﻿ Singer Charlotte Church says physics rocks her universe | New Scientist Cookies policy


6 March 2014

Singer Charlotte Church says physics rocks her universe

Charlotte is enthralled by quantum entanglement
Charlotte is enthralled by quantum entanglement

(Image: Lorna Jane Newman)

Quantum entanglement is an enthralling metaphor for love that inspired my latest music, says Welsh pop star Charlotte Church

What got you into quantum physics?
Do you know, I can’t really remember. I just started buying New Scientist really. The song Entanglement came about after a house party in south London. A friend’s friend is doing a master’s in something physics-related. One of his specialities is entanglement theory. He started talking about it and I just thought it was incredible.

What is it about entanglement that appeals to you?
The song me and my partner wrote about it is basically a love song. The lyrics include the line “are we tangled up, integrated, knit together by something faster than light?”. I can’t explain what it is, but something about entanglement enthralled me.


Did you study science at school?
I didn’t do science when I was younger because I was travelling a lot of the time and everybody deemed it the right thing that I didn’t do science. Now I want to do A-levels in science, physics and maths. And then I really want to do a degree, if I can hack it.

Is there an urge to divide children too early between arts and science?
Absolutely. Music and maths go together quite often. But I do feel that usually you are in one camp or the other and it is hard to straddle the two.

Have you considered working with musician-scientists, like particle physicist and keyboard player Brian Cox or Queen guitarist Brian May, who also does astrophysics?
Not really because that would be weird. I feel uncomfortable when I’m around other famous people because it just feels a bit forced.

What about just collaborating with scientists?
I would love to do something like that. For instance, I saw Björk’s Biophilia show in Paris on my birthday last year, which blew my brain to bits. It was narrated by David Attenborough and lots of it is about the natural world.

Maybe in the future you could work with geneticists to modify your voice and make different sounds?
That would be awesome actually, it would be totally brilliant. If it wasn’t going to affect what I already have and there were no ethical issues, it would be pretty awesome to make all of the sounds of a drum kit. I suppose some people already can when you think about beatboxing, but that doesn’t work for me.

If you could come up with a scientific theory, what would it be about?
Something to do with multiverses. I like the idea that everything that could happen is happening here and now basically. Everything, all the time, infinite. I wouldn’t come up with anything too useful because generally, I don’t know, useful things could be dangerous. Or people make a lot of money and it becomes a real capitalist thing, off some incredible, beautiful original idea that you had.

Charlotte Church is a singer-songwriter from Cardiff, UK. Her new EP, Four, is out on 10 March

More on these topics: