Question: What made you decide to become a scientist?

  1. I decided to become a scientist because the two things I liked most at school were science (biology and chemistry) and English. I like the idea of being a writer, and hopefully I will be one day, but I really liked learning about science, so I decided that was what I wanted to do at Uni. I also thought that I was much more likely to find paid employment in science, and I liked the idea that you can travel all round the world to work as a scientist.

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  2. A continual stream of amazing things I couldn’t explain or thought were beautiful. Reading about space when I was a kid was a big part of it. The awesomeness of stars and planets and distances. I used to love reading books about the future and what kinds of gadgets we might have (still don’t have a TV on my wrist though!) Then I read a lot about dinosaurs and thought they were cool.

    Then in school I started to like physics, and how powerful it was at explaining the world. I was totally knocked out of the park when we did how a rainbow forms. I liked how mathematical equations that looked small and dull could generate beautiful shapes when you actually plotted them.

    Then I learned about DNA and thought there’s no way there’s that much information in each cell – how is it read, and controlled? I saw a DNA molecule animation of the double helix and thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d seen. I then started thinking that organic molecules – the stuff that makes up DNA were interesting because the WHOLE of nature is made up of these molecules – smells, medicines, food, our bodies. And I thought – how is it possible to have order in this chaos of molecules, all interacting with each other. I’m just about starting to understand that.

    Science is amazing though in the way it continues to throw up new things that inspire you. I still get excited at the simplest things – stuff that challenges your view of reality (black holes, anyone?) or stuff that’s just pretty (like the colours on a liquid crystal display when you press it with your finger, or a lunar eclipse).

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  3. I liked finding out how things work and function, and also liked solving puzzles. Other hobbies and pastimes included reading science fiction and playing games like chess. A lot of good science fiction is based on science fact, except for one or two things, where the writer poses the question I wonder what would happen if science turned out a different way? So science fiction inspired me to ask “what if?”

    At school, my best subjects were maths and physics, but at university, I drifted towards a combination of maths and chemistry, and then to what is called theoretical chemistry.

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