• Question: If your experiment failed how would you feel?

    Asked by cadhlas2017 to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 8 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Carrie Ijichi

      Carrie Ijichi answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      They do fail! At first it gets you down and you can feel frustrated but after a while you almost always realise there’s something to be learnt from the data. It might not have gone how you planned but there is something to learn. If the method was wrong you stop, think it through and then plan differently for next time. If the results aren’t what you expected then why? Maybe they’re even more interesting because they’re not what you expected. The longer it took to do and the harder it was the more it will get to you but you can’t feel sorry for yourself for long!

    • Photo: Ellen Williams

      Ellen Williams answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      Experiments fail ALL the time, or they produce results that you really didn’t want them to produce. An experiment showing nothing though can be just as useful as one that showed something. And if it went really wrong you can always use that experience to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes. We are all human though, if anyone ever tells you nothing goes wrong then they are probably telling you a little bit of a lie!

    • Photo: Ines Goncalves

      Ines Goncalves answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      Sad and frustrated at first, which is just emotions really. Then become more logical and inquisitive and try to figure out why it didn’t work or whether I was simply asking the wrong question or using the wrong system to ask that question. Failed experiments just like successful ones can give rise lots more questions, a failed experiment is never really just a waste of time. There are lessons to be learnt everywhere.

    • Photo: Rupert Marshall

      Rupert Marshall answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      If an experiment fails because of equipment then it is very annoying – my batteries ran out in my recorder last year and it was the only chance I had to record this very shy bird.
      If an experiment just doesn’t work out as planned I don’t mind so much. Sometimes I have a “great idea” and test it – and find out I’m wrong. This happened just last week actually but it didn’t matter as me and my student talked about it and came up with a reason why we might have been wrong – now we’re testing this to see if we’re right

    • Photo: Cedric Tan

      Cedric Tan answered on 14 Mar 2017:

      That happened quite a number of times and at first I was really upset. Nevertheless, having results that do not support your initial guess can be quite interesting as well. The first PhD work I did was to look at whether flies avoided breeding when their siblings and I guessed yes they would! But it turned out not they didn’t.

      The negative results were interesting and we managed to publish the paper, to our delight.

      Therefore, I have learned that failed experiments is not necessary a bad thing, it might even be a new discovery!

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