Thanks from your winner, Dave

Amazing! I’m really excited to have won, especially in a zone filled with so many excellent scientists researching such a wide array of cool stuff.  Thank you so much for voting for me!  If you didn’t vote for me, don’t worry, I forgive you! 😉

It was really brilliant to see so many great questions on so many different things.  In science, it is really easy to focus just on your own research and start to forget some of the other amazing things that are out there.  The breadth of questions made sure I got a chance to think about lots of things that I hadn’t ever thought about before (or at least for a very long time!), so thanks for that too.  I was also pretty amazed by how difficult some of the questions were, that really shows how good they were because the best questions are always the ones you struggle to answer; that is what science is all about really!  Some of the questions were so deep they probably would have been more suited to a philosopher than a physicist, but those are some of the most important questions to ask about the world around us and I hope that you were all satisfied (or at least enjoyed) our answers.

I’d also like to thank the other scientists in the zone.  I’m amazed that you voted for me because they were all so good!  With so many questions, at times it felt less like a competition and more like teamwork, trying to make sure each question got a really good answer from somebody.  Any of them would have been extremely worthy winners, so I’m especially proud to have come out number one!

Now, for me, it’s back to the “real” world, leaving I’m a Scientist behind me and returning to my usual schedule of teaching class and doing research.  I’ve spent so much time answering questions over the last few weeks that I’d almost forgotten what I was working on before.  It’s definitely been a slow week getting back into doing research, but it has been totally worth it.  It has been a great experience being part of I’m a Scientist and getting to talk to you all through chats and questions.  A big thanks to the organisers for letting me take part, and a big thanks to all of you for talking to me!

I’ll follow through on my plan to donate the money to Universe Awareness.  It’s and extremely worthy cause that tries to promote the use of astronomy to inspire the next generation of scientists, developing learning tools and training teachers, particularly in underprivileged areas. The money will be an amazing boost for them, covering the cost of a three-day teacher training workshop in a developing country for up to 30 teachers, which will help provide quality education for hundreds of children – hopefully leading some of them to go on to become scientists!

Again, thank you all so much for making it such fun!
Dave

Posted on July 4, 2014 by modjosh in News. Leave a comment

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