When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A scientist. I got my first chemistry set when I was 6 years old, and remember pestering my mother to be able to do experiments on boxing day. Even before that, I remember mixing kitchen materials up in a saucepan and heating them to see what would happen. I also froze things to see if it made any difference. There was for many years a purple stain in my mothers sink from when I used potassium permanganate in my experiments. When at secondary school, I helped out at an open day – doing the exploding hydrogen demonstration. I let rather too much hydrogen into the flask, and got a much bigger bang than I, or those watching, expected. Scary but GOOD! I also wanted to make a linear induction motor (which requires 3-phase current – rather dangerous stuff), and discovered that the school actually had a 3-phase current supply. I could not understand why the physics teacher did not think it a good idea! My interest in ‘demonstration’ chemistry began when I was a post graduate at university. I was taught to make dry ice bombs by fellow students and how to explode hydrogen filled balloons on the ceiling by my supervisor! And some other antics that are perhaps best not reported here…
Who or what inspired you to become a scientist?
Don’t know, just am a scientist through and through.
