• Question: Will your work create new knowledge or will it impact other peoples lives at all?

    Asked by helenc to Poonam, Patience, Joseph, Hywel on 14 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by caveof.
    • Photo: Dr Hywel Jones

      Dr Hywel Jones answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      New knowledge is the prime reason I do science. My work is driven by discovering new things about existing materials or developing new materials, for example, how well they work as armour or as a wear resistant part.
      Yes my work has some impact, although perhaps not as direct as some people working in medicine of bio-research. (see some of my other answers to similar questions for some examples)

    • Photo: Joseph Cook

      Joseph Cook answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      All scientific research has the potential to create new knowledge and/or impact on people’s lives. It varies a lot as to how significant the impact will be and in many cases it is very difficult to predict the impact that work will have and how long it will take to have that impact.

      I hope that my work will create both new knowledge and a postive impact, but realistically it would probably be quite a long time before work like mine had a noticeable impact on everyday life. This is because it is a very long process developing new materials and even if new materials are identified as having great potential, there are many tests that need to be run to make sure that they are safe in any situations that they would be used.

      However, promising advances would often be published in a journal so that other scientists can read about them and potentially use any new knowledge in their work.

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