• Question: Who's your favourite scientist? What's your favourite invention?

    Asked by ambert2003 to Claire, Elizabeth, Manolis, Mark, Zach on 13 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by margota.
    • Photo: Mark Wallace

      Mark Wallace answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      One of my favourite scientists is Rosalind Franklin. You might have heard of Crick and Watson, and how they discovered the structure of DNA. But not many people know that it was Rosalind Frankin that actually did the experiments, and measured the structures. That’s worth a lot more in my book, and it amazes me that she didn’t get the Nobel Prize for this work as well.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin

      Favourite invention? The laser (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser) of course 🙂

    • Photo: Elizabeth Ratcliffe

      Elizabeth Ratcliffe answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Hi Ambert2003,
      I have lots of favourite scientists so its really difficult to choose, one of them Frederick Sanger was the first British scientist to win the Nobel prize twice for his work in genetics. I also think the work of Rosalind Franklin was amazing like Mark. Currently one of my projects is about making gene therapies (using genes to cure disease) and without the work of these scientists my work today would not be possible.
      This site is good for other brilliant scientists
      http://www.favscientist.com/
      I’ve got three favourite inventions!
      1. Glasses – because without them I wouldn’t be able to see beyond the end of my nose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasses
      2. Vaccines – one of the worlds greatest inventions to protect against horrible diseases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine
      3. Antibiotics – taken for granted and and we need new ones but they are amazing and without them todays little infections would be big problems for people and industry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotics

    • Photo: Claire Vinten

      Claire Vinten answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Hi 🙂

      My favourite scientist is Stephen Hawkin. He does lots of cool research comparing really really big things (like black holes) to really really tiny things (like atoms). I also like him because he is very poorly and has to stay in a wheelchair all the time, but that doesn’t stop him doing science and making new discoveries!

      My favourite invention? To be honest, I would have to agree with Elizabeth that antibiotics are one of the most important inventions ever. Can you imagine life without them? All the illnesses that don’t seem too bad now (like a tooth infection) could kill us if we didn’t have antibiotics.

    • Photo: Zach Dixon

      Zach Dixon answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      I quite like the American astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson

      He is very good at communicating science in a very inspirational way!

      My favorite invention has to be the internet! It is crazy the impact it has had on our lives 🙂

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