• Question: What was the last thing you blew up?

    Asked by jmallett to Yasmin, Natasha, Karl, Jemma, James, Davide, Craig, Charlie on 24 Jan 2017.
    • Photo: Jemma Rowlandson

      Jemma Rowlandson answered on 24 Jan 2017:

      Explosions tend to be the sign of a bad scientist rather than a good one (unless you are doing them in a controlled way for something like a science show). You should always try to avoid them if possible, so scientists and engineers don’t actually blow things up that often at all.

      Last explosion I had was when I pumped too much gas into a tube which was blocked, and it came apart with a bang. That was about a couple of months ago, but before then I don’t think I’d ever caused an explosion.

    • Photo: Yasmin Ali

      Yasmin Ali answered on 24 Jan 2017:

      I have never blown anything up at work, and I really don’t want to! I work with big machinery that generates electricity and heating, so if it blew up people could get hurt and as an engineer safety of people is my number 1 priority.

      Outside of work… I have blown up coke bottles (doing the coke and metos experiment), and next month I’m helping at a science festival in London where we will have a giant liquid nitrogen volcano eruption!

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