Question: have you ever accidently made a mistake

Michael Gillin answered on 23 Feb 2026:

Yes, absolutely.

One of the main things about science is that mistakes and accidents happen. Students often get taught that failure is the best teacher, and it’s right. Simple things like breaking glassware happen frequently, but if you can learn from it (how to hold it more tightly, how to store it properly, etc.), then fewer mistakes happen.

Some of the worst mistakes I’ve made have involved trying to get robots to do chemistry for me. I’ve accidentally stained a £1.2 million robot pink, I’ve damaged the cable to a £20,000 robotic arm, and I’ve crashed into an expensive balance using a robot. But because they happened, I learned from them, made some adjustments to my setups, and everything worked out in the end.