• Question: will your research affect animals, the environment or people?

    Asked by to Aimee, Chris, Dave, Greig, Laurence on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Dave Jones

      Dave Jones answered on 19 Jun 2014:


      That’s a really important question and one that we all have to answer! It’s really important, no matter what research you are doing, to make sure that it doesn’t cause harm. Nothing is so important that you need to find out about it by hurting people or animals or the environment. So, whenever we ask for money for our projects we have to explain how it will affect these things and how we are trying to make sure we don’t cause any problems.

      My research is nice in that it doesn’t have very much impact on these things. We build our telescopes in remote places, far away from animals and people, so they don’t have very much impact. They do have a little impact on the environment just because we need quite a lot of energy to power our computers and giant telescopes, and this can contribute to pollution. So, it is really important for everyone (us included) to try and push away from fossil fuels towards cleaner forms of energy like nuclear and renewables.

    • Photo: Laurence Perreault Levasseur

      Laurence Perreault Levasseur answered on 19 Jun 2014:


      The research that I do has to do with developing a better theory of nature, one that is more complete than the ones we have at the moment. So right now, it mostly involves thinking very hard and writing a lot of equations, so using pen and paper.

      So, right now, what I do has close to zero consequences for the real world, the environment, the way humans live, or animals. However, it’s possible that in the future, in a way that I can’t imagine now, some people use my results to invent something very important that will greatly help the environment, cure illnesses, or improve our life quality!

      This is usually how science works. Theorists develop a better understanding of nature, experimentalists test it and more applied scientists, engineers and inventors use it to develop new technology! And this has happened before! Our current theory of the infinitesimal world is called ‘quantum mechanics’. When it was developed, in the first half of the 1900s, it was completely theoretical and everyone thought that it would never have any consequences on the real world.

      But then some other, more applied, scientists and some engineers came along and used that theory to invent really amazing things that eventually really changed the world: computers, internet, cellphones, electron microscopes, radiotherapy, and so many other great things! All that wouldn’t have been possible if the theorists hadn’t developed quantum mechanics in the first place.

    • Photo: Aimee Hopper

      Aimee Hopper answered on 21 Jun 2014:


      I’m really hoping that my work will eventually help in AT LEAST curing cancer. So will have a massive affect on people 🙂

    • Photo: Greig Cowan

      Greig Cowan answered on 23 Jun 2014:


      The research that I do doesn’t directly affect animals, the environment or people. However, some of the work carried out at the CERN laboratory (where I work) does have an impact on new medical radiation treatments. This stems from the same technology that I use in my research.

      CERN was also the place that invented the World Wide Web, so that has definitely had an effect on people! It was first invented as a way for scientists to share and organise information easily and freely with each other. However, it soon caught on with everyone and I think it would be difficult to imagine life without the Web now!

      Some other work that is being done at CERN is by an experiment called CLOUD. They are studying the exact conditions that are required to make different types of cloud in an attempt to better understand their role in the Earth’s climate.

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