• Question: if you dont know what an alkines are then why should i pick you as im a year 8 student, and know what it is?

    Asked by mollymoo to Philippa, Kate on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Philippa Demonte

      Philippa Demonte answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      @mollymoo There are many, many different branches of science, and it is impossible to know about everything! You know more than I do about chemistry, but I know more than you about, for example, geology. So through IAS we can both learn something new about science from each other.

      That’s how it works in science in the real world. For example, one person would not study a volcano on their own – there would be a whole team of scientists specialising in different areas such as seismology (studying earthquakes), deformation (the volcano changing shape as magma moves around inside), gas monitoring (which tells us something about how deep / shallow the magma is within the volcano), mapping deposits from previous eruptions (to tell us something about the eruptive behaviour of the volcano), etc, and it’s only when their collective knowledge is put together that we start to understand the volcano.

      I am not going to say ‘You must vote for me!’ – IAS is your opportunity to decide for yourself 🙂

      Now tell me, what’s an alkine?

      Did you know by the way that a pregnant goldfish is called a twit? I learnt that from another scientist yesterday 🙂

    • Photo: Kate Clancy

      Kate Clancy answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi @mollymoo, if your vote is dependent on whether I know what an alkine is, then yes, I guess I’m in trouble!

      First, I would ask you to take a look at my answer to the question “Do you know everything about science”

      /copperj11-zone/2011/06/do-you-know-everything-about-science

      I study the evolutionary biology of the female reproductive tract. Ask me just about any question about a hormone and I can answer it. But while once upon a time I used to know what an alkine is, I certainly don’t remember now because it is not a necessary component of my job.

      Now, like I said in my answer at the above link, I think any good scientist can eventually figure out answers to questions in other fields. But the skill required to answer your question is that I just needed to Google it:

      http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=alkine&aq=f&aqi=g-s5&aql=f&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=a17560d1ef61d5f5&biw=1280&bih=699

      See? I could have cheated, Googled “alkine,” and given you an answer. But I thought you would be more impressed with an honest answer than with my ability to use Google ;).

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