Mine Video Diaries: Mike

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I think the highlight for this programme for me was Hermione getting that cloud chamber to work. I’ve said it before but she was thrown in at the deep end, that really was a difficult challenge. And one of the wonderful things about Rough Science, and I’ve been involved in with six series now, one of the wonderful things is when you hear the squeal of delight from somebody on the other side of the workshop when they’ve got something to work that they’ve been persevering over for a day, two days and it hasn’t been working, and suddenly it all goes right. And I think that’s instructive for people who are interested in going into science is that it’s, well it’s like life, I mean it’s not all about success, you’ve really got to be able to accept failure.

And some people would say there’s no such thing as failure because if things go wrong, well it can still direct you to, you know, a good resolution. And science is difficult, it is difficult, and it’s difficult doing it under Rough Science conditions. The people that write in and email after the programme when they say oh, you shouldn’t have done that or she shouldn’t have done that, I would have done it this way, well I just wish that those people were supplanted into a Rough Science context and given the challenges to do because you really do get so focused sometimes and this is wrong because it’s bad science really, you get so focused into a particular way of thinking about things and you just go at it and you don’t look at the alternative possibilities.

And I think that happened for me in a way today, because once I’d started designing those sieves and the safety lamp, there was really no way we could modify what I produced in the end to make it work if it didn’t work. And so it really was, I was crossing the Rubicon and I was committed. But it all worked out in the end, and usually it does. Like in life it usually works out in the end, in science it usually works out in the end, but it’s hard work and there’s a lot of heartbreak and a lot of, you know, you just feel down, but you stick at it, and if things don’t go right then just go for a walk for five minutes in the hills. And here, we’re so lucky in Colorado because if you just go, leave the mill for five minutes, get away from the production team and the other scientists and just look around you, it can clear your head and you can come back to it and you’ll have a different view on things.

But I’ve really had a good time, really had a good time, this challenge. I didn’t think it was difficult when I started but I introduced some difficulties, mainly that was just me, but yeah, it’s been good and I think we’ve got some - we’ve got a cracking television programme out of it. Yeah, I’m pleased. I’m going to sleep happily tonight, yeah, sleep well.