From our Seed overlords at the ScienceBlogs collective:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
While I’m not as down on this question as PZ is, I’m not quite sure how to answer. There are lots of other fascinating areas of science that I regret that I’ll never get to know in depth.
My first instinct was to say that I’d become a paleontologist or archaeologist. However, there’s one problem. I like comfort too much. As much as I love reading about the fruits of paleontology and archeology research, I just can’t see myself spending weeks or months at a time out in the field at digs exposed to the elements. Fortunately, there’s another choice.
Back when I was a kid, I read Fantastic Four a lot (and still do, actually, and have a mostly unbroken collection dating back to 1975). Not surprisingly, I always wanted to be Reed Richards, although so far the only resemblance is that I sometimes let myself get a three day growth of stubble when I’m on a roll working. So, I guess if time and money were no option, I’d want to pursue that and become some sort of high powered particle physicist, working out the mysteries of the very building blocks of matter. Heck, maybe I’d even be able to find the way to get into the Negative Zone.
Alternatively, I’d become a mathemetician. Believe it or not, I was quite good at math in my youth and even took a couple of advanced level courses in college. Too bad I’ve forgotten most of what I learned.
