• Question: As scientists do you always get to do weird and wacky inventions and experiments?

    Asked by to Andrew, Elaine, Emma, Michael, Nancy on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Michael Kelly

      Michael Kelly answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      My experimental work often involves lots of rather mundane calibration trials, where I test the equipment to check that its reporting correct values. Often this needs an imaginative approach along with complex equipment so it might appear weird and wacky, but its routine.

    • Photo: Andrew French

      Andrew French answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Hi!
      A lot of science can be weird and wacky when you step back and think about it. But like Michael says, often even crazy ideas get broken down into small, meticulous steps designed to provide you with reliable results.

      So, an initial idea could well be wacky, but we have to investigate everything, *especially* the wacky stuff, with a sensible method we can trust.

    • Photo: Emma Reid

      Emma Reid answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      Hi Nadeem!
      Sometimes my experiments are a bit weird and wacky but they seem normal to me because I do them nearly every day! As a research scientist I don’t always get to spend all my time in the lab and I spend quite a bit of time in the office reading up about new research in my field, writing papers and analysing data. This isn’t as much fun as being in the lab! 🙂
      Emma

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