Brian Schmidt: Being Vice-Chancellor, and making wine

In this edition of Titans of Science, Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt discusses how his work led to the discovery of our universe expanding at an accelerated rate, and how dark energy was theorised to be responsible...

Chris - We first met in 2007 here in Cambridge when you were going to get the Gruber prize, which many say is often an antecedent to getting the Nobel Prize. And you get the Nobel Prize and then you become the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University. So why did you decide to go from really very cutting edge research into running a university? Because they're very different. I mean similar, but they're very different jobs.

Brian - They're very different jobs. <laugh> Not much in common between the two things. I did it because I wanted to make a change in how universities intersect with society. I was concerned that universities were losing their way. I felt that in losing their way I would probably be faced in the not too distant future of not actually being able to do the research that I had done for the previous 25 years. And that seemed to me to be a bad outcome, not just for me, but for society. So it was nothing that was ever on my agenda until after I won the Nobel Prize. And it was after about three years of winning the Nobel Prize and getting frustrated about trying to convince people that universities and research and teaching and all the things that we do here have really good flow-on benefits for society. So it really goes back to the core of how humanity has progressed.

Chris - You did eight years in that role. You've now stepped down from that. Have you gone back to research, and did you manage to keep a hand in with your research that won you the Nobel Prize?

Brian - So I'm over in England right now on sabbatical, just finishing up a four month time. It turns out I have a vineyard and a winery, which people will know about. And this is the four month winter break where I don't need to be in Australia. So I've been reconnecting with my field. And so as vice chancellor I managed to stay connected to my field until Covid. And then when Covid happened, I could not sensibly take on students and postdocs, so I didn't. But now I'm back and I'm focusing on the supernovae again that I started on. The data capabilities that have emerged in the last eight years are amazing, truly astronomical. And so I've been working at Oxford with a group looking at this data set that finds 25 supernovae a week. And I mean that used to be the entire year's worth. So I'm a kid in the candy shop learning how everything's working, but I have to admit trying to get my brain to get out of administration and programming and Python and things again has been slow and hard.

Chris - We're onto 3.something now. It must have been in the 2.somethings when you were doing work.

Brian - We were already in the threes. The problem is that the three threes or whatever I used back eight years ago, nothing seems to work anymore. So it's a bit of a nightmare.

Chris - Yeah, I've had that problem. They break lots of things, don't they? This vineyard then, where's that?

Brian - So I live on a farm just outside of Canberra. So we have 35 hectares, 88 acres in the old way of saying things. And yeah, I have a little vineyard and make Pinot noir. Making a little bit of shiraz viognier to hedge against climate change. But we had really cold weather the last four years in Australia after just blistering hot years beforehand. So I'm not about to get rid of all my pinot noir yet.

Chris - Were you a fresh starter? Did you come to this cold or did you already know what you were doing when you took on the vineyard?

Brian - I came at it absolutely cold and you know, I have learned, but we're doing pretty well. I'm making far better pinot noir than I ever thought I would. And I even have a good review from Jancis Robinson.

Chris - Really?

Brian - Indeed.

Chris - How much do you make? I don't mean cash, I mean as in how much do you actually churn out?

Brian - So it's a small vineyard. For those who are into wine, it's about half the size of Domaine Romanée Conti. I don't get $20,000 a bottle for my wine, as you might imagine. The weather is finicky in Canberra. It's actually quite cool there for anyone who's ever been there. So we typically try to make between 2000 and 4,000 bottles a year.

Chris - D'Arenburg in South Australia had a very nice bottle of wine. That was 'the noble prankster'. And I saw that and thought you could make 'The Nobel prankster'.

Brian - So Nobel Foundation has discussed that there is copyright on the name 'Nobel' that would be enforced. But that they would be happy to discuss with me, and I am thinking about doing this actually before I die because it would be fun, of making a Nobel wine, which they would serve at the Nobel ceremony. So we'll have a discussion about that because I need five years to get it in good shape. And they drink a lot of wine at the ceremony, so you got to make a lot of wine.