• Question: is it hard beeing a super scientist also do u do some stuf that a forensic siantist duse or not

    Asked by buthie1 to Amy, Grant, Martin, Shawn, Usman on 9 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Grant Kennedy

      Grant Kennedy answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      It’s definitely hard being a scientist, but that’s because we’re always trying to figure out things that noone else has figured out yet, and that includes really smart and hard working people like Einstein!

      I don’t do forensic stuff like on the telly, but the process is pretty similar.

      1) We decide on a thing we want to figure out
      2) We go and get evidence, like go to a telescope and take some pictures
      3) We look at the pictures to see what’s happening
      4) We write a story that explains it and share it with other scientists so they learn too
      5) go back to 1) and do it again!

      (thankfully no-one gets killed or goes to jail doing space science)

      g

    • Photo: Usman Kayani

      Usman Kayani answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      I know sometimes its hard to get out of bed in the morning especially when its cold or do some chore that you really don’t feel like doing but you have to do, being a scientist is defiantly not hard like that and it doesn’t feel like a chore. It is hard in the sense that you are coming up with new ideas to answer things that haven’t been answered yet; but not in a bad way because the challenge to answer the hard questions is what makes science so interesting.

      Sometimes the process that we go through to find answers is similar to those of a detective of forensic scientist, like looking for clues and interpreting them with the current evidence available. It does feel like an investigation! Though I haven’t directly applied what a forensic scientist does in my work; I have in the past learnt about mathematical techniques that are used in forensic science and other stuff that can be used to find a criminal and put them to justice.

      There is a show called numb3rs that is a show like CSI, where a mathematician along with an FBI agent implement very cool maths to catch criminals. Heres a clip from the show on using this thing called spherical astronomy to find the location of a criminal using a picture of his shadow; and it does work in real life too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLKpGnSnyGk

    • Photo: Martin Archer

      Martin Archer answered on 10 Mar 2013:

      Both Grant & Usman have given great answers. I just wanted to add this clip from The Big Bang Theory which is not only hilarious but also pretty true of our jobs sometimes: http://youtu.be/i5oc-70Fby4 Lots of thinking by looking at things, be it equations or data, to understand what the Universe is doing, how and why.

    • Photo: Amy Tyndall

      Amy Tyndall answered on 10 Mar 2013:

      Being a good scientist certainly involves a lot of work, motivation and passion!

      So why do we do it? Well, let’s just take one of my favourite quotes from JFK when the race to the moon began:

      “We choose […] to do the other things,not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”

    • Photo: Shawn Domagal-Goldman

      Shawn Domagal-Goldman answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      It’s funny you mention forensics science! A lot of my colleagues (including my officemate) work on Curiosity, the new Mars rover. And when I try to explain what Curiosity is to other people, I tell them it’s basically “CSI: Mars.” It even has miniaturized versions of the science equipment used on the show. By looking at the minerals on Mars, and the chemicals in those minerals, we can find out if Mars has the stuff needed for life. And crime scene investigators (CSI) use those same types of information to find out details about the crime scene.

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