• Question: how many experiments have you done

    Asked by 284bsmf44 to Hazel, Elliot, Ellen, Rupesh, Thomas on 10 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by rachieb51, Veronica.
    • Photo: Elliot Jokl

      Elliot Jokl answered on 10 Jun 2016:

      Hello and thanks for the question!

      Hundreds! But lots of these are repeats of the same thing, or doing very similar experiments looking at slightly different things.

      It is very important to repeat your experiments in science to make sure that the results that you get are correct, and not just an accident. So I will spend quite a bit of time repeating the same experiments again and again until I am sure I have the right answer.

      In terms of the different types of experiments I do, I look at the levels of different molecules in animal muscles, usually comparing a normal muscle to the muscle of a mutant. This can help to tell us what is going wrong in the muscle. I’m also making mutant fish and mutant muscle cells, and testing them to see if they behave differently to normal.

    • Photo: Rupesh Paudyal

      Rupesh Paudyal answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      I have never counted. I have been working in research since 2008. So, I have been doing experiments almost everyday for 8 years – you do the maths.

      Anyway, I say it is the quality that counts and not the quantity… So please don’t ask me how many quality experiments I have done. lol

    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      Loads! We usually try out some experiments after me or one of my colleagues have come up with a new idea. Each idea needs a good 5 or so experiments depending on how successful the first couple go.

      I’ve been doing some work on small objects but in the first few experiments I’ve discovered that the plastic my objects are made out of changes the result of my experiment so I need a new material to make my objects out of. One of the other scientists came up with the idea of using dental cement because we can make this into any shape we want just like clay but then the cement will set and not break very easily. Now I’ll do the same experiment and see how the results change.

    • Photo: Hazel Garvie-Cook

      Hazel Garvie-Cook answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Too many to count! I do experiments every week in my job, and I did them every week in my PhD. So that’s at least 5 years of weekly experiments!

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