• Question: What do you do if your experiment goes wrong?

    Asked by rosieapple to James, Ailsa, Evan, Kath, Ryan on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by football10, mallfunbunny, harria1.
    • Photo: James Hargreaves

      James Hargreaves answered on 12 Jun 2011:

      Hey Rosieapple.
      How you doing? Hope school isnt too much of a bore for you today!
      I guess with my kind of experiments, if it goes wrong me and the other scientists i work with, get a nice tasty treat and we eat it. (assuming it still tastes good)

      Just like any other scientist if my experiments go wrong, i’ll try it again and again until i have the results i want.

    • Photo: Evan Keane

      Evan Keane answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi rosieapple, experiments go wrong all the time! Usually you figure out what the problem was and try again. 🙂

    • Photo: Ailsa Powell

      Ailsa Powell answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Like Evan says experiments go wrong all the time! I tend to work out what went wrong – namely whether I made a silly mistake or if there is a problem with the methods and then I try again. Usually you get there in the end, but when you are doing research sometimes the experiments just don’t work (wrong methods 🙂 ) and you have to think of a totally different way of getting the answer you are looking for.
      It’s all fun though 🙂

    • Photo: Ryan Ladd

      Ryan Ladd answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Experiments can be a nightmare! I’ve had to throw away months of work because it turned out something was wrong with the experiment or the equipment.

      That said, often something going “wrong” in an experiment is as useful as it going perfectly. It can be a really useful learning experience so that your next experiment is many times better than the last.

    • Photo: Kath O'Reilly

      Kath O'Reilly answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Hi rosieapple – the answer is usually – try, try (and try!) again. But sometimes I find it just isn’t possible to get the result. So I then have to think about how to re-phrase the question.

Comments