• Question: What is a typical day in your job like?

    Asked by alexck678 to Mark, Matthew, Mike, Paul, Sabina on 7 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by lumiereclair.
    • Photo: Matthew Malek

      Matthew Malek answered on 7 Mar 2014:

      There is no such thing as a “typical day” in my job, Alex! 🙂

      Sometimes, I sit in front of a computer all day long, working on data analysis. Other times, I can spend hours and hours in meetings. Probably the most fun days are when I get to play with hardware — the shiny toys!

      For example, I built a solar powered laser calibration facility in Argentina for the Pierre Auger Observatory. A typical day in that project was to wake at 8am, go into the field and build stuff until lunch. Eat, then build more stuff until sunset at about 8pm. Take pictures of the sunset (which were always stunningly beautiful!) and then go back to town, because it was too dark to work. Get dinner at 10pm — the Argentines eat late — and then, at midnight, start taking data. I would test what we had built that day by firing the laser towards the telescopes of the observatory. Probably do this until about 3 or 4am, then go fall over for four hours of well-earned sleep before getting up to do it again.

      Or here’s another example: During a search for dark matter, I regularly used equipment that had to be made 500 times colder than empty space (which is about 2.7 Kelvin). So each week, I put together an experiment, sealed it inside something called a “helium dilution refrigerator”, and then proceeded to make some of the coldest temperatures in the universe! (0.005 Kelvin)

      Good stuff!

    • Photo: Sabina Hatch

      Sabina Hatch answered on 7 Mar 2014:

      To tell you the truth it depends on how motivated I feel that day… usually if there are deadlines then I am very motivated!

      Sometimes it starts with a session of squash in the gym. Then an essential part of the day is having my coffee in the morning. The rest of the day is either spent in the lab where I make the devices, read journal articles, or analyse data. I am fairly free in my role to structure my day however I want, and I like the freedom. It means that if my brain is not functioning very well that day I can head into the lab and measure devices (which does not require much brain power- just patience). But if I feel physically drained I can sit at my desk and analyse my data or think about the articles I’ve read and come up with ideas.

    • Photo: Paul Coxon

      Paul Coxon answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      There’s no such thing as a typical day 😀

      Last summer we moved into a new building, so for the past 6 months a typical day would be to sit in the office while we waited for our labs to be finished. It was an ideal time to write and referee papers and get all my admin stuff sorted.

      Most days I start by going to the gym. I’m a member of the university’s powerlifting club and the sports centre is literally opposite my office – so I have no excuse for not going.

      Now the labs are finally up and running, I work quite long hours in preparing my samples. The process is quite labour intensive and involves a lot of waiting for various stages of the process to finish before starting the next.

      A lot of time involves reading new scientific articles as they come out. Solar materials is a hot topic, with lots of research going on all over the world – sometimes it’s difficult to keep on top of it all and easy to drown under all the papers!

    • Photo: Mark Jackson

      Mark Jackson answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      I wake up and have coffee (this really is necessary). I go to the office and read which articles have been published that day, especially those which might have any relevance to my own work. The rest of the day is spent thinking, jotting down equations, scribbling them out and writing more. Often I talk with colleagues to bounce ideas off them, or attend lectures. By the end of the day, I often have a headache from going around in circles in my mind. And just before I go to bed, when I’m so tired that I cannot think completely logically, I have a vague idea which isn’t completely thought out but seems like it could have some bearing on the problem. I write it down then go to sleep. In the morning I read this and often realize this was some insight into the puzzle. It’s amazing how many times I made a discovery while very sleepy.

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