Question: What has been you most interesting discovery or something that has really inspired you at the work place ?

Hayley Smith answered on 16 Nov 2011:

Hmm, that’s a toughie – there’s a few I could mention!

In terms of inspiring: I just love coming to the lab each day, knowing it’s a great centre for UK science and there’s loads of cool stuff going on – it’s a pretty inspriational way to start your day!

But I also get to give tours to school groups, and talks, and that’s inspirational too, in that I’m helping to expose the wider public to the science that’s going on.

The most interesting discovery…
Well, I did an evening shift on the particle accelerator the other week (this happens maybe every month or so) and something happened that’s never happened before! We were dipping a target into the beam, and normally we see a sharp peak kind of signal on the oscilloscope. But this time we saw a double peak – why was this? We don’t know! And we still have no idea a few weeks on! It’s crazy! Something must have happened, or be happening that we aren;t aware of, or arent’ thinking about… So I’ve got another experiement scheduled for next week to see if the results are repeatable… who knows! I don’t know wether it’s a discovery, or interesting, or what yet really – it may just be me being a bit stupid… but that’s the fun, we don’t know, it’s exciting!