I met Dr Ceri Brenner and Prof David Neely at the Central Laser Facility (CLF), part of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory on 16th October 2018. This visit was to follow up on previous collaborations, talk about future projects and to discuss art and science generally.
Topics discussed (paraphrased/bulleted rather than quoted):
AM: How would you define a scientist, or what is scientific research?
CB:
Asking a question
Asking a question thats never been asked before
Pushing forward the sphere of knowledge
Physicist's training shows them how to answer a question. They need to be free from bias, use critical thinking and approach.
A tool to see the world around you
DN:
A scientist wants reproducibility so that they can make a prediction, then test to see if its correct.
There are three types of research: blue sky research, to know more than you knew before; applied research, has a use case often in industry or medicine; something in the middle, with a long term goal, fundamental research with long term visions.
This last example of research given by David Neely is something that happens a lot at the CLF. Nuclear fusion is one such example and many physicist there have worked on related research. This kind of research takes an individual who's not interested in immediate gains, but has much more long term, or fundamental interests. On the subject this long term physics Needly remarked "Imagine telling a college grad that it might take decades, thirty or forty years for a project to come to realisation, a whole career."