Today I spent time looking at and thinking about some of the data I collected this week. For the most part, the tests this week were not meant to be ground breaking, but were carried out to understand the conditions of our experimental set-up. After reviewing the same data again and again, I was struck by the consequences of the results.
Later on in the day, when I was speaking with my wife and talking about life as a PhD student, I mentioned this story. The excitement of research is that you can be treading a path, comfortably and confidently, when you come across something seemingly minor which ultimately opens up a whole new world.
Now the analysis from my work this week didn't give me any answers, it's just a bunch of numbers, but it lead my mind to consider a situation that previously I hadn't pictured. In this way I think science (and the process of doing science) is fascinating, that the human brain has the capacity to interpret foreign concepts once confronted with information from physically processes. It's the combination of theoretical and experimental work, the balance of brain and brawn.
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