• Question: What is the best scientific discovery you've ever made?

    Asked by to Roy, Rowena, Kieren on 20 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 20 Mar 2014:

      To adapt a Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Quote:

      “This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the chromium produced on it was toxic for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but mostly I was largely concerned with the movement of small green ions of iron, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green ions of iron that were toxic.”

      The paper I published details how iron ions (charged iron) behaves in molecular sieves, and how it moves about and changes. This is important for my work on reducing chromium to a less toxic form and removing from the environment to recycle back into industry. But I think the HHG quote explains it better. The problem is that real science is pretty nitty gritty detail stuff with tiny steps forward rather than big leaps and I am yet to discover a theory to replace relativity. 🙁 Possibly because this is not my field…

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