Question: Does your work improve other peoples lives?

Dean Whittaker answered on 16 Jun 2010:

Not directly. We do very basic research so it’s often difficult to see the application. People who read our papers make use of our results. So we learn about the atomic structure of materials, uses for these materials include electronics, solar cells etc. Our most direct link is with high pressure stuff. We look at the sort of stuff that’s in the earth’s crust under high pressures. That way we know what the earth’s crust looks like (as it’s basically under high pressure). People can use the structural information we get to work out how sound waves, heat etc. must move through the crust and that could (at a stretch) help with things like earthquake detection and learning about how the continental plates move and why they are the way that they are. It’s a big machine and we’re one of the required cogs!