Re: The air track experiment:Cooked Data!

[Lois Breur Krause <krause@CLEMSON.EDU>]

> Just picked up this thread (slow to get to my mail with schools
> starting). I recall reading that most of Arthur Eddington's data taken at
> the 1919 total eclipse that was used to "prove" Einstein's gravitational
> bending prediction, did NOT fit Einstein's prdiction. Eddington had to be
> very selective (just drop off that anomalous data point!) in the data he
> presented to prove his point.  How often has this happened - and then
> turned out to be correct all along?
> James Mackey


When this type of thing happens, (serendipity) it's usually because there's
a fudge factor missing in the current statement of the theory, no doubt.
I'm recalling when we first made 0.1 micron T-gate structures in logic
circuits on gallium arsenide chips.  The measured switching speeds didn't
fit with the then-known device physics.  Theory fell apart.

And no, I don't know and didn't know the device physics. My role was the
process of making the structures with direct write e-beam.
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

Dr. Lois Breur Krause
Department of Geological Sciences
442 Brackett Hall
Clemson University
Clemson SC  29634

teaching chemistry, physics, astronomy and geology to elementary education
majors.

How We Learn and Why We Don't: Student Survival Guide,
available from International Thompson Publishing, ISBN 0324-011970

http://home.earthlink.net/~breurkrause

krause@clemson.edu