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Asked by brightashalogen to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 14 Mar 2011 in Categories: Your Research.
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Alan Winfield answered on 14 Mar 2011:
Well I have to say that I *do* think engineering is really important and I don’t think I’m saying that just because I’m an engineer. The modern world depends on engineering. Think of transport: roads, bridges, cars, trains, aircraft – all engineered systems. Energy: we rely on engineering to provide electrical power. Water: also needs electricity to power pumping stations, and for purification plants. Health: hospitals and medicine reply hugely on engineered systems, everything from electric thermometers to MRI scanners and surgical robots. Communications and computers: mobile phones, TV and radio, games machines, computers and the Internet, all engineered systems.
In fact I would say that most science wouldn’t happen at all without engineering to design and build the instruments and machines. Physics, for instance, needs engineers to build things like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Astronomy relies on engineers to build telescopes (both radio and optical), and space exploration is – ultimately – a huge engineering as well as scientific challenge.
So, yes I do think engineering is really important. Without it we wouldn’t have the modern world.
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Sarah Thomas answered on 14 Mar 2011:
No I don’t think my field of research is more important than the others. Ok, cancer research is important because it causes a great number of deaths in the UK and the current treatment options are not perfect. But there is a wide variety of science represented in this group and they all have an impact on our lives. Science isn’t just about saving lives, it’s about helping people, building better communities, helping our planet, and solving lifes problems!
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Murray Collins answered on 14 Mar 2011:
Blimey, tough question. Yes definitely! Just kidding…right….I’m going to say that I think the field I am working in is quite important practically, in the sense of working out the best way to manage the natural environment. I am working on a project which will directly change the use of an area of forest in Sumatra, Indonesia, which should prevent a huge amount of carbon emissions.
Some of the other people I work with in this field the UK are directly involved in national and international policy making, for things like the UN convention on climate change meetings (like the one in Copenhagen last year). These policy decisions can have quite a large impact on our lives, and on the lives of people in other countries, largely because they affect the way we use natural resources. Of course these decisions affect how well we manage to deal with the rather large problem of climate change. And I think that’s very important.
But then there are lots of other problems we face immediately, especially on a personal daily basis – things like disease. Sorry to fudge the answer to your question, but that means that lots of things are important, but in different ways. Areas of research that don’t seem to be directly useful at first sometimes also lead to interesting discoveries. So we need to prioritise combinations of different types of research. More people now seem to be working in different areas at the same time, being interdisciplinary, so that you can look at questions and problems in different ways (I am trying to work in both economics and zoology for instance). I also think I am going to ask Alan to build me a robot to explore the jungle with.
Thanks for the question!!!!! See you in one of the chats.
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Caspar Addyman answered on 14 Mar 2011:
No, no single field is the most important. The world is so big and complicated that all sorts of different things are very important to understand. Curing disease, Climate Change, Green energy technology, etc, etc. And each one of those is also so huge and complicated that no-one person understands it all. Even then, psychology isn’t ‘as important’ as those but it is still good to have people studying it.
However, psychology is the science that I find most interesting personally and therefore it is the one that I enjoy the most and the one in which I can make the most difference.
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