• Question: From a school going age were you always interested in science or did this love for science develop later on it life?

    Asked by aoifeomara to Arlene, Colin, David, Eugene, Paul on 10 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by ciarano, rebeccaodriscoll, paddy123, nicolemckibben14, hgraham720, jman2641999, melissacalnan, mellieb4.
    • Photo: Paul Higgins

      Paul Higgins answered on 10 Nov 2012:

      As a kid, I was always interested in dinosaurs, space, dinosaurs in space, spaceships, time-travel, aliens, etc… I didn’t really consider becoming a scientist until I was in high school and took physics in my junior year (~16 years old). I had an amazing energetic (slightly mental) teacher who was also the cross country running coach. She taught us about “center of gravity” by having us try to run and jump over hurdles. She taught us how sound travels in air, by lining up a bunch of students and giving the first one a hard push, and we watched a “sound” wave travel through the line of students as they bumped into each other. Then she spaced out the students a bit and did it again, and the wave traveled more slowly- sound speed is proportional to density! One of the best ones was when we went outside to one of the students’ “pimped-out-rides” to learn about how sound is vibration. He had a massive subwoofer in the back of his car- he turned up the volume and dropped the bass on some rap song, and you could see the speaker cone moving in and out like crazy! I just thought, physics is amazing…

    • Photo: David McKeown

      David McKeown answered on 11 Nov 2012:

      I think from about 14-15 I started to get interest in Science, I didn’t really know much about it until then. I liked lego and things like that when I was a kid, but I think everyone does, The older I got the more like science, now I read popular science books on top of learning in school. Now I visit science museums when I go on holidays and I also try to give talks myself on science topics so I can share my love with other people. Like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFaj9UyK6sw

Comments

  • Photo: aoifeomara

    aoifeomara commented on :

    Now that is an awesome Science Teacher I would love to have!
    And a great way to find out about physics in a very fun, cool way!

  • Arlene O Neill commented on :

    NOPE!!! In fact I thought I hated it, until I moved house and moved school when I was 14. The new school made me take up science for the junior cert in the junior cert year! I was so annoyed about having to take it up and look at me now, going into my 9th year of studding physics! Sometimes I say science chose me rather than me choose it 🙂