The Lab Emotion Function

Seeing a movie with scientists working in a lab is always exciting. Remember Jurassic Park? It was even part of the tour! But is reality like the movies? I guess you already know I will say... no.

One time I spent 30 hours straight measuring in the lab, with short pauses to eat. I needed those measurements processed in time for a conference paper. Time spent in the lab is hard work hoping you will capture enough data to investigate the phenomenon underlying your research.

Hope.

The word that characterizes most emotions in a laboratory. But making measurements is often just 20% of the time. The rest is spent assembling your experiment. And OMG... it takes time, patience, resilience and a lot of coffee!

The last experience I had was putting a high-speed camera to work. The equipment was new and the communication between the camera and the PC is made through an Ethernet LAN cable. You need an IP address for the camera, an updated version of the camera software, and an updated firmware. Everything was fine, and we checked if the PC was communicating with the camera. However, the software didn't detect the camera. Sh!*?#! We took a week to realize it was the anti-virus program. Go figure.

Another time I had a noise in temperature sensors that didn't allow us to measure anything. We changed cables, thermocouples, power source... nothing worked. Until we changed the PC monitor. "What!?!!" Exactly! The monitor was introducing noise in the entire electric network, jeopardizing our measurements.

Still another time, in this case while measuring, the noise in measurements started at 9a.m. and ended at 4p.m. Yes. At least we knew someone in the building was rigorous in their public service schedule! But I had to leave my wife and kid at home to go make my measurements over night.

Disappointment is part of our daily work in a lab... until there's that Spark! That idea that sets us in motion and we gain hope again.

Don't be fooled by movies. Movies rarely show these things and people think working in a lab is always successful and we have unlimited resources.

It's not like that. At all! Unless, obviously, you work in a highly funded lab, with a lot of technical support. Most labs aren't like that. Most of us strive to be rigorous in our experiments with the few resources available. But let me tell you something. We have so much fun because we LOVE doing science, no matter how hard in can be.

Uncovering the mysteries of this world, its hidden realities, is our driver. We have ups and downs. Constantly working in the Hope-Hype-Disappointment-Spark-Hope-Hype... cycle. This is our emotional periodic function.

But there's this final thought when we ask ourselves: even if we love what we do; even if we uncover hidden realities; what's the point? What does that tell about... you?

Is the research journey a purely scientific one, or something more?

My experience is this: you discover who you are.

People wrongly think science is (im)personal, but it's not. Science is personal. It depends on the person, but that's another story...