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Asked by sukh28 to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 15 Mar 2011 in Categories: Your Research. This question was also asked by squidgeskillz, bigmac95, xdonxmudhilzx, abimeg, bananarama, 07egoodwin, lucyambler, clayton.
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Geoff McBride answered on 14 Mar 2011:
My computer system will help designers and decison makers make good judgements on complex events or systems. It’s a bit like Amazon giving you recomendation on what you like but for much more difficult and complicated descisions.
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Adam Tuff answered on 14 Mar 2011:
My research helps answer one of those big questions – why are we all here? The atoms that make up our body were all once inside a star, but we don’t quite fully understand why we are made of the materials we are. My research field also has a lot of other benefits – it helps develop better detectors, which can sometimes go on to be used for things like airpirt security, as well as develop better accelerators to allow us to perform more high energy experiments, and test out things like cancer treatments.
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Sheila Kanani answered on 14 Mar 2011:
I think my research is a small piece of a much larger jigsaw puzzle, so my research specifically doesn’t benefit mankind but on a larger scale it does.
The reason studying Saturn is so important is because the saturnian system is like a mini Solar System, with a giant gaseous planet in the middle being orbitted by rings and lots of moons. If we can figure out how this system forms and why it is the way it is, then we can use that information to figure out why our Solar System is the way it is, and thus we can try and figure out why we are here. So its really important!
Also, I have a sneaky suspicion that there might just be microbial life living on some of Saturn’s moons, and if this is the case it would impact mankind forever!! -
Suzie Sheehy answered on 14 Mar 2011:
There are LOTS of reasons I think my research in particle accelerators will benefit mankind, but I’m just going to focus on the two I’ve done research in:
The first is finding new ways to treat cancer by using particle beams rather than x-rays. The particle beams are much more accurate and don’t damage as much healthy tissue as x-rays, meaning that cancers can be treated better and with less side effects. (This already exists! Check out Charged Particle Therapy or Hadrontherapy)Another one which I’m currently working on is using an accelerator to drive a completely safe type of nuclear reactor. The idea is that on it’s own, the nuclear core (which in this case would contain Thorium, rather than Uranium) doesn’t fission on it’s own – it needs a very high power source of neutrons to set off the reaction. The accelerator I’m currently designing make a beam of very high power protons which then go on to make neutrons to run the reactor. If anything goes wrong, the accelerator shuts off and the reaction stops, so it’s totally safe! No meltdown possible.
Some of the other benefits are that there’s more Thorium on Earth than Uranium, so we have a much longer supply of it, and that there isn’t anything nasty like Plutonium created, so the “wrong” people can’t make bombs out of the waste. On another note, it would produce a LOT less waste than normal reactors and could even be used to burn up existing radioactive waste! I think it’s a winner all round! (The accelerator design is challenging, but I’m working on that!) If you want to learn more, it’s called an Accelerator Driven Subcritical Reactor, but was first called an Energy Amplifier by Nobel Laureate Carlo Rubbia (who came up with the idea!) -
Robert Simpson answered on 15 Mar 2011:
I am trying to understand how the stars and planets formed. I think that helps us understand our own place in the Universe better and that is important. Opening up your mind is important.
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