When he was in the eighth grade, Dinesh Singh saw a PBS documentary that influenced the course of his future. The documentary, called "Creation of the Universe," was about the unification of the four forces of nature - how one singular force could bind together space, time, matter and energy at the earliest moments of the Big Bang. It inspired him to look deeper into the nature of our world.
"I found that whole presentation very fascinating - that searching for the one thing that unites everything, that we could have a real understanding of things that happened fractions of a second after the so-called Big Bang," said Singh. "How is it possible to be able to do that? It's really quite remarkable. So I definitely felt that was a strong indicator that (being a physicist) was something I would like to do."
Now a post-doctoral research scientist, Singh has joined with colleagues George Lolos and Edward Mathie from the Physics Department to try to inspire others to explore science and think about its importance in everyday life. In November they connected with the community and future scientists through a new public lecture series called The Mysteries of the Universe.
The three lectures in the series tried to raise awareness about the calibre of work being undertaken at the University and illustrate for the public - particularly high school students - what's exciting about science. The lecture titles alone were enticing reminders of the relevance of science: Mathie presented "Saskatchewan Uranium Issues: Nuclear Physics for the Public;" Lolos presented "A Visit to the Subatomic Particle Physics Zoo;" and Singh's lecture was "Albert Einstein's Legacy and the Future: The Search for Quantum Gravity."
Presenters in the series took great care to ensure that the complex subject matter they delivered would be both compelling and accessible to a general audience.
"With the Hubble space telescope, very spectacular pictures are being made available to everybody," says Singh. "You just look in the night sky and you see the remnants of the super nova or the formation of new galaxies that happened hundreds of thousands of years ago or millions of years ago. It's breathtaking. I think people, no matter who they are or where they come from, see that and can be inspired."
Singh feels that scientists, in turn, can also connect in some way with people's sense of curiosity.
"What is the modus operandi of a scientist? It's the search for truth in some form. I think it's the inherent need of human beings to understand their origins and their destiny; a scientific perspective offers a way of actualizing that yearning. People have a right to know. I consider it their birthright to know where they come from in the ultimate sense of things, and this is an exploration we should partake of together."