I want to do experiments but its not cheap
I’ve spent most of my academic life doing theoretical physics. But now, I’m trying get more involved with experiments at home. My dream is to able to write about the theory of interesting physics, whilst also being to test it in my living room at my own leisure. Think Grandpa Rick from Rick and Morty. Or Uncle Tungsten from Oliver Sacks’ memoir.
Testing physics with physical experiments is the only way to know that you’ve got it right. And for me, the consequentialism is more fun. I’ve been trying to do experiments on quieting fans and also on positive pressure, and the satisfaction that I got from doing these things has surpassed some of the theory stuff that I’m working on.
Doing experiments also allows one to generate interesting questions from the nitty gritty stuff that needs to be done in making things. For example, I'm trying to make my house positively pressurised, and it has made me realised that there are loads of interesting questions, down to the choice of glue used to seal gaps.
Right now, everyone seems to be interested in AI, computation and theory. So I am excited at the idea of working in the exact opposite - unsexy, physical, and empirical work.
There is a big reason why I’ve been avoiding experiments from the beginning, though. And that is cost. I suspect that this is true for most independent scientists. Paying for instrumentation is expensive. For my biohardening experiments, I had to get a manometer, as well as a CO2 and particle counter. Both cost around $180, and this is a lot for someone to spend on. Paying for materials is worse because they are variable costs. Paying for the space in London for your tools feels impossible.
I’m really grateful that I’ve had some level of disposable income for my career. One solution I’ve tried is reducing cost through cutting down on spending of my holidays.
But one way I see value in doing experiments myself is that it’ll force me to figure out creative ways to make cheaper instruments or methods. Freeman Dyson has previously written about tools driving science, and I’m really interested to dig into what I can optimise from a cost perspective. Even today, I had to order some pretty expensive filters for a homemade air purifier project. But are there other cheaper filter alternatives lying around? That’s a pretty interesting question.
