• Question: Have any of your experiments gone horribly wrong?

    Asked by to Bethany, Hannah, Keith, Peter, Ramya on 15 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Bethany Dearlove

      Bethany Dearlove answered on 15 Jun 2014:

      Yes, I have to admit that quite a few of my experiments have gone wrong, but luckily this tends to only cause my computer to crash…and no deadly outbreaks of disease!

    • Photo: Peter Elliott

      Peter Elliott answered on 15 Jun 2014:

      I think you would struggle to find a scientist who has never had an experiment go wrong. I’ve not had any serious disasters but I remember breaking some expensive chemistry equipment during my undergraduate degree and I felt very nervous about having to ask for a replacement piece.

    • Photo: Hannah Tanner

      Hannah Tanner answered on 16 Jun 2014:

      Experiments often go wrong! The molecular microbiology I do is a bit like baking – if you put the wrong ingredients in or “cook” at the wrong temperature it can be a complete failure. Sometimes I learn the most by getting things wrong – you have to test the limits of what can be done.

    • Photo: Keith Grehan

      Keith Grehan answered on 17 Jun 2014:

      Just like everyone else I have had experiments that didn’t work or didn’t go according to plan. Fortunately nothing has gone horribly wrong yet!

    • Photo: Ramya Bhatia

      Ramya Bhatia answered on 22 Jun 2014:

      Quite a few! But they are not terrible. Some of them are quite fun actaully. we use dry ice in the lab for some experiments and if you put it under water, it causes a cloud like mist. I once managed to fill my lab with dry ice cloud!

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