• Question: Do you prefer working "hands on"?

    Asked by jakehaighting to Hayley on 23 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 23 Nov 2011:

      Absolutely! For me, the answer is definitely yes… I’m far better actually doing an experiment, “hands on”. This is where I feel I gain most of my understanding, and has always been the way throughout school, University and now work too…

      Although now, at work, since I work on a particle accelerator it’s hard to do “proper hands-on” stuff because the beam causes the surrounding materials to become radioactive so there are necessary measures to ensure the safety of all staff. But I do still get to do experiments, and to me they are still “hands-on”… I get to work in the control room, and operate the buttons that essentially control the beam, so to me, this is pretty hands on! It’s really great to see the effect you are having on the beam (it’s position, it’s size, etc etc).

      I’m actually going to be helping with an experiment tonight! There’s an experiment called the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiement and for this they need to dip a target into our beam of high energy protons. The interaction of the target with the protons causes pions to be produced which then decay into muons which they then track and use. (To be honest, I don’t really know the ins and outs of this, I just know what I do for them, which is what I’ll explain now…) For their experiment to work effectively it’s easier if the beam is closer to their target, so what I’m going to be doing this evening is experimenting by altering magnet settings (from the control room) to try and move the beam towards the target at the exact moment they want it there… there are a lot of different factors to consider, but I’m looking forward to it 🙂

      I get to do experiments every month or so, but the majority of my work is theoretical, mainly computer modelling. So writing software to try and simulate stuff happening in particle beams. This is good also, but I’m not as good at it as experiments and I find it harder to understand – so yes, back to your original question, I much much much prefer working “hands on”! But many of my colleagues prefer the theoretical side – there are many avenues you can take as a physicist!

      How about yourself?

Comments

  • Photo: Peta

    Peta commented on :

    Definitely… hands on is the most fun bit. I love working in the lab with the laser and optics and all the other scientists. I am also constantly doing little experiments outside of work as well as in because it’s so fun…

    This years experiments:

    Does it matter if you sieve flour when making scones and cakes?
    – I tested this by making two batches of scones with jam and crean. One has been sieve, hand the butter rubbed in properly and the other one just had the ingredients chucked into the bowl and mixed… no one could tell the different. Sieving… what a con! 😉

    Do bean seeds care which was you plant them?
    – I tested this by doing 2 of each possible orientation and seeing what happened… suprise suprise they all grew but they emerged at different times.

    Does doing 100 sit-ups a day give you a flat six-pack stomach?
    – Nope 😉 Tried it for a month… it does make your stomach a lot stronger though.

    Does it matter if you warm the tea-pot or not?
    – This one i had wanted to do for a while but only found someone with two identical tea-pots about 2 weeks ago… No it does not matter (to the measurement accuracy of my tastebuds.
    – Milk before or after did make a reproducible taste difference. I prefer milk before… but it’s more faffing to do so i don’t often do it.

    Does spirite increase the lifetime of cut flowers?
    – This i tested by having some cut flowers, treating them all the same in two vase but adding some spirite to one… they all died at the same time… hence the web was wrong about that one! 😉

    So you see you can experiment with anything at anytime and anywhere… let get started and find out really what’s what 🙂

    😀

  • Photo: jakehaighting

    jakehaighting commented on :

    I love working hands on myself, this way i can get a full idea on what i am actually doing 🙂
    Particle accererator sounds cool i think i would enjoy doing this alot 🙂

  • Photo: jakehaighting

    jakehaighting commented on :

    And Peta i think your little experiments are really cool i think you should keep it up! ;)x

  • Photo: Hayley

    Hayley commented on :

    Yes, I agree – hands on is a great way to learn.

    Here’s a link to a video of how our accelerator works / what it does, in case you are interested further…
    http://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/learning/accelerate-this-a-tour-around-the-synchrotron11102.html
    http://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/science/a-video-tour-of-the-isis-facility4469.html

    I’m biased, but I think accelerators are cool too (although I didn’t really know much about them at school – we only learnt about them for 2 lessons at A-Level) so if you are interested then definitely take a look at the videos to get a sneeky peak at what’s actually going on!

    Peta’s experiments are indeed very cool – I think most of what I do is an experiment in someway at somepoint, and I just keep refining things until I find things that work 🙂

  • Photo: elliemunro

    elliemunro commented on :

    I think you do a good job