• Question: Whats is your most embarrassing moment?

    Asked by sophieekettle to Joel, Kristian, Tim, Venus, Zachary on 20 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Tim Hollowood

      Tim Hollowood answered on 20 Nov 2013:


      not you again Sophie…!
      well as someone once said “yes I’ve had lots of embarassing moments but I can’t quite remember one”

    • Photo: Kristian Harder

      Kristian Harder answered on 20 Nov 2013:


      Ha, my most recent one was on Friday. I was giving a lecture to school kids in our auditorium at Rutherford Lab. It’s a big auditorium, so I wore one of those wireless microphones in my pocket. The lecture started a bit later than scheduled, which was a bit of a problem for me because I had a “I’m a scientist, get me out of here” school live chat scheduled within a few minutes after the end of the lecture. So, when I was done, I rushed out of the auditorium, while the visiting groups stayed in there for the next event, some liquid nitrogen demonstration.
      I sat down joined the live chat, typing a lot and very hard, giggling all the time (that’s what we mad scientists do when chatting 🙂 ), sneezing, talking to colleagues walking past, and so on. Once the live chat was over, I began to calm down and remembered that my phone was still muted from the lecture. So I grabbed into my pocket to get it – and had the microphone from the auditorium in my hand. Still switched on.
      Ooops. 🙂

      Well, of course I’ve had a lot more even more embarrassing things happen to me every once in a while, but I prefer to keep the really bad ones to myself. 🙂

    • Photo: Zachary Williamson

      Zachary Williamson answered on 21 Nov 2013:


      Hi Sophie.

      I…have a habit of erasing embarrassing moments from my memory! Once when I was 17 I chucked a jar of concentrated sulfuric acid down the sink by mistake. When sulfuric acid reacts with water it does so…vigorously. There was so much steam fuming out of the drain I thought I’d opened some sort of demonic portal!

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