• Question: how does your job help?

    Asked by anon-201685 to Sophia, Sarah, Meirin, George, Emily, Andy on 14 Mar 2019. This question was also asked by anon-201585.
    • Photo: Meirin Oan Evans

      Meirin Oan Evans answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      Part of my work is about releasing particle physics data to the public, to then be used in education and outreach. (Check out http://opendata.atlas.cern if you want to have a look!) This is helping by training and inspiring students to become the next generation of particle physicists, whilst also giving them important skills in computing and data analysis.
      Current particle physics research will definitely help people’s lives in the future, but it’s hard to say where. Three important technologies that have been invented or developed at particle physics labs include the World Wide Web, particle accelerators to treat cancer and touch-screen technology.

    • Photo: Sophia Pells

      Sophia Pells answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      At the moment my research work isn’t directly helping. In the future it (and the work of hundreds of other scientists) could help improve radiation treatment for cancer.
      I am very keen to do outreach activities and try and go into schools and do events like this to tell young people about science, so maybe that helps young people see what working in science might be like.

    • Photo: Emily Lewis

      Emily Lewis answered on 21 Mar 2019:

      It helps by looking for new ways to make nuclear power plants safer, produce more energy and make less waste. Nuclear power could help us stop global warming as it doesn’t produce C02 during production.
      I also do some work on making software that other scientists can use to analyse and sort their data, helping them do cool science!

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