• Question: What do you think of the value of your work even though there are studies that perhaps further benefit people like cancer studies??????

    Asked by fatinandrichie to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 21 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Andrew Cairns

      Andrew Cairns answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      This is an interesting question, especially because in the media everyone talks about curing cancer, people having cancer or other diseases, etc. The point is perhaps, why isn’t everyone working on this problem?

      It is important to remember two things. Firstly, whatever way my brain is wired I am not very good at the type of chemistry that might be able to come up with an answer. Nor does most of the world – anyone who is good enough to understand this major challenge are working on it! A huge, huge amount of time and money are spent every year on cancer research every year.

      The other point is that, indirectly, a lot of things that may not seem related help a lot. New techniques, for example at ISIS or in other central facilities, and programmes written by scientists help other scientists to work out the answer. Furthermore developments in computers etc help to speed up the processing power we have available, therefore meaning we can tackle more complex challenges.

      All research is valuable, it is what makes civilisation great. Whether that is scientific investigation for the sake of doing it, or looking into poems, or art, it all helps to make sure society moves forward.

    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      Not every scientist can be engaged directly in solving such problems. As Andrew sort of suggested, I think it is often assumed in the media that all scientific effort should be put towards these things and only these things – but I’m not so sure this is really true.

      I can’t stand here and say “all scientific work in someway will help towards studies on cancer” that’s just not true either – but I think many medical studies are vastly aided by advances in other areas of science. This could be in the creation of automated test environments, robotic control, drug discovery at major facilities (ISIS, Diamond, ILL, ESRF etc), other materials work at these facilites, improved data analysis tools and algorithms, expansion of computing power and cloud computing – these are but a few of the other areas of science that can be used by medical researchers to help them – although it’s probably not the main goal of the scientists originally working on, cloud computing, say.

      That’s the great thing about science. People are working on many many things, but links between things can be found and it’s often of benefit to others.

      I work as an accelerator physicist at ISIS. My job description is basically “help run the accelerator and design upgrades for it, and any future accelerators” but by ensuring the accelerator is top notch and making plans to make it even better in the future I am enabling other scientists to do their fantastic work – so to me, my work is very valuable! And the neurtons I help produce are probably going towards grand challenges, one example of which is medical research, so it’s all helping in the grand scheme of things.

    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      Particle Physics benefits society in two ways.

      The one governments like are the indirect benefits… so in the pursuit of better particles beams, more accurate detectors and more effective computer programs particle physics has ended up developing new cancer treatments (from precise particle accelerators) higher precision medical scanners (small accurate particle detectors) or even better image search results (effective computer programs).

      Of course we can’t predict these benefits in advance… only afterwards. But if we don’t invest in driving particle physics now, who knows what we’ll be missing out on?

      Secondly, particle physics is about the exploration of the Universe and improving our understanding of how our Universe works. I strongly believe that the pursuit of knowledge is of intrinsic benefit to society as a whole. I believe that as we learn more we are bettering ourselves and improving the quality of life for everyone. In the same way that art enriches our lives, so does scientific knowledge. I think this alone justifies our continued investigations of all science.

      I’m not solving things like cancer, but, like Andrew I wouldn’t be any good at that any way.

    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      I think my work contributes towards cancer studies and also energy research and so i think it ticks those boxes which i do think is important to me because i feel strongly about those subjects, however there are so many subjects to feel strongly about that i think all research is valid… maybe except things like weapons research which i disagree with but then that depends of a persons political/ethical stance and it would be a fib if i didn’t mention that fusion physics isn’t pretty similar to bomb physics… all high energy and density 🙂

      It is also very difficult to know where the next breakthrough will come from, for example researching some interesting chemical for something like plant growth may lead to some new understanding of treatments for humans or animals problems.

      I think the key is to work at something you feel is valuable… that way you will put your heart into the subject which is something can not really be attained any other way and which there is no substitute for. 😀

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