• Question: what did you invent so far

    Asked by nadona2001 to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 26 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by wiktor123, whjamieandrhys, whlauryn.
    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Hmmm I’m not sure I’ve really invented anything so far. I’ve discovered things about the bacteria I study but I didn’t invent those things.

      I bet some of the other scientists have invented things though…

    • Photo: Michael Cook

      Michael Cook answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      I haven’t invented much that’s really new! ANGELINA is a new piece of software, and it’s doing some quite new things (it can read the Internet to see what people think about famous people, and remember that to use later, for instance!) but I’m not sure it’s a really big invention.

      Early on in my PhD I thought I had invented a new kind of algorithm (an algorithm is a list of instructions you can get a computer to follow, sort of like a recipe). I was really pleased! I started doing lots of experiments and thinking about it, when suddenly… I discovered someone had already thought of my idea! Gah!

      That happens quite often in science, though. You have to be really careful to make sure you’re inventing something new!

    • Photo: Blanka Sengerova

      Blanka Sengerova answered on 26 Jun 2012:

      Like Emma, I’m more on the path to discover things. But I guess I could say to have invented all the various contraptions when you need to make sure your water bath (for example) is in exatly the right place, with the tubes held in a particular position? But maybe that’s not really fair as plenty of others have invented the same sort of thing…

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