• Question: What's the hardest thing about your job?

    Asked by anon-241100 to Tom, Rebecca, Emily, Elspeth on 17 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Tom Dally

      Tom Dally answered on 17 Mar 2020: last edited 17 Mar 2020 1:31 pm

      Sometimes your experiments don’t work, or don’t work in the way you might have expected them to – it happens to most scientists at some point. This can be a good thing – when things go wrong it can open up whole new avenues of research in the long run. But, at the time it can make you feel a bit silly…

    • Photo: Emily Goddard

      Emily Goddard answered on 18 Mar 2020:

      Yes, I’d agree with Tom. Sometimes experiments just don’t work. Other people have done them, but when you try it yourself… nothing happens. It can be really frustrating, especially if you’ve planned quite a few related experiments. Sometimes it does set you off on a different path which is good, but it is difficult when it feels like nothing wants to work for you!

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