How many things have you tested

Question: How many things have you tested
- Keywords:
  accomplishment,
  achievement
Asked by Rhys g on 3 Oct 2021.
- Malcolm Macartney answered on 14 Sep 2021:
  
  In research and development, I tested thousands of new compounds in the search for new drugs. In hospital laboratories, hundreds of thousands of patient samples looking for the cause of their illness, or to monitor their progress on treatment, or to look for resistance to their treatment as drug resistant viruses emerge..
- Richard Collins answered on 14 Sep 2021:
  
  I think I have done over 200 experiments!
- Katie Emery answered on 14 Sep 2021:
  
  That would be a lot. I usually perform about 400 reactions a year, which adds up when I think how many years I have been working for. In a year I usually make at least 200 compounds that need to be tested to assess the biological effect of those chemical structures, then they will be tested in other experiments to provide additional data that will help me understand how the compound is moving in the plant and acting at the binding site for example. There are a lot of tests to be done in science 🙂
- Giles Strong answered on 14 Sep 2021: last edited 14 Sep 2021 8:43 am
  
  In my field (experimental particle physics), a typical analysis will take years: first we have to collect data and make compute simulations; then we have to analyse our recordings, and perhaps develop new methods specifically for this analysis; then we document our methods and preliminary results and pass an internal review; after that we are able to produce our final results and document them a second paper, which is again reviewed internally; finally we have the paper reviewed by external experts and eventually make the results available to the public. As an example, I’ve been working on the same analysis for over 5 years and we’re only just getting close to publication.
  
  Of course, we will work on multiple projects simultaneously, so that way we are able to test more things.
- Judy Bettridge answered on 14 Sep 2021:
  
  That depends on what you want to count!
  
  I would say I have tested about six things, because I have worked on about six projects, each testing a different idea.
  
  As an example, for one project, we wanted to test whether having one infectious disease made chickens more or less likely to have another infection (whether infections are correlated).
  
  We collected blood, poo and parasites from 1280 chickens, then tested for 9 different infections. So about 6,500 individual blood tests (but you test them in batches, to make it quicker.) You can also count multiple parasites at the same time in a poo sample. So I guess for this project we did a total of around 1400 separate laboratory tests to get all the disease results. (This bit was a team effort!)
  
  Then I have to “test” the results of each disease against every other disease to find out which ones are correlated – in this case, I made ten different statistical models. As an epidemiologist, these models are what I really regard as my “tests”, that I design to help answer the original question.
- Andrew Hone answered on 14 Sep 2021:
  
  I do maths, so I don’t do real experiments as such. However, the Russian mathematician V.I. Arnold once said “Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap”, so in some sense am doing hundreds of experiments all the time, it’s just they are “thought experiments”.
  
  Actually, this is something which is not really taught properly or encouraged much at school: in real maths research, one doesn’t know the answer to a problem in advance (or sometimes even if there is an answer), so sometimes the only way to make progress is to try lots of small examples and see what happens, and then hopefully feel your way to a solution, if you’re lucky.
  
  Here is an example: every odd number squared is a multiple of 4, plus 1. How would you show this? Well, first you might try some experiments, as follows:-
  
  1 x 1 = 1 = 4 x 0 +1
  3 x 3 = 9 = 4 x 2 +1
  5 x 5 = 25 = 4 x 6 +1
  
  Can you see a pattern? I’ll leave it to you to do your own experiments, and see if you can show it for the square of any odd number. (You can find the answer online, or I can post it later if you like…)
- Pam Harrison answered on 14 Sep 2021:
  
  I haven’t counted, a lot!! My job as an analytical chemist is to test medicines that are in development to ensure they have been manufactured correctly, are safe for patients and have the right amount of active ingredient to benefit the patient. We also test material to see how long it can be stored after manufactured and at what temperature that storage can be at.
- Jacqueline Siu answered on 14 Sep 2021:
  
  Lots!! I ask lots and lots of mini questions every day so that I can eventually answer some big questions.
  
  Sometimes I need to do a lot of mini tests before I can do my big test. Mini tests include testing how many cells I can put on my machine and how much “food” I need to feed my cells to make them grow. Big test would then look at how different “foods” affect my cells.
  
  In terms of big questions, I’ve looked at 4 big questions with thousands of mini questions throughout.

Question: How many things have you tested

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