Giorgio Parisi: “Fundamental science is crucial.”

In this short conversation, recorded shortly after his Nobel Prize in Physics was announced, Giorgio Parisi reflects on the value of asking basic questions. But what sort of questions does he address? “My mentor, Nicola Cabibbo,” he says, “was usually saying that we should work on a problem only if work on that problem is fun!” He then talks with Adam Smith about his hopes for science funding and the need to communicate. “It’s important that the people who in the end pay the bill for science have some understanding of what science is going on.”