• Question: Are you going to put any of the money towards cancer research?

    Asked by elimeshrewsbury to Jack on 16 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Jack Miller

      Jack Miller answered on 16 Jun 2013:

      Hi Elimeshrewsbury,

      This most honest answer is probably what I should give first — the rules of I’m a Scientist state that “The £500 is to be spent on a science communication project, to publicise or communicate your research or research area”. This firmly rules out cancer research, I’m afraid!

      Don’t worry, however. Cancer research is relatively well funded — it’s always hard to get grants to do work, but you do usually somehow scrape the cash together in the end. My work is supported by a whole host of different organisations, and it’s very expensive — I’m funded by Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation (as we also use this technique to look at heart disease), the UK’s funding bodies (i.e. the taxpayer), and I also recently won a £23k grant to pay for my consumables from a fund set up by the Oxford University Press (which, incidentally, supports the university and the people who work there).

      Science communication, on the other hand, is very important. It’s entirely likely that someone out there your age has the ability to solve difficult problems that nobody else can, but doesn’t know it yet. It would be a real shame if they never got to experience how fun what we do can be, or how rewarding it is, through reasons outside of their control. If we get loads of people interested in science as a whole, then some of them might take it forward and end up having successful careers as great scientists — and those that don’t will have a better understanding of what it is that scientists do, and why it’s important. Both of these are a good thing, and it’s always nice to have an excuse to throw buckets of liquid nitrogen around!

      If I did win the money, I’d put on a big day of activities filled with fun things for people in my local area — the physics department I work with has a lot of cool kit we can use, and lots of experience in doing just this (Stargazing Live Oxford attracted about 2000 people). I’ll even try and re-build the levitating trainset!

      Hope this helps,

      — Jack

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