• Question: Do you ever struggle or make a little mistake that could cause bad things?

    Asked by knee520hogs on 5 Jul 2025.
    • Photo: Lucy Rycroft-Smith

      Lucy Rycroft-Smith answered on 5 Jul 2025:

      I definitely do struggle – we all have moments where out brains freeze up, we forget something, or we can’t find the right words. Human error is a well-known phrase because it is so common. In terms of maths mistakes, I often have to give medication (to my children or pets) and it strikes me every time how important it is to be able to read, understand and interpret the measurements on the medication – and make sure you can use things like syringes correctly. Luckily I haven’t made a mistake on that so far (to my knowledge!) but I always triple-check

    • Photo: Kelvin Rose

      Kelvin Rose answered on 5 Jul 2025:

      Yes, we are all human! Fortunately, as a water engineer, and like any engineer, I work as part of a team. I might have the final say on important decisions but these decisions are always checked by a number of different people during the process of designing water and sewerage infrastructure. I can also ask for help – if I’m not sure about something, there is normally a specialist somewhere who can help.

    • Photo: Stephanie Buttigieg

      Stephanie Buttigieg answered on 5 Jul 2025:

      Making mistakes is never fun, but it’s something that we all do as scientists. I’m lucky in the sense that my mistakes will never lead to horrible consequences for other people because I just think about black holes! My worst fear is that I publish a big scientific result, and then find out that I made a mistake and it’s all false. This makes me even more careful with my work, and I always make sure I double check everything I do so that I’m as confident as I can be.

    • Photo: Margaret Duff

      Margaret Duff answered on 10 Jul 2025:

      Everyone makes mistakes, and I agree with the other commentators, I am lucky to be in a job where I can make mistakes and there aren’t any big consequences and I have a team around me who is supportive and we share ideas and make decisions together.

      Sometimes when we make mistakes we see interesting things! Sometimes that is when discoveries are made

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