• Question: If you could meet any scientist who would you choose?

    Asked by Isabella to Hannah, Joanna, Joe, Luis, Vincent on 20 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Hannah Grist

      Hannah Grist answered on 20 Jun 2016:


      That’s a really interesting question :-). Do you know who you would like to meet?

      If I could go back in time, I think I would like to meet a chap called Leonardo Da Vinci. Lots of people know him because he painted loads of famous paintings like the Mona Lisa. However, he was an incredibly clever man, and also an amazing scientist and inventor. Did you know he drew pictures of how we might be able to build flying machines, using notes he made about how birds fly, over 400 years before we managed to build planes? I think he would be an amazing person to chat to over dinner :-).

      If it had to be someone who is alive today, it would have to be David Attenborough. I think every scientist who works with nature would like to meet him, because he is such an inspiration. Although he doesn’t do experiments, you can see how much is loves and is fascinated by plants and animals, even though he has been watching them for his whole life. He has done so many amazing things, I think I could listen to him talk all day!

    • Photo: Joanna Bagniewska

      Joanna Bagniewska answered on 20 Jun 2016:


      This is a really good question, and a tough one to answer! I think I would choose Marie Curie, because I would like to find out what it was like to be such a successful scientist in a time when women did not have universal access to education (and also because she’s Polish and I’d like to find out more about how she was treated as a migrant in Paris).

    • Photo: Luis Perez Calderon

      Luis Perez Calderon answered on 20 Jun 2016:


      I think Charles Darwin, his work revolutionised biology and he wrote about Natural Selection which was a highly conflicting idea at the time. If I could travel back in time I would like to be his research assistant in the Galapagos Islands.

    • Photo: Vincent Keenan

      Vincent Keenan answered on 21 Jun 2016:


      If I could meet any scientist… Good question! I think since I’m a mathematician I would like to meet Leonhard Euler. He is arguably the greatest mathemetician that ever lived! His legacy is seen in almost every branch of maths! Interestingly, he became blind later in his life, but he actually increased his research output with someone writing down what he told them too! Amzing!

    • Photo: Joe Nunez-Mino

      Joe Nunez-Mino answered on 21 Jun 2016:


      I find it really hard to choose one person. If forced to choose I would have really enjoyed meeting Rachel Carson – she was one of the first people to warn the world about the dangers of pesticides. She fought lots of adversity to speak up for wildlife and people

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