• Question: do you ever run out of work to do?

    Asked by alice14 to Davie, Gemma, James P, James V, Nuala on 25 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      Hi alice14,

      NO! 🙂

      There is always something to do in science, as it never stops. There is always another persons work to read about in a published scientific paper, or another experiment you can run for your own work. I think the hard thing in science is making sure that you don’t give yourself too much to do, because it is really easy to do that to yourself!

    • Photo: Gemma Purser

      Gemma Purser answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      Hi alice14, I never run out of work to do, infact I sometimes wish I had more than 24 hours in a day to be able to complete all the tasks I want to do. If you carry out an experiment to try to solve a problem it always generates some data that means you have to do more experiments to either confirm what you have seen or to try and find out why things didn’t work as you might have expected. Science is always ongoing and like James said you sometimes have to becareful not to take too much on!

    • Photo: James Verdon

      James Verdon answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Hi alice,
      Not really. If the only way science will stop having things to do will be if we understand everything in the universe, and I think we’re a long way from that point.

      And for me personally, until we understand everything about volcanoes, earthquakes and stress conditions in the earth’s crustal rocks, then there’ll be more work for me and my colleagues to do.

    • Photo: Nuala Carson

      Nuala Carson answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Hey alice14,

      I cannot imagine a time when all the scientist turn up for work and say ‘nope we know everything about everything – science is finished’.

      There will always be something to research because the world and all the people that live on it are constantly changing, evolving and developing new demands. How would you feel if scientists never invented a new mobile phone, or stopped upgrading ipods?

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