Question: what'ts the worst thing you have ever done?

Guy Rixon answered on 2 Mar 2018:

Not telling. 🙂

Seriously, I’m old enough to have done things that I’d never admit to in public. That’s true of almost all adults, I guess?

In astronomy, I once moved a large (house-sized) telescope while it had been shut down for repairs. The “danger, do not move” notices were a bit unclear and I was in a hurry. Also, I was still a scientist at that stage and didn’t have the engineer’s safety-first mind-set. The sudden movement came close to maiming one of the mechanical engineers who’d been working on the mechanisms. The movement also lost the alignment of the position encoders and it took a whole day and night (at about £5,000 per hour or lost observing-time) to put it right.