• Question: Have any of your experiments gone wrong

    Asked by shyamgarara22 to Arttu, Ceri, James_M, Monica, Philip on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by rabia, mridu12075.
    • Photo: Arttu Rajantie

      Arttu Rajantie answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      All of them 🙂 I was never good in lab, so I became a theorist.

    • Photo: Philip Dolan

      Philip Dolan answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Yeah, they often go wrong at the start (I find anyway). Then you have to figure out why, and see if you can fix it. This can often take weeks and weeks. But once you get it all working right, it can be really satisfying.

Comments

  • Photo: danm

    danm commented on :

    So are you really a scientist? Isn’t science about making hypotheses from experimental evidence and then testing your hypotheses with experiments? At least since the time of Galileo…?

  • Photo: Arttu

    Arttu commented on :

    You are absolutely right, danm, but you don’t actually have to do the experiments yourself. We theorists make predictions from our theories (or hypotheses if you wish), and the experimental physicists test them. In many areas of physics experiments have become so large and sophisticated that the same person cannot do everything.

    • Photo: danm

      danm commented on :

      Fair enough Arttu, but I think I’m right in saying that in theoretical cosmology there aren’t that many experiments you can do! So a lot of the theoretical predictions can’t be justified with experimental evidence (at least that’s what I understand).