• Question: what is the most challenging experiment?

    Asked by iluvwilmas to Adam, Joanna, Louise S, Louise W, Marcus on 20 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 20 Nov 2012:

      Hi!

      That depends on what scientist and what area of science, really! A lot of experiments are really challenging because they might require you to concentrate for a really long time and keep very focused and alert. For example, in science sometimes you need to measure several parameters several times over a set time (so measure the same thing again and again for long times – even 24 hours or more, so it can be challenging to stay awake!). In fact, a fellow scientist in my lab had to feed different diets to mice and weigh their poo every few hours – this must have been challenging because he had to start in the middle of the night (because mice are nocturnal) and also keep an eye on which mouse did which poo – not to mention pick up all the poo!!) – I am grateful I don’t have to do anything like that!

      But a big challenge in science that lots of physicists are working in is to find out what exactly everything is made out of. You may have heard about the search for the “Higgs Boson” – it is hypothesised to be the smallest particle in existence and scientists are trying to understand it. They may have evidence that it exists (which was an extremely challenging experiment taking over 50 years) but they don’t know everything about it…yet!!

    • Photo: Adam Paige

      Adam Paige answered on 20 Nov 2012:

      There was an article in the news today which might count. There is a physics theory called supersymmetry (I dont know much about it). This theory might explain “dark matter” (matter that we think must be in galaxies to explain the way they spin and move, but we can’t see).

      Anyway, the theory predicts that when a particle called the Bs meson decays, it should sometimes form two muon particles. The large hadron collidor team have been watching Bs meson decay to look for these particular pieces. They have found that it only decays to give two muons like this three times out of a billion. Which means they had to analyse billions of Bs meson decays in order to see only a handful of muons formed. Sounds like dedication to me!

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