't just mean Andre could work with his physicist wife Irina. 435 00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:18,240 It offered him the scientific freedom to start his own lab 436 00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:20,760 and pursue the subjects he wanted. 437 00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:23,480 But it was a gamble, too. 438 00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:31,600 Every time you move from one place to another, you take a huge risk 439 00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:36,800 because OK, sometimes you don't get what you hoped 440 00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:41,160 or sometimes you get more than you bargained for, 441 00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:46,080 like I got in Nijmegen - in both senses, OK. 442 00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:51,080 But it depends on your confidence. 443 00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:53,040 I was confident enough that 444 00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:56,200 eventually I'll manage to build something. 445 00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,600 The strategy paid off sooner than he thought. 446 00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,720 Andre set up a system that became known as 447 00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:08,560 the Friday Night experiments. 448 00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:11,000 A deceptively casual-sounding arrangement 449 00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,440 to encourage his team to play with ideas. 450 00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:19,080 Essentially, it's never one night. There is a long process 451 00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:23,600 trying to accumulate knowledge to lead to experiment, 452 00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,960 you just don't press a random button, you just try to see 453 00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:32,560 what can be done. Even pouring water inside a magnet, 454 00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:39,120 it takes time to think that it's worth doing and why doing this. 455 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:40,960 You need to acquire knowledge, 456 00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:45,600 and then settle down with the experiment you want to do. 457 00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:49,680 But, er, but essentially, 458 00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:55,520 it's very simple, quick experiments where you try to do something 459 00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:57,600 and when it works, you can proceed, 460 00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,520 when it doesn't work, you just drop it. 461 00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:06,640 It wasn't long before one of these experiments hit the headlines. 462 00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:10,720 It's the stuff of superheroes - 463 00:35:10,720 --> 00:35:14,360 walking upside down on ceilings and scaling skyscrapers. 464 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:15,880 Well, move over, Spider-Man, 465 00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:19,120 because scientists in Manchester have developed a sticky tape 466 00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:22,560 so strong, it could enable man to do just that. 467 00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:36,920 Andre had been inspired by an article 468 00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,760 about the incredible climbing ability of geckos. 469 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:52,760 The tiny hairs that cover geckos' toes attach to nearly any surface 470 00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:55,000 through a weak electromagnetic bond. 471 00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,200 The force of this bond is minute, 472 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:03,280 but a million hairs working together create a very sticky foot. 473 00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,280 Andre wondered if he could design a material 474 00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,440 that would replicate this effect. 475 00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:16,080 The tape we produced, it was a small piece, 476 00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:22,400 square by square centimetre, it never worked as good as a real gecko, 477 00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,360 it got spoiled after a couple of attachments 478 00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:30,360 and we had to use very tiny pieces of the square centimetre 479 00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:33,200 to repeat this experiment many times, 480 00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:39,240 but it was a proof of concept that we humans, with our existing facilities, 481 00:36:39,240 --> 00:36:43,640 are at the edge of reproducing, mimicking nature. 482 00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,080 These scientists have proved the technology works - 483 00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:50,520 the next stage will be to see if this material can be made 484 00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:53,320 more durable and if it can be mass-produced. 485 00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:57,040 If they solve that problem, then people really will be able 486 00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,360 to walk up walls and along ceilings. 487 00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:04,120 Andre's playful new system was proving fruitful. 488 00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:11,280 If I looked back at the number of things I tried, 489 00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:16,680 at least I tried more than a single step, but three, four steps, 490 00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:22,400 it's a remarkable success rate, I think it's more than 10% for sure. 491 00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,080 Which actually tells everyone a very important story. 492 00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:31,600 When you are along this rail track 493 00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:36,120 and moving in the same directions, there is a very little chance 494 00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:41,080 to find something new, but when you scout into different areas 495 00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:46,360 your chances of success grow remarkably quickly. 496 00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,960 Being unafraid to explore new ideas 497 00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,400 lies at the heart of Andre's method. 498 00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:01,720 But there's nothing random 499 00:38:01,720 --> 00:38:05,280 about his knack of selecting those with real potential. 500 00:38:08,240 --> 00:38:12,360 He considers thousands of ideas and possibilities, 501 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:13,640 and always refers them, 502 00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,200 "Is this really new? Is this really different?" 503 00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:19,800 And he's deliberately involved with finding it, 504 00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:24,280 and then jumps upon the one which has a high potential 505 00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:29,360 and that, I think, is not a general attitude of most researchers, 506 00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:31,640 I think that is sort of special. 507 00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:36,240 I think Andre, that's one of his really great strengths, 508 00:38:36,240 --> 00:38:38,800 that he can see those things that are promising, 509 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:43,200 and that they would create new systems 510 00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,080 or would allow us to do something new. 511 00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:49,080 And again, I think it is based on 512 00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:55,240 his exceptionally good understanding of science and broad view of it. 513 00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,720 Crucial to the success of the Friday night experiments 514 00:38:59,720 --> 00:39:03,480 is a willingness to abandon ideas when they're not working. 515 00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:10,480 This is actually very difficult decision, to cut losses in science, 516 00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:16,240 because you are tempted to continue one metre deeper, 517 00:39:16,240 --> 00:39:18,840 one metre deeper, and deeper and deeper, 518 00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,960 maybe to the centre of the earth, sometimes people do. 519 00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:27,080 It's a practice that close colleague Kostya Novoselov has also adopted. 520 00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:33,200 The first thing which I learned from him 521 00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,320 that you need to be smart 522 00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:41,600 and courageous enough to say "OK, I was unsuccessful, 523 00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,240 "my model didn't work, this didn't work. 524 00:39:44,240 --> 00:39:49,280 "We should stop, and there are so may other ideas out there 525 00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:53,040 "that we can always find something new." 526 00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,520 You don't need to spend the rest of your life 527 00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:00,760 trying to push in this direction. 528 00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:06,040 It was a Friday night experiment that kick-started 529 00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,000 Andre's greatest breakthrough. 530 00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:14,600 As materials become thinner, their properties change. 531 00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,800 Andre thought it would be interesting to test 532 00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,480 thin pieces of the carbon material, graphite. 533 00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,560 I was looking for new areas to expand 534 00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,720 and looking for something new and interesting, 535 00:40:28,720 --> 00:40:32,400 and one of the many, many, I would say, ideas 536 00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,120 which was on the back of my mind, 537 00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:40,080 was trying to look for thin films of graphite. 538 00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:43,760 After weeks of trying to polish a sample down to thin pieces, 539 00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:45,720 one of the team had an idea. 540 00:40:45,720 --> 00:40:51,520 Suddenly, a mature researcher who was working next to us 541 00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:56,200 in the same in the same lab on completely different project, 542 00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:59,360 he said, "Why do you use polish? 543 00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:05,000 "Why you just don't use Scotch tape to peel thin layers?" 544 00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:09,920 Using tape to clean the surface of a graphite sample 545 00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:13,320 is a technique used in labs all over the world. 546 00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:16,360 Because the tape is usually thrown away, 547 00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:20,080 no one had looked twice at the layer of peel that was left behind. 548 00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:24,960 You see, it's on the surface, nothing spectacular, 549 00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:30,760 everyone knows that it's sort of material which splits. 550 00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:37,240 Then you put it together and make a fresh cut, 551 00:41:37,240 --> 00:41:41,080 essentially it gets twice thinner. 552 00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,760 So you make another cut, and so on. 553 00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:49,440 And then you ask yourself a very simple question - 554 00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:53,280 how thin you can make graphite 555 00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,840 by repeating this twice, twice, 556 00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:01,280 twice and so on, what the thinnest material can be? 557 00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:07,320 Under the microscope, 558 00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:11,440 the thinnest graphite flakes were nearly transparent - 559 00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:13,240 just a few nanometres thick. 560 00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,440 No one had ever managed to make graphite this thin. 561 00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,120 This was an experiment with real potential. 562 00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:36,520 I realised immediately that we can really make thin pieces of graphite 563 00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,600 and it would be a new experimental system. 564 00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:44,160 Whatever it will bring us, I didn't know, I didn't want to know, 565 00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:48,440 I just knew it's a new kind of experimental system worth studying. 566 00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:53,600 Very thin layers of materials are practically impossible to make, 567 00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,080 because as a system tries to minimise its surface energy, 568 00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,960 it pools into tiny islands. 569 00:42:59,960 --> 00:43:02,880 But for the first time here, they had a very thin, 570 00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:06,160 continuous layer of graphite that was stable. 571 00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:08,560 Graphene. 572 00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:11,760 Graphene is made up of a single layer of carbon atoms 573 00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,440 arranged in a perfect hexagonal lattice. 574 00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:19,960 It's so thin, it's the very first two-dimensional material. 575 00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,200 Once the team had isolated graphene, 576 00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:27,320 the next step was to see how it conducted electricity. 577 00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:32,120 When they applied an electric field to it, 578 00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,760 Andre and his colleagues were stunned to see 579 00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:37,240 significant changes in its properties. 580 00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:42,280 Essentially we could change conductivity 581 00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:47,880 through this bit of graphite, and for me it was eureka moment, 582 00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:55,560 because I knew how much and how long people during the last 100 years, 583 00:43:55,560 --> 00:44:00,320 essentially tried to make this so-called "metallic transistor," 584 00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:04,920 and then suddenly, within couple of hours, after using Scotch tape, 585 00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:08,120 we managed to do this better than anyone before. 586 00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:09,560 And I thought, "Wow!" 587 00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:14,080 As technology becomes more demanding, 588 00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:16,800 scientists have been searching for a more efficient material 589 00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,480 than the semiconductor silicon. 590 00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,440 Metals were once thought to be ideal candidates, 591 00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:26,080 but their electrical properties proved hard to control. 592 00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:31,040 Now it seemed they had found the very first metal-like material 593 00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,000 that could be manipulated using an electric field. 594 00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,800 To be certain, the team repeated the experiment more than 50 times - 595 00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:42,120 and got the same results. 596 00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:49,240 They had uncovered the most exciting material in physics in years. 597 00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:54,520 The first finding that lead to absolutely great excitement 598 00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:58,240 was that it was possible to make this very, very thin film 599 00:44:58,240 --> 00:45:00,760 and it was conducting. 600 00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,720 It was possible to measure, actually, its properties 601 00:45:03,720 --> 00:45:06,480 so it conducted current, and it conducted current very well. 602 00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:08,560 It was stable, nothing happened to it, 603 00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:13,400 and you could tune its properties, you could tune its conductivity. 604 00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:17,240 I think that's when the excitement went through the roof. 605 00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,920 Andre and his team submitted a paper on their results to Nature, 606 00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:26,480 one of the world's most prestigious science publications. 607 00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:30,720 But it was rejected. Twice. 608 00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:40,160 One of the referees literally wrote, "This paper does not offer 609 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:45,520 "much new and exciting things. Why should we publish it? 610 00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:51,160 "It can be published in a secondary, third year journal," so that was it. 611 00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:54,320 Andre refused to give up. 612 00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:57,640 The team rewrote the paper 613 00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:01,960 and got it accepted by Nature's main rival - Science. 614 00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,760 Its publication was just the beginning. 615 00:46:10,240 --> 00:46:13,320 The paper inspired scientists everywhere to investigate 616 00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:16,160 graphene's properties further. 617 00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,800 In 2010 alone, more than 5,000 papers were published worldwide, 618 00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,240 with Andre Geim's lab in Manchester at the forefront. 619 00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:35,960 The new research revealed just how extraordinary graphene really is. 620 00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,160 Its massless electrons never stop, 621 00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:41,720 moving at a 100,000 kilometres per second. 622 00:46:41,720 --> 00:46:44,920 They behave more like subatomic particles, 623 00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:48,600 usually found in space or a nuclear explosion. 624 00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:51,440 Before now, scientists needed something like 625 00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:55,160 a Large Hadron Collider to study these exotic physics. 626 00:46:55,160 --> 00:47:00,520 It is indeed like a philosopher's stone, or it almost delivers magic. 627 00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:01,840 It is truly amazing. 628 00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:04,120 It's so beautiful, such a beautiful system, 629 00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:05,840 the way in which the electrons move. 630 00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:08,800 And all in just this one system. 631 00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:10,720 Graphene is a wonder-material. 632 00:47:10,720 --> 00:47:15,560 This is graphene. Let's call him Mr G. 633 00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:18,240 It has so many superlatives to its name. 634 00:47:18,240 --> 00:47:22,480 What makes Mr G a really super material 635 00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,360 is the combination of his unique properties. 636 00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:31,680 G is the first 2D crystal ever known to us, the thinnest object 637 00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:35,400 ever obtained and also the lightest one. 638 00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:40,200 G is the world's strongest material, harder than diamond 639 00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:44,160 and about 300 times stronger than steel. 640 00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:48,240 G conducts electricity much better than copper. 641 00:47:48,240 --> 00:47:51,360 G is a transparent material. 642 00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:55,880 G is bendable and can take any form you want. 643 00:47:55,880 --> 00:48:01,080 But it's not just physicists that are excited by graphene. 644 00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:12,440 Its unique combination of properties have also sparked a race 645 00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:14,640 to exploit its commercial potential. 646 00:48:16,240 --> 00:48:19,440 Such an incredibly thin, yet conductive, material 647 00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,480 could have dozens of functions - 648 00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:26,320 like this flexible touch screen. 649 00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,800 A prototype has already been created. 650 00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:35,400 There's a lot of hype at the moment 651 00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:39,040 and some of those speculations will never work out, 652 00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:44,440 but there are so many possibilities. I would be amazed, 653 00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:49,800 purely by statistical chances, if this material wouldn't work out 654 00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:55,120 in a few areas where it would not disrupt the technologies 655 00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:59,160 that currently exist and wouldn't offer us something new, 656 00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:01,280 even as consumers. 657 00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:05,520 Andre and his colleague Kostya had revealed a new material 658 00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,720 that not only promised to revolutionise the study of physics, 659 00:49:08,720 --> 00:49:11,520 but also the world of electronics. 660 00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:14,720 I think what's lovely about graphene is that it's so simple. 661 00:49:14,720 --> 00:49:17,960 You know, you can explain it in one or two sentences - 662 00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:23,000 it's a single layer of carbon atoms all held together in this mesh 663 00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:27,000 that you can roll up, fold up and do all sorts of amazing things with. 664 00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,280 You don't need to understand quantum physics or Einstein's relativity 665 00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,600 to be able to appreciate what a potentially wonder material 666 00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:36,040 graphene could be. 667 00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:39,360 And Andre's wonder material seems to precisely fit 668 00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:42,360 his unorthodox approach. 669 00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:45,040 I think something in the discovery of graphene is also related 670 00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:48,520 to being provocative, just to show to anybody else that what you say 671 00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:51,080 cannot be, "Yes, it can be, ha-ha." 672 00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:54,240 That's sort of characterises Andre a bit. 673 00:49:54,240 --> 00:49:56,640 So it's the perfect discovery for him? 674 00:49:56,640 --> 00:50:01,400 Yes, fits the person perfectly...for sure. 675 00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:04,160 The discovery of graphene is one of those wonderful, 676 00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:07,600 quite rare occasions when you do something very simple, 677 00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:14,080 almost playful, almost trivially fun and yet make a profound discovery. 678 00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:18,760 Andre Geim won global recognition for his achievement 679 00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:22,240 and it wasn't long before the ultimate accolade. 680 00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,680 There was a telephone call, 681 00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:31,600 and a lady told me that "It's a very important call, 682 00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:33,160 "please don't hang up." 683 00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:36,720 And so I said, 684 00:50:36,720 --> 00:50:40,720 "OK, are you going to tell me that I've won the Nobel Prize?" 685 00:50:40,720 --> 00:50:47,680 The 2010 Nobel Prize in physics jointly to Professor Andre Geim 686 00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,320 and Professor Konstantin Novoselov. 687 00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:55,840 Apparently it was not in the script. 688 00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,920 It really came as a complete surprise for me. 689 00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,800 You could see it from my pictures. 690 00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:09,240 I was absolutely unprepared, unshaved and undressed that day. 691 00:51:09,240 --> 00:51:15,320 I was sitting on Skype to people in Holland, 692 00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:18,720 discussing some recent experiments 693 00:51:18,720 --> 00:51:25,560 when a phone call came from somebody with a thick Swedish accent. 694 00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:31,440 Immediately, he said, "You have 45 minutes of normal life left, 695 00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:33,520 "just spend it wisely." 696 00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:36,760 I now ask you to step forward to receive your Nobel Prizes 697 00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:40,120 from the hands of His Majesty The King. 698 00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:50,600 The Nobel prize is THE biggest thing you could get as a scientist. 699 00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:54,480 It's like having ten Oscars, every Oscar you could ever win. 700 00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:58,320 And of course, there's only one every year for the whole world 701 00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:02,000 in each subject so, yeah, it is absolutely the biggest thing. 702 00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,040 APPLAUSE 703 00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:09,840 I treasure other prizes as well, but within a few months, 704 00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:15,160 you realise that the Nobel Prize, indeed, is very special. 705 00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:21,240 For whatever reason it is, we don't know the reason how it's organised. 706 00:52:21,240 --> 00:52:28,000 It's probably the same like in the Olympic Games. 707 00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:30,440 There are many people who say, 708 00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:34,200 "It's important to participate, not to win." 709 00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,520 We know the winners. 710 00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:41,160 We do not treasure as much bronze and silver medals. 711 00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:47,040 Gold medal is something special, so in a sense, in science, 712 00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:51,000 it's probably ten times more important 713 00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:53,800 than an Olympic Gold medal. 714 00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:00,280 I think it changes your life, I think you suddenly become 715 00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:05,280 a media star, you've got lots of new pressures on you. 716 00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:07,080 People want a bit of the action. 717 00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:11,440 I think for weeks and weeks afterwards it's very demanding 718 00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:15,880 and you have to go to this ceremony in Stockholm 719 00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:17,800 and experience all this. 720 00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:21,400 Then come back to your lab and try getting back to work. 721 00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:25,640 MUSIC: "Swedish National Anthem" 722 00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:37,760 If you don't think that you are sort of competitive enough, 723 00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:42,320 you're probably not a good fit to be in the top tier of science 724 00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:45,040 and you would never win the Nobel Prize. 725 00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:46,760 So when you've got one, 726 00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:51,360 it's sort of a stamp that you are one of the fittest and then 727 00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:55,240 some people with a certain predisposition start thinking, 728 00:53:55,240 --> 00:54:01,000 "I'm a genius," or something like that, and other people think, 729 00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:07,400 "I have to prove that I'm worthy of this Nobel Prize," 730 00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:12,440 and they start working like mad and go mad eventually. 731 00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:16,880 I think it takes strong legs to carry the burden 732 00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:18,600 of a Nobel Prize. 733 00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:22,200 Everything you say starts having a relevance 734 00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:25,080 which is far beyond what you wanted. 735 00:54:25,080 --> 00:54:30,640 That may make you crazy, that may make you overestimate yourself. 736 00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:34,520 APPLAUSE 737 00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:36,480 But despite the Nobel circus, 738 00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,200 Andre's eye is still firmly on research. 739 00:54:41,240 --> 00:54:43,080 It was a very short period, 740 00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:46,480 it's only one year gone since the Nobel Prize 741 00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:51,520 and it makes me wonder how disruptive the Nobel Prize 742 00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:56,360 was for research. Honestly speaking, 743 00:54:56,360 --> 00:55:01,520 I think 3 months out of this 12 months went into something else 744 00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:05,880 rather than research, but still there were nine months 745 00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,120 of very intensive research. 746 00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:13,480 We're still looking for this high temperature, room temperature 747 00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:16,040 and above super conductivity. 748 00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:23,720 It will probably remain for the rest of my life as a dream to fulfil. 749 00:55:23,720 --> 00:55:26,000 Andre will never rest on his laurels, never. 750 00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:29,920 The pace of his work is exactly the same as it was before. 751 00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,600 Another Nature physics paper out on Sunday, 752 00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:35,160 I know they're working on another big paper. 753 00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:37,160 I can't imagine he'll ever slow down. 754 00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:50,840 Initially forced by circumstance, 755 00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:55,480 Professor Andre Geim has developed a style of research that allows him 756 00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,560 to take risks and deliberately explore territory 757 00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:00,240 away from the mainstream. 758 00:56:05,720 --> 00:56:10,440 His playful methods and instinctive ability to spot promising terrain 759 00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:12,960 are backed up by clear thinking. 760 00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:20,480 Andre has this very rare ability to see the big picture, 761 00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:23,280 but at the same time, seeing all the small details. 762 00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:25,640 To use a metaphor, I think he can see the wood, 763 00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:29,720 the trees and the grass all at the same time. 764 00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:37,360 That I think is very typical of Andre. He finds something new, 765 00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:39,080 he doesn't stick to that thing, 766 00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:44,800 he situates it in its environment, in its history, in its content. 767 00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:46,840 He's also very fair. 768 00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:52,120 Everybody who did something in that direction earlier is recognised, 769 00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:58,600 he doesn't try to make himself better by ignoring his predecessors, 770 00:56:58,600 --> 00:57:02,920 and that makes that when the thing catches attention 771 00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:06,160 it immediately gets a momentum which picks up 772 00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:08,720 because the whole field is covered 773 00:57:08,720 --> 00:57:13,080 and that, I do think, is sort of peculiar for Andre. 774 00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:16,880 His method has borne extraordinary results. 775 00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,800 Geim can lay claim to seeding three new areas of research 776 00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:25,040 levitation, gecko tape and graphene. 777 00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:29,040 And he'd like more scientists to follow his lead. 778 00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:31,400 Everyone can do it. 779 00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:35,880 The way we are doing things is just too comfortable 780 00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:41,360 and we need to put ourselves out of the comfort zone 781 00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:44,160 and try to do something 782 00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:49,360 which we wouldn't think about doing a day before. 783 00:57:56,160 --> 00:58:01,600 I'm doing this because I'm trying to get new experiences. 784 00:58:01,600 --> 00:58:06,360 Jumping to another subject is another way of getting experiences. 785 00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:10,000 I haven't lost this childish attitude, 786 00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:14,080 trying to get as much as possible out of the world 787 00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:17,680 in terms of impressions and experiences. 788 00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:24,000 This is it. I'm not thinking about any legacy or anything like that. 789 00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:27,360 My brain is not dead enough for this. 790 00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:35,000 # I planned each charted course 791 00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:41,760 # Each careful step along the byway 792 00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:46,600 # And more, much more than this 793 00:58:46,600 --> 00:58:52,400 # I did it my way. # 794 00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:58,000 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd