• Question: what does it take to be a scientist?

    Asked by Alfie G to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 16 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by orangedog.
    • Photo: Jane MacArthur

      Jane MacArthur answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Being interested and curious about ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions is perhaps the key fundamental. Science research is a big investigation, sometimes you hit a lot of frustrating dead ends, sometimes you find a new side line you never would have thought of without the dead ends which turns out to be more important than what you were first investigating.
      Practically, it helps to take as many science courses as you can stand and enjoy. For example, trying to do Physics without maths, you will end up having to catch up a lot of the maths later anyway so best to at least attempt the maths through school where there can be more time, help and support devoted to it.

    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Well it takes a few things
      – First, you need knowledge to build on. So you need to know what others have done, and what techniques and ways of doing things there are, otherwise you’ll probably just end up repeating someone else’s work unintentionally.
      – In astronomy and many other aspects of science, you need to know some maths. Maths crops up all over the place, so you need to be able to deal with it. It doesn’t always need to be super advanced maths, but you need a good grounding.
      – You need to be determined, there is a lot of learn, and there will be set backs along the way, and things you struggle to learn and understand.
      – You need to be creative. You need to think of new ways of approaching problems. Try out new ideas, and be prepared to fail.

      However much of this applies to any job.

    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Curiosity, determination, attention to detail, maths skills.
      Probably also a weird sense of humour 😀

    • Photo: Heather Campbell

      Heather Campbell answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      I think you have to love science and be interested in finding out more about why and how. Its also really important to be persistent! Things often (nearly always!) don’t work first time, so not giving up when the going is tough is v important.

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