• Question: what is your most favourite thing anbout science

    Asked by nasteha to Dalya, Derek, Sarah, Tim, Tom on 19 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by sholaameobi, bethanyhake, sameenah12.
    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      The best thing about science is that you can help people and make a big difference to their lives: whether it’s helping to find a cure for a horrible disease, or finding a new purifier to give people safe drinking water in third world countries, or inventing new technology to make people’s lives better.

    • Photo: Tim Millar

      Tim Millar answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      Freedom of thought, how i might make a change to what we know about ourselves as humans and how we deal with the environment around us. There is so much to know and I want to find out more, science gives me that chance

    • Photo: Derek McKay-Bukowski

      Derek McKay-Bukowski answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      For me, the best thing about being a scientist is the field work. This means travelling to interesting places to do new experiments or build new scientific instruments. It is inspiring to be on a mountain top and get a new telescope up and running, or to be out in a huge field surrounded by hundreds of radio antennas. It is beautiful, inspiring and fun. It is also very practical, so you do things with your hands, get results and actually see that you are accomplishing something.

      It is also usually the place where the discovery is first made. No matter how much analysis and report-writing follows, you always remember the first time you collected the data.

      Yes, I love field work. It’s certainly better than working in the office.

    • Photo: Dalya Soond

      Dalya Soond answered on 11 Jun 2011:

      Looking through a microscope and seeing cells doing all sorts of weird and exciting things. A lot of the sort of science I do involves looking at bands on a gel or numerical data or stuff like that. My brain knows how to interpret these lines or numbers and all that, but I guess it’s all still a leap of faith to feel that it is true. When I look at cells and I can visibly see and experience how they are behaving in the same way that in the rest of my life I can visibly see the macroscopic (human sized) world changing, then I feel reassured and convinced yet again about the ‘magic’ that are universe is made of.

    • Photo: Tom Crick

      Tom Crick answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      Having the freedom to study what I want to study: my research can take any direction I choose. This sort of freedom is probably unique to being a scientist/academic/researcher!

      Also, discovering solutions to major science or societal problems…the possibility of making a significant contribution to the body of knowledge.

Comments