-
Asked by james.m23 to Martin McMahon, Georgia R, Georgia, Eleftheria S, Connie H, Alana M on 4 Nov 2025.
-
Georgia Rowe answered on 4 Nov 2025: last edited 4 Nov 2025 10:37
It can be hard but that is often what makes it so interesting. Scientific research usually starts with a question that we don’t know the answer to, and you have to figure out what experiments or research you need to do to answer the question. Then, when you do find the answer, you have added to the knowledge we have as a species, and I find that really exciting and satisfying.
Sometimes, experiments don’t work the way you hoped, and that can be challenging on a personal level. But, you have to remind yourself that it isn’t personal so long as you did everything correctly, and now there is the new problem solving task of figuring out why it didn’t work! One of my favourite things to do as a scientist is discuss with my colleagues why an experiment went the way it did and working out theories together.
From the perspective of whether science is hard when you’re trying to study it in the first place, I think it can be really hard! I struggled to get my head around a lot of scientific concepts at school, especially in physics. But, you definitely don’t need to be good at ALL science to become a scientist. Whenever I struggled with a particular topic, I would watch youtube videos to try and get it explained to me in a different way, or talk to my friends to see if we could work it out together. I also found the CGP books extremely useful for my learning and revision during GCSEs and A Levels.
-
-
Martin McMahon answered on 4 Nov 2025:
That’s a bit like asking, how long is a piece of string?
Science can be really hard, if the question you are trying to answer is really difficult to find an answer to. However, sometimes it’s really easy, especially when you get lucky and the answer just pops up right in front of you.
If you take a teaspoon of salt, and put it into a beaker of water to see how long it takes to dissolve, it can take several minutes, and can be speeded up by stirring or heating the water. That’s easy science.
If you want to try and measure the size of the universe, STOP, that’s hard science!
Comments
eleanormerson commented on :
Actually, you would be surprised how many of the new ideas I’ve used in product development are rom science I learnt before GCSE, rather than from my degree of A levels. It isn’t always the hard bits that give the best results. Also, it depends on what you find hard. If you think maths is difficult, some parts of science will be tricky. I think the hardest thing in science is picking yourself up and starting again when it all goes wrong. Which it will. Because experiments don’t always work, and that is OK.