• Question: what is the worlds dangerous science experiment

    Asked by anon-361958 on 24 Apr 2023.
    • Photo: Dmitry Dereshev

      Dmitry Dereshev answered on 24 Apr 2023:

      Historically, probably all the nuclear tests in the 20th century (there were over 2,000 of those!).

      These days, there are a lot more technical and ethical controls in place to make sure any harm done is at least minimized.

    • Photo: Catherine Holt

      Catherine Holt answered on 24 Apr 2023:

      The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest scientific experiment in the world. It collides sub-atomic particles at ultra-high energies that will recreate the conditions experienced less than one billionth of a second after the Big Bang. It can achieve energy that no other particle accelerators have reached before, however, the experiment has been designed to be safe and there is no danger. Whatever the collider will do, nature has already done many times over. In modern science everyone is very careful to do no harm to people or the environment.

    • Photo: Lisa Hursell

      Lisa Hursell answered on 24 Apr 2023:

      Things that might cause harm – and that doesn’t just mean explosions! Data experiments can be very dangerous too – what if an experimental dataset decides you’re likely to be a criminal?

    • Photo: Jarrod Hart

      Jarrod Hart answered on 24 Apr 2023:

      Space exploration might be it… they knew it was so dangerous at first that rather than send a person, they sent a heroic dog Laika, to be the first cosmonaut.

      We have lost quite a few people in the race to space, most famously the two space shuttle accidents – in 1987 the Challenger exploded soon after take off due to a faulty O-ring, and in 2003 the Columbia exploded on return to Earth (it was already doomed from something that happened during launch that damaged a tile on its belly – this would lead to disaster when the intense heat of re-entry burned through the tile into the shuttle). Seven astronauts died each time…

      Now they are looking for volunteers to go to Mars – do you fancy it?

    • Photo: Jo Montgomery

      Jo Montgomery answered on 24 Apr 2023:

      There are lots of dangerous things, but we can keep ourselves safe by doing them in controlled conditions and taking precautions, like wearing special clothing or doing them behind barriers. Scientists follow protocols and read information about hazards and use their knowledge and experience to assess any risks and make changes to keep everyone safe. Don’t believe, or copy, what you see on YouTube!

    • Photo: Ling Lim

      Ling Lim answered on 24 Apr 2023:

      To me, any experiment that has the potential to cause harm is dangerous. In my line of work, we have to find out what air pollutants are doing to human health. So, there have been experiments (I don’t do these myself and they are very strictly regulated/controlled/monitored) where human volunteers are exposed to pollutants and scientists look at their effects on the body.

    • Photo: Camilla Cassidy

      Camilla Cassidy answered on 27 Apr 2023:

      As Dmitry said, early nuclear tests were devastatingly dangerous. There were reasons they took place, but looking back it is hard to understand if those reasons were important enough, and even harder to justify where and how they took place. Many nuclear tests took place in the Pacific, in island communities that were colonies of France or Spain, and were then taken by the US. There is a lasting legacy there not only of environmental dangers but also of injustice to indigenous people.

      All scientists need to be very careful of their own ‘reasons’, when they are doing science!

      On the other end of the scale, one of my experiments involved wanting to scare some worms! The reason for this was because I wanted to see if climate change will change how animals behave. How quickly an animal reacts to a predator and how well they run away is an important example of this behaviour. So I wanted to scare the worms, my test subjects. Their natural predator is a type of fish – but because fish are vertebrates, and we understand them to have some emotions and ability to feel pain, if I wanted to use one in my science experiment I had to get approval from the UK Government! I did not want to hurt the fish at all, just take some of the water from its tank to add it to my worm tank. But we are so aware in this country of the potential ethics of science that there are lots of forms to fill out and checking you need to go through.

    • Photo: Rachel Edwards

      Rachel Edwards answered on 28 Apr 2023:

      Most experiments have yhe potential to be dangerous! The most conventionally dangerous one I worked on involved explosives to make very large magnetic fields (sadly we never got to that stage…). Nowadays, the most dangerous bits of kit in my lab are the lasers and the robots (fortunately not in the same room!).

    • Photo: Santosh Mahabala

      Santosh Mahabala answered on 10 May 2023:

      That’s an excellent question. Usually the experiments themselves are not dangerous, but sometimes their applications are. For example, the experiment that led to the invention of the dynamites was done find more ways to regenerate energy that can be used in construction and transportation. But, the technology was also used to generate explosives, which in turn caused a lot of destruction.

    • Photo: Áine Uí Ghiollagáin

      Áine Uí Ghiollagáin answered on 28 May 2023:

      That can cover both individual and general risks. At one end of the spectrum, there are experiments on power and pain, like the Stanford Prison experiment, where the subjects don’t or can’t give consent. At the other end, experiments which damage the planet.

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