• Question: In the past a lot of scientists have tried to find the Philosopher stone. If you find this stone, would you show it to the world or would you keep it a secret? And how would it change the world that we know today?

    Asked by Luna-chan to Craig, Devon, Marta, Natalie, Nicholas on 6 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Nicholas Younger

      Nicholas Younger answered on 6 Mar 2017:

      I think if it existed and I found it, I would share it. I think keeping it to myself would be selfish. Plus, I’m a scientist – I would want to know how it worked, and I couldn’t find that out all by myself.

    • Photo: Marta Varela

      Marta Varela answered on 6 Mar 2017:

      Cool question! The philosopher’s stone was meant to change any metal into gold. It’s not possible to do that using chemistry (as far as we know), but you can do similar things using nuclear physics. Nuclear physics can of course lead to very nasty horrible outcomes, which shows you how powerful this “philosopher’s stone” is.

      I believe science should be in the open as much as possible so that everyone should have access to all the information they’re interested in. For this to work though, it is important that people have a strong sense of ethics and don’t use science for bad ends.

      I think that on par with teaching science, we should also trying to instil in people the sense that science should be used to help everyone, not to gain an advantage over one another.

      What do you think about all this?

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