• Question: what would you do if you won the lottery

    Asked by my0name0is0plank to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 14 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Murray Collins

      Murray Collins answered on 11 Mar 2011:

      Hi – if I won the lottery I would carry on doing exactly what I am doing now! I really love what I am doing and hope to be able to carry on working in this area.

    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 11 Mar 2011:

      Hi Plank!

      If I won the lottery, I don’t think my life would really change. I would still do my research and live in Edinburgh and work at the university.

      I think the first thing I would do is buy my mum a house because my family live in a flat and she has always wanted a garden. Then I would save up some money for my brother to go to university because he is 16 and he really wants to go to uni but he is worried about how much it will cost. Then I would buy myself a new motorbike because I was in an accident yesterday and my poor bike got pretty badly smashed up 🙁 Then I would take all my friends on a skiing holiday.

      And if I had any money left, I would buy some more chickens. Because chickens are cool.

      From Sarah!

    • Photo: Alan Winfield

      Alan Winfield answered on 12 Mar 2011:

      Hmm. Well I’m pretty sure that I would carry on doing exactly what I do now. I love being a university professor: inventing things, working with my students, and communicating science, engineering and technology so much that I can’t imagine doing anything else. Of course having lots of money would mean that I wouldn’t have to rely so much on getting grants to do my research – I would for instance be able to go and visit and spend time with other roboticists in other countries without having to ask anyone for the money (which is what I have to do now). Another thing I would be able to do is have time off work to write books.

      On a personal level I’m not someone who cares much about posh cars or houses but I would of course use some of a lottery win to help my family and friends. Depending on how much it was I would very much like to use some of the money to support charities. One that is particularly important to me is the Challenging Behaviour Foundation which helps people with severe learning difficulties and their families.

      Of course suddenly getting lots of money changes people (sometimes for the worse) so I really hope that if I did win the lottery I would still feel the same way as I do now!

    • Photo: Caspar Addyman

      Caspar Addyman answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      First, I’d squeal with pleasure then I’d get a bit embarrassed. Not in case anyone heard but because my first degree was in Mathematics. Mathematicians aren’t supposed to play the lottery. Mathematicians ‘know’ that the chances of winning the lottery are SOOOOOOO low that it is silly to enter. The mathematicians are sort of right, but there is more to life than exact calculations. Despite having once been a mathematican I do play the lottery occasionally (I wasn’t very good at maths.) But I still like numbers so let’s pick one. How does £1,000,000 sound to you? I’d like it too.

      And if I won a million pounds, i’d give half of it my family and friends. I have 2 brothers, 3 sisters, a few cousins and quite a lot friends. I don’t deserve it anymore than I do so they can have some too. Then with what was left I’d give a quarter to scientific charties, a quarter to non-scientific charities and a quarter to my university because they changed my life and they’re a bit short of money at the moment.

      So that leaves me? Enough for a big a party and a nice holiday with plenty left over to keep my bank manager happy. If I had wanted to be rich I would have stayed working in banking and ‘high finance’.

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