• Question: If you had unlimited funds how would you invest them to better the world based on your specific area of research ?

    Asked by Peter Pettigrew (Harry Potter Is Awesome) to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 18 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Well, based on my research I will invest in students to perfect my reactions. If we can reverse the reactions I perform under light, then it will be easy to generate electricity using my chemistry, and therefore we would have an infinite supply of energy by changing sunshine to electricity via a chemical reaction.

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      Unlimited funds would make my work unlimited, so my specific area of research would expand as I employ more people! Eventually I could fund all scientific research (cue evil maniacal laugh: “MWaaahahahahahahaha!”)

      Seriously though – I would have to recruit people – the best possible way to better the world is to educate people and help them understand what it is we are trying to achieve through science. Ultimately they will steer the research and contribute with their own ideas – and this community works together.

      Through education and cooperative work, I believe that unlimited funds can help science better the world in this manner.

    • Photo: Laura Schofield

      Laura Schofield answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      If I had unlimited funds, I’d first of all buy a big citrus fruit farm so I could get lots of fruit peel! Then I’d build a bigger version of the rig I use for my work so I could show it can be scaled up and show governments how it works so they would pass a law that it had to be used! Then I’d start work on how to make other plastics from plant materials so we could stop using fossil fuels to make them!!!

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