• Question: what has been your best discrvery?

    Asked by coconut to Dave on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Dave Sproson

      Dave Sproson answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi coconut

      I think (though I wouldn’t actually know!) that this is a bit like choosing which is your favourite child ( ie. really hard!). There’s also the problem that science these days tends to move on in small improvements rather than great discoveries.

      That said, I think my best discovery would be when I showed that the sinking of water in the north Atlantic ocean (which is important in controlling the whole ocean circulation) *doesn’t* rely on a particular type of really strong wind near Greenland.

      At the time I thought that this couldn’t be all that important, because I was showing some thing wasn’t happening, but in hindsight this can be just as important as showing that something does happen!

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