What is it that you're doing here, at the South Pole, Yuki?
We're called cosmologists and we study the cosmos-how the universe started and how it evolved. So we built a telescope so that we could study the radiation or the light from the big bang to study how the universe started.
Did you always want to be a scientist?
Well, not always. When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a baseball player. But from about when I was nine years old, actually, I became very interested in astronomy, by looking at the encyclopedia of all the pictures of planets and other stars and things like that. So since then, I've been very interested in science, and especially about the universe.
How did you get involved to be particularly a cosmology scientist? I know you've said since you were nine years old, but what was the pathway after that?
Well when I was about eleven years old I read a book for popular audience-it was a book called, "A Book That Will Get You Interested in Cosmology." It talked about the Universe, and the Big Bang, and things. From then I started wondering how the universe started and why we exist. So when I finished college I was very interested in this question of the beginning of the Universe, so I approached a professor who was working on it at UC Berkeley and he also had a project with a telescope at the South Pole and I was very excited and so that's how I got into it.
When you were in school what were your favorite subjects?
Well my favorite was math, at least when I was in elementary and middle School, and also I did like science.
What where your least favorite subjects in school? Did you have any?
Yeah, well I like music but I really disliked music classes, because I always got a very bad grade on it. I could not sing or play instruments, so that was my weakest.
And as a scientist, what is the most rewarding aspect of it?
Well the rewarding aspect is that we are working on a question, a very interesting and important question about the origin of the universe and ourselves and I think that's a very interesting question for anybody and I think to me that's rewarding.
Is there any aspect that you think is the most difficult aspect of being a scientist?
Yes definitely. There is a lot of difficulties, because it's a very complicated procedure and you have to pay attention to work out many details, many little details, that are not always the most interesting. Even though the ultimate question is interesting, there are many details that are challenging.
Do you have any advice for students that would like to pursue a career in science?
Well my advice would be to pursue things on your own and not just do homework or things that teachers told you to do but that if you get any questions or you become curious about anything don't just let them go, go to the library or ask people and go seek the answers, even on your own.