Comments on: Mistakes http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/ Random samplings from a universe of ideas. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:15:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: Luigi DiLella http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31885 Luigi DiLella Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:11:56 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31885 Ellipsis: Sorry, but your story about me discovering a huge amount of background in my experiment, and modifying the electronics to remove it, thus missing a discovery, is totally wrong. The experiment was designed to search for new particles, but none was discovered because of a huge background from an unexpected phenomenon, namely the collision between two proton constituents (quarks and gluons), which occurred at such a high rate that we had to crank up an electronic threshold to reduce the data acquisition rate. This unexpected background was itself a discovery (we published it and reported it to various international conferences), but it prevented us from discovering the 4th quark. So, it was a new, unexpected discovery preventing us from making a more important discovery. A little like Christopher Columbus, who planned to reach India "from the other side", but found something unexpected on his way (the Americas). In his case, of course, the unexpected discovery was more important than the planned one. In the case of my experiment in 1972 (and not 1974), it was the contrary. Ellipsis: Sorry, but your story about me discovering a huge amount of background in my experiment, and modifying the electronics to remove it, thus missing a discovery, is totally wrong. The experiment was designed to search for new particles, but none was discovered because of a huge background from an unexpected phenomenon, namely the collision between two proton constituents (quarks and gluons), which occurred at such a high rate that we had to crank up an electronic threshold to reduce the data acquisition rate. This unexpected background was itself a discovery (we published it and reported it to various international conferences), but it prevented us from discovering the 4th quark. So, it was a new, unexpected discovery preventing us from making a more important discovery. A little like Christopher Columbus, who planned to reach India “from the other side”, but found something unexpected on his way (the Americas). In his case, of course, the unexpected discovery was more important than the planned one. In the case of my experiment in 1972 (and not 1974), it was the contrary.

]]> By: Doug van Orsow http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31884 Doug van Orsow Mon, 29 Oct 2007 06:09:39 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31884 Fellow Teaching Company addicts can now view Yahoo groups and phpbb forums: A forum on each individual lecture in all recent courses: http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/index.php My posts in Robert Hazen's "Origins of Life" forum: http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=17 Some of my new Yahoo groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users/?yguid=317656331 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users_Professor/?yguid=317656331 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users_Subject/?yguid=317656331 Doug van Orsow moderator Fellow Teaching Company addicts can now view Yahoo groups and phpbb forums:

A forum on each individual lecture in all recent courses:
http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/index.php

My posts in Robert Hazen’s “Origins of Life” forum:
http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=17

Some of my new Yahoo groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users/?yguid=317656331
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users_Professor/?yguid=317656331
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users_Subject/?yguid=317656331

Doug van Orsow
moderator

]]> By: Belizean http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31865 Belizean Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:42:00 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31865 I like what John Wheeler would say about mistakes, "Our task in physics is to make our mistakes at the fastest possible rate." I like what John Wheeler would say about mistakes, “Our task in physics is to make our mistakes at the fastest possible rate.”

]]> By: Sean http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31871 Sean Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:03:11 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31871 Yes, it was Jack Steinberger. He's pretty <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1988/index.html" rel="nofollow">accomplished</a>. Yes, it was Jack Steinberger. He’s pretty accomplished.

]]> By: Mike http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31864 Mike Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:30:17 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31864 Sean, Talk to David Politzer about comment #15. I think there's a funny story behind this (if I remember correctly, the above mentioned anomaly was discovered by some a graduate student who figured he had made a mistake... in the aftermath of events frustration over this caused this particular physicist to switch from theory to experiment!... I think the experimentalist is quite accomplished, but I'll withhold the name because my memory is probably wrong). Sean,

Talk to David Politzer about comment #15. I think there’s a funny story behind this (if I remember correctly, the above mentioned anomaly was discovered by some a graduate student who figured he had made a mistake… in the aftermath of events frustration over this caused this particular physicist to switch from theory to experiment!… I think the experimentalist is quite accomplished, but I’ll withhold the name because my memory is probably wrong).

]]> By: citrine http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31883 citrine Mon, 10 Sep 2007 21:22:13 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31883 What about Messier's cataloging work done to *prevent* mistaking fuzzy Astronomical objects (star clusters and galaxies) for comets? What about Messier’s cataloging work done to *prevent* mistaking fuzzy Astronomical objects (star clusters and galaxies) for comets?

]]> By: Brooklyn Is Not Expanding | Cosmic Variance http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31882 Brooklyn Is Not Expanding | Cosmic Variance Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:56:46 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31882 [...] referred to this scene from Annie Hall in my talk yesterday. A [...] […] referred to this scene from Annie Hall in my talk yesterday. A […]

]]> By: Haelfix http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31863 Haelfix Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:19:05 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31863 I think theres a statistic somewhere that claims that over 50% of all published research is wrong in some way. Which sounds right, theres nearly always a sign error or some trivial constant ommission. There are some very famous results too where factors of 'i' were misplaced and which screwed up a calculation completely leading the authors to make a wrong claim. Of course, thats just the easy mistakes, there are many examples of much more complicated and serious mistakes. Einstein himself was guilty of one or two such papers -in fact the 'greatest blunder' quote might actually not have to do with the CC addition, but rather a divide by zero mistake he made in the paper. I think theres a statistic somewhere that claims that over 50% of all published research is wrong in some way. Which sounds right, theres nearly always a sign error or some trivial constant ommission.

There are some very famous results too where factors of ‘i’ were misplaced and which screwed up a calculation completely leading the authors to make a wrong claim.

Of course, thats just the easy mistakes, there are many examples of much more complicated and serious mistakes. Einstein himself was guilty of one or two such papers -in fact the ‘greatest blunder’ quote might actually not have to do with the CC addition, but rather a divide by zero mistake he made in the paper.

]]> By: amused http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31881 amused Sun, 09 Sep 2007 06:42:03 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31881 One famous QFT mistake was the Sutherland-Veltman "no-go theorem" which claimed that neutral pions can't decay into photons via the EM interactions. The proof assumed that the axial vector current is conserved...which is wrong! It was later shown by Adler, Bell and Jackiw that this current isn't conserved - there's an "axial anomaly". The important lesson from this was that symmetries of the classical field theory don't always carry over to symmetries of the quantum theory - they can get broken by quantum effects ("anomalies"). Well, it's good to know that even Nobel Prize winners stuff up sometimes... One famous QFT mistake was the Sutherland-Veltman “no-go theorem” which claimed that neutral pions can’t decay into photons via the EM interactions. The proof assumed that the axial vector current is conserved…which is wrong! It was later shown by Adler, Bell and Jackiw that this current isn’t conserved - there’s an “axial anomaly”. The important lesson from this was that symmetries of the classical field theory don’t always carry over to symmetries of the quantum theory - they can get broken by quantum effects (”anomalies”).
Well, it’s good to know that even Nobel Prize winners stuff up sometimes…

]]> By: Kaleberg http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31880 Kaleberg Sun, 09 Sep 2007 01:07:55 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/09/07/mistakes/#comment-31880 For an example of how science progresses by changing our point of view, consider the humble <a href="http://www.kaleberg.com/dumplings/dumplings.html" rel="nofollow">History of the Dumplings</a>. For an example of how science progresses by changing our point of view, consider the humble History of the Dumplings.

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