• Question: What has been the most memorable discovery you have made?

    Asked by anon-191642 to Kathryn, Graeme, Chris, Anne, Agnes, Adam on 8 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-191657, anon-191731.
    • Photo: Anne Green

      Anne Green answered on 8 Nov 2018:

      While I was doing my PhD I came up with a new model for what might have happened just after the Big Bang. Unfortunately, not long afterwards, some observations showed that that it wasn’t right. Our calculations were correct, but what actually happened was different. However this is the way science works: we make predictions and then test them using experiments and observations.

    • Photo: Agnes Wojtusiak

      Agnes Wojtusiak answered on 9 Nov 2018:

      Mine actually goes all the way back to A-level Physics. It wasn’t anything new or particularly exciting, it’s been done a few hundred years ago, but it was the FIRST time I did an experiment that actually MEANT something!
      .
      We used a pendulum to find the strength of gravity, g. All the other experiments at school just felt like random numbers that meant nothing, but when I used my results in the equation and got 9.8 m^2/s – the value that I knew it was meant to be – it felt so awesome!! It worked!!!
      .
      I know it’s not really a discovery as such, because it’s been done before, but I DID discover that I can use experiments to find something REAL 😀

    • Photo: Kathryn

      Kathryn answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      How ice surface with water below reacts to being impacted at high speed. It has implications for europa and enceladus.

    • Photo: Graeme Poole

      Graeme Poole answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      How old the Moon is (4470 million years old)

    • Photo: Adam McGuinness

      Adam McGuinness answered on 14 Nov 2018:

      I haven’t done much discovering in my career yet, I’ve just been getting a lot of training! Looking forward to getting stuck in during the next 3 years though!

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