• Question: Have you ever done the same experiment twice purely because you thought the results were interesting?

    Asked by budgie2001 to Duncan, Grant, Julie, Nik, Rachel on 20 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Nik Watson

      Nik Watson answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      I do most experiments at least three times as it is important to understand if your experiments are repeatable and what errors are involved.

      This is standard practise in nearly all scientific areas

    • Photo: Julie Bland

      Julie Bland answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      Yes and even more because you need to make sure the result you have got are not due to chance or error in the experiment.

    • Photo: Duncan Gaskin

      Duncan Gaskin answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      There is always the temptation if you get a good result, not to repeat the experiment just in case you don’t get the same good result! But of course we do repeat experiments several times to make sure the result is a true one and not just a fluke.

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