• Question: Why do you love discovering experiments so much because didnt you have enough at school?

    Asked by Imbethbtw to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 10 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by cyanogen_.
    • Photo: Francesca Palombo

      Francesca Palombo answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      Probably! I did not do much experimental work when I was at school

    • Photo: Rebecca Ingle

      Rebecca Ingle answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      I didn’t get to do a huge number of experiments at school but I suspect even if I had done more at school, it wouldn’t make any difference to how much I enjoy what I do now as I would never have had the chance to play with lasers.

    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      There is a massive difference in between experiments at school and what I do now. At school I was told what to do and then maybe have a chance to run the experiment myself, now I devise my own experiment but the equipment I need and make the magic happen.

      I can never get enough of running my own experiments, having new ideas and testing them out.

    • Photo: Laura Schofield

      Laura Schofield answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      We didn’t do many experiments at all at school! Instead my parents used to take me to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester as they always had fun exhibitions on!
      I think I love experiments because I learn by doing. It is useless giving me a textbook and expecting me to understand a new reaction! I follow it a lot better if I can try it out and see what is changing in real life!

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      Chemistry is a practical subject, and doing experiments is fundamental to our science. You can’t really push back the boundaries without testing by experiment. While you can come up with a theory, it means nothing unless it is tested by experiment.
      Experiments at school are highly scripted and – by and large – they are always going to work. When we do an experiment, we devise a set of conditions and then we run the experiment. Typically we will do the experiment “blind” (i.e. we carefully randomise our samples in such a way that we can then ‘unrandomise’ them when we analyse the results) – this means that we do not bias our data in any way. This means that we have no idea what the result will be until we do the analysis – and a result isn’t always guaranteed!

      This is something that can be immensely frustrating, however when you get a result that demonstrates your theory, it is enormously rewarding!

      Terry Pratchett (one of my favourite authors) said in one of his books “Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.” This is painfully true for the experimental scientist!

Comments