• Question: did you descover something on your own without any team work?

    Asked by littlechatterbox to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      The two research projects I did before this were mostly done on my own. But they weren’t really a success so I guess not 🙁

    • Photo: Catherine Rix

      Catherine Rix answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      For my PhD I worked on my own most of the time. When you get stuck though it’s always useful to have other people to talk to. Things go much faster when you work as a team!

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Most science these days depends on team work. I have never done a project which didn’t involve at least one or two other scientists, and most of my projects these days involve 200,000 other scientists (mostly citizen scientists) via the Galaxy Zoo project (www.galaxyzoo.org).

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      A lot of what I do is by myself, because it involves a lot of looking down a microscope and working things out, which is hard to do if too many people are trying to do the same thing as well. I quite like working by myself, and I feel extra proud when I’ve worked something out, and I get to take all the credit!

      But some of my best times in science have been when I have discussed my ideas with other people, and we have all shared our theories and come up with a new one that is better than any of the old ones. Working as a team can be really rewarding too, and a lot less lonely than the nights on my own with my microscope!

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      Sometimes, but often you need the whole team to help you—it takes too long to do everything yourself.

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