• Question: whats it like to be a sceintist do you get asked lots of questions?

    Asked by kaylee222 to Alan, Deepak, Francesca, Lilly, Nick on 10 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Lilian Hunt

      Lilian Hunt answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      I get asked lots of questions by friends, family and even random people I’ve just met who ask me what I do. The biggest problem is that I really don’t know everything! By the time you get a career in science you know a lot about very little, like I know a lot about genetics but couldn’t tell you why a black hole forms in space (although maybe one of the others in this zone could!). I like being able to answer some of the questions though as helping people who aren’t scientists understand the science behind things in life is actually really enjoyable and if I don’t know the answer I often become curious myself and have to go off to find out!

    • Photo: Deepak Kar

      Deepak Kar answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      It is really fun, we get to do what we love, and get paid for that too!

      We do get asked a lot of questions. Thats the most important part of doing science, asking other scientists questions about their work, and explaining my work to others in response to questions. Thats how we learn.

    • Photo: Alan Fitzsimmons

      Alan Fitzsimmons answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      It’s great to be a scientist, and its great to be asked lots of questions!

      I like being a scientist, because my job pays me to understand new stuff and discover things. There’s not many jobs better than that.

      And being asked questions is good – all scientists should explain what they know to other people.

      Some of the best questions to be asked are when I have to say “I don’t know”. That means I need to learn something new and interesting, or no-one knows and there’s science to be done!

    • Photo: Francesca Day

      Francesca Day answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      I really fun – I get paid to work on whatever interesting things I want to! I get asked lots of questions too at work and by my friends. But it’s fun being able to tell people things they want to know, so the questions are good too 🙂

    • Photo: Nick Wright

      Nick Wright answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      Yes, sometimes, a lot of people like to know what you’re working I , or maybe they hope you can provide an answer to some of life’s difficult questions. That can be quite enjoyable because I really enjoy sharing my knowledge with people, but if I don’t know it’s always ok to say so. Science is about finding the answers to questions we don’t know the answers to, and to do that you often have to admit that you don’t know the answer first!

Comments