• Question: If you had to name the worst thing about being a scientist, what would it be?

    Asked by _lucytuffnell to Steve, Emma, Christian, Bose, Alice on 4 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Christian Killow

      Christian Killow answered on 4 Mar 2016:

      In my opinion it is the uncertainty over funding. We’d rather just get on and do science, even including the less exciting bits (like writing reports) but we – particularly the more senior scientists – spend a lot of time trying to secure funding to keep the work going. Unfortunately that’s just the way it is.

    • Photo: Steve Marsden

      Steve Marsden answered on 4 Mar 2016:

      Eric. I’d name it Eric. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist :P)

      I have to agree with Christian regarding obtaining funding. But I don’t wish the labour the point.

    • Photo: Emma Dean

      Emma Dean answered on 5 Mar 2016:

      It has ruined sci-fi films for me. Space based films are the worst because there is NO SOUND in space. But I still like time-travel films. They can be really fun to watch.

    • Photo: Benjamin Bose

      Benjamin Bose answered on 5 Mar 2016:

      I think the worst thing, although I don’t like calling it the ‘worst’ because in some sense it stems from the ‘best’ thing about being a scientist, is that it’s very often hard to switch off being a scientist. I often find myself carrying my research around in my head wherever I am – even if I’m meant to be on holiday – which I currently am! haha!

      It’s also the best thing because it goes to show how much we love what we do 🙂

    • Photo: Alice Harpole

      Alice Harpole answered on 7 Mar 2016:

      Like Emma, some sci-fi films can be difficult to watch as I can’t help but notice the scientific inaccuracies! A recent example of this is the film Interstellar – lots of the physics was pretty good (e.g. they had light bending and time dilation near a black hole), however they also visited a planet which had clouds of solid ice. As Newton knew, heavy, solid objects like lumps of ice tend to fall to the ground rather than float in the sky as clouds!

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