• Question: what age would u like 2 retire?

    Asked by alizahidriskhan to Amelia, Jim, Liz, Prateek, Richard on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Amelia Markey

      Amelia Markey answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Now 🙂

      No, only joking, I’m not sure. I think somewhere between 50 and 60 seems about right. But there’s a professor in our building who retired years ago and loves science so much he still comes in to carry on researching and do experiments! So you never know I could still be going when I’m 80 or 90 if I’m doing something I enjoy 🙂

    • Photo: Jim Caryl

      Jim Caryl answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Some scientists never retire. They love their work so much that they want to carry on forever. If you can keep science feeling like it is a hobby, rather than ‘work’ (and it feels like a hobby to me at the moment as I enjoy doing it), then I’m sure you’ll be happy to carry on your ‘hobby’ in retirement.

      If science ever became more like a ‘work’, with things that you just didn’t want to do, then maybe I would want to retire at around 50 – but I hope I will be in the position that I never want to retire!

    • Photo: Richard Badge

      Richard Badge answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      I’d like to keep working in science as long as I have the ability to make a contribution – of course there may come a time when I am not physicall able to do it (perhaps in my 70s / 80s) but a lot of useful science can be done by analysing data that is already published on the internet… I am sure that I will be a “silver surfer”!

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