• Question: what music do you listen too while doing experiments??

    Asked by ffion to Paul on 14 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Paul O'Mahoney

      Paul O'Mahoney answered on 14 Mar 2016:

      I listen to all kinds of stuff when working. If I really need to focus or do lots of writing I try to listen to instrumental music like God Is An Astronaut or Explosions In The Sky or movie soundtracks and things like that, but otherwise I just listen to stuff I would usually listen to, things like Muse, Foo Fighters, Biffy Clyro, anything really!

Comments

  • Photo: ffion

    ffion commented on :

    Wow cool!! Do you think that it produces better experiment results when you listen to music during an experiment or not??

  • Photo: Greg

    Greg commented on :

    There have been studies done that show instrumental music is much better than vocal music, as you get distracted by the vocals. When I really need to concentrate on something, I usually try to do it late at night as you get disturbed less then. For music, I might use something quite dancy and reptetitive – when I was writing my undergrad project, The Prodigy was a favourite.

    This link explains why many people like to work either at night or in the morning – I’m not so convinced about the ‘bright lights’ effect, but the first two points are both very good.

    http://swizec.com/blog/why-programmers-work-at-night/swizec/3198

    • Photo: Paul

      Paul commented on :

      That article was quite interesting, I think I definitely have a Maker’s schedule!

      On the bright lights issue, from what I have read before it tends to be that blue light in particular affects melatonin production (a sleep-inducing hormone), so it can mess around a bit with your sleep cycle – this is essentially what things like f.lux try to fix, by taking out a lot of the blue light from your screen in the evenings

    • Photo: ffion

      ffion commented on :

      I never thought of life like that!! I will tell my science teacher about that and also my class!! They could sure kern a lot from that link!!!!! Thank you for that Greg!! And you too Paul!!!