• Question: What did you first ever discover in science?

    Asked by anon-259763 on 29 Sep 2020.
    • Photo: James Smallcombe

      James Smallcombe answered on 29 Sep 2020:

      That science is hard and it’s very tricky to prove something doesn’t exist.
      My first results was a measurement that showed a particular way we think a nucleus can heat up wasnt possible in the nucleus I was studying. But proving when it does is much easier than it doesn’t. Its a bit like proving a light bulb doesn’t work. If it lights up it works, but if it doesn’t maybe the switch is off, or the lamp is broken, or the fuse, or there is a power cut.

    • Photo: Gaby Mayorga Adame

      Gaby Mayorga Adame answered on 29 Sep 2020:

      That is hard and that there is a lot of trial and error.
      If you release 2 particles in the same position on a 3D ocean they can go completely different ways, because of turbulence diffusion so you need lots and lots of particles, to do statistics, and is not easy to tell where things in the ocean come from, or where they will go to…

    • Photo: April Cridland

      April Cridland answered on 30 Sep 2020:

      That persistence is waaaay more important than I realized. No one becomes a scientist without failing lots of times and carrying on anyway.

    • Photo: Tim Knapp

      Tim Knapp answered on 2 Oct 2020:

      I remember my first chemistry lesson. The teacher spoke about chemistry and safety. He then brought out a number of household chemicals and mixed a few of the together, dipped his hands in a bowel of water and sprinkles a few drops of water from his hands onto the crucible containing the chemicals and it burst into flames.

      He then said never mix chemicals unless you know what you are doing because you could be injured or even die.

      And you know what?………I never have!

    • Photo: Will Davison

      Will Davison answered on 6 Oct 2020:

      I discovered that if you expose crabs to high levels of CO2 at the same time as the salinity is falling the two conditions cause opposite reactions in the crab which mean they cancel each other out!

    • Photo: Sonia Rodriguez

      Sonia Rodriguez answered on 10 Oct 2020:

      Sadly, my first discovery in science was that the conditions I had been trying to use for a year to identify a chemical modification were not the appropriate for that particular experiment.

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