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Asked by anon-197623 to Sonal, Rosanna, Matthew, Marleen, Dan, Atreya on 8 Mar 2019.
Question: What do you think is the biggest scientific breakthrough and why?
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Matthew Selwood answered on 8 Mar 2019:
It may be more of an invention, than a “scientific breakthrough”, so feel free to tell me as much, but I would say it is paper / papyrus. The ability to write down ideas and observations for future generations to learn from and improve. Before this, ideas would be passed on by word of mouth, and if you have ever played Chinese whispers you will know just how quickly ideas are twisted and disappear.
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Dan Porter answered on 8 Mar 2019:
I think the discovery of the atom is a pretty amazing scientific breakthrough. The ancient greeks came up with the original idea of separating stuff into elements, with an atomos being the smallest thing possible. Then scientists a couple of hundred years ago started piecing together the periodic table of the elements, but they still weren’t sure what the smallest bits of matter were. It was only at the start of the last century that scientists performed experiments using x-ray diffraction and other techniques to prove that matter was made up of what we now know to be atoms, with a very dense, positively charged nucleus at the centre and surrounded by negative electrons.
Of course we also no know that we can split atoms into smaller protons and neutrons, and we can even split them into quarks!
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Marleen Wilde answered on 11 Mar 2019:
Matt and Dan already made great suggestions, so I go with a newer one, discovery of X-Rays. All the useful imaging techniques we have now for research or medicine, wouldn’t have developed and exist without that. And it also made radiation therapy for cancer possible.
And funny enough, Dan wouldn’t have his current position at the Diamond Light Source, which mainly works with X-rays, as this facility wouldn’t exist!
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