The Life Scientific: Claudia de Rham
BBC World Servicebbci.co.uk
This is what was read here when it was published. BBC World Service no longer carries it in what it publishes now.
Claudia de Rham has rather an unusual relationship with gravity.While she has spent her career exploring its fundamental nature, much of her free time has involved trying to defy it - from scuba diving in the Indian Ocean to piloting small aircraft over the Canadian waterfalls. Her ultimate ambition was to escape gravity’s clutches altogether and become an astronaut, a dream that was snatched away by an unlikely twist of fate.However, Claudia has no regrets - and says defying gravity for much of her life has helped her to truly understand it.As Professor of theoretical physics at Imperial…