• Question: What/Who was your inspiration to become a scientist?

    Asked by chloehession to Sinead, Jessamyn, Eleanor on 11 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Sinead Cullen

      Sinead Cullen answered on 11 Nov 2013:

      My Science teacher in Secondary School was my inspiration to work in Science. She made it so interesting and thought it with such passion it was amazing!

    • Photo: Eleanor Holmes

      Eleanor Holmes answered on 11 Nov 2013:

      I had a few times in my youth when somebody told me I was wrong about something. No debate, no explanation, just “Your answer is incorrect”. Now I’ve been wrong about many things and will continue to be wrong about many more. But every now and then I am told I am wrong about something that I KNOW I am not wrong about because I have done the experiment.

      When I was about 8 I was asked the question “What colour do you get if you mix Red, Blue and Yellow?” and I answered, quick as a flash and full of confidence “Brown!” – now I know what you are thinking, the correct answer is Black. Everyone knows if you mix the primary colours in equal parts you get black. That’s the point. But I had done this very thing with paint a thousand times and let me tell you, every time you get brown.

      And here lies the problem. There were two things wrong with the question I was asked. Firstly, it did not say “Equal parts” and secondly the primary colours are not really Red, Blue and Yellow. They are very specific shades of those colours called Cyan, Magenta and, well, Yellow. So I was not wrong. Even though the card said I was, the question was inexact. And that annoyed me as an 8 year old so much that I began to look at everything though that lens of experiment and exactness and from then on I was a scientist.

    • Photo: Jessamyn Fairfield

      Jessamyn Fairfield answered on 11 Nov 2013:

      I had a lot of inspirations to go into science, because my hometown is full of scientists. It’s a small town in New Mexico with a national lab, so my parents and most of my friends’ parents were all scientists. I had science in school, but also in Scouts and at home and everywhere! So I was taught to be curious about the world from a young age, and knew a lot of people who were very happy exploring the world through science, and that’s much of what led me to become a scientist myself.

Comments

  • Photo: Adam

    Adam commented on :

    I have two inspirations,

    There’s David Attenborough. His nature documentaries first got me thinking about the world around and sent me off to read as much as I could about science.

    The other is my secondary school physics teacher, who always pushed me to the best I could do!