-
Asked by anon-198628 to Srinath, Natasha, Nana, Luisa, Gautam, Alex on 3 Mar 2019.
-
Alexander Allen answered on 3 Mar 2019:
Tough question!
Ok several different answers based on my work. The most simple answer is my electron microscope as one piece (and even here I have to cheat because the inside of my system has to be a vacuum so I need lots of pumps too). The second piece would be the computers that control my system. Finally I need a lot of solvents to clean everything up. If I didn’t clean things, then lots of molecules would be flying around inside my system when I was trying to look at things. So really these are the pieces of equipment I need and I have no alternative… So I’m going to continue answering by cheating!
Let me have these pieces of equipment and let me choose 3 more. If I am allowed this the first thing I want is something called a “sputter gun”. This is a special device that allows me to clean surfaces – it works by firing neutral atoms (like Argon, Neon or Helium) at a surface. It works like a canon – if you want to make a surface clean then you need to blast it with atoms that act like meteors and make craters in a surface. If you blast away part of a surface, you also take the little molecules that make it dirty and blast them off with it.
I need two more… OK I want liquid nitrogen! This is -200 degrees and it makes everything cold (obviously). When things are cold, they stop moving and this is important for me. Imagine trying to chase a rabbit but it’s allowed to move faster than you and imagine this is me hunting for molecules at room temperature… If I’m allowed to use liquid nitrogen I can take all of their energy away and I can keep them where they are and look at them.
Finally I want the opposite of liquid nitrogen, I need a heat source! Sometimes I need to make a surface just change shape. If I can heat a piece of silicon to 1200 degrees then the surface becomes a bubbling mass of activity! This means that it will reorganise itself into a lovely shape where we have big atomically flat regions (These are areas of a sample which are not only flat by a spirit level, there is not even an ATOM above or below ground level).
If you use all these tools successfully then Nanotechnology becomes a very VERY interesting field!
-
-
Natasha Dowey answered on 4 Mar 2019: last edited 4 Mar 2019 11:10 am
For field geology, there are a few essentials (including a compass and a hand lens, see photo below!), but my most important tools are my notebook and pencil- so I can sketch the rocks I’m studying. A photo often can’t pick out the really important aspects that geologists want to remember. I can also draw “logs” (example in photo below) which are a simple way of noting how a cliff face varies from base to top (rocks record geological time, so looking at how they vary in a cliff can give you a little window into millions of years of Earth history!).
For my job in the energy industry, my laptop is my most important tool- it’s what I use to run computer models that predict where we may find oil and gas.
-
Marialuisa Crosatti answered on 4 Mar 2019:
It is not easy to answer this question. In modern bacteriology, we rely on many and very different type of equipment that we feel desperate when one of them breaks down. But these are my top three favourite and very likely the ones that I used more often:
– biosafety cabinet: I am classically trained bacteriologist and this means that I grew up using a Bunsen burner; however a cabinet would make easier to grow bacteria without contaminations
– gel electrophoresis/gel documentation systems: these equipment is needed to run pieces of DNA in agarose gel and taking pictures of them
– centrifuge: this equipment allow to spin down heavy staff and separate them from liquid part -
Nana Odom answered on 5 Mar 2019:
Definitely not an easy one! Within the hospital i come across different medical equipment. These i would consider as those i can’t do without.
1. My Computer useful when leading or coordinating projects to organise meetings, share information with all members. Monitor the database that holds all the equipment in the hospital this is useful in instances where a safety alert is issued by manufacturer or regulators, i need to have an inventory to monitor and issue actions to relevant teams.
2. Vital signs simulator – vitals signs are measurement of the most basic functions of the body. These are routinely monitored and it includes body temperature, rate of breathing, pulse rate and blood pressure is often measured alongside and we have 100s of equipment (vital sign monitors) across the hospital site. The simulator allows me to trouble shoot device within the clinical environment when a device is reported as faulty .3. Defibrillator simulator is used to help create a realistic scenario during training of clinical users. The set up also includes a full manikin. A defibrillator is used to deliver a specific amount of electric current to the heart and therefore training cannot be done using live patient hence the use of simulators
Comments
Leigh commented on :
This question is interesting because different scientists, even in the same field, will want different equipment based on their experience and expertise>
I would choose: a particle accelerator (this makes ions of different atoms move very quickly in order to make nuclear reactions), a gamma detector (this allows me to “see” the radiation that the nuclear reactions make), and a computer (in order to collect and use the data from the equipment).
With these pieces of equipment, I could do a lot of things. I could find out what different samples are made of (because they would produce different radiation) or I could damage the materials with radiation and test them to see what changes about them.