Re: [Phys-L] how research is done : exploring a maze using only local information

[Joseph Bellina <inquirybellina@comcast.net>]

Let me make my point a bit clearer.  Being wrong does not mean making a mistake necessarily.  It could be that one does the correct thing given their belief system, but the result of what they does does not turn out as they expect.  I suppose you could say they made a mistake, but really the mistake is in their belief of how the world works.
In that sense, when they are wrong, when they expect something that does not occur, it is an opportunity to learn.  In the professional scientific world, one hopes for unexpected results since that provide the entre to new investigations.  My sense of doing science is rather like a business person who does their day to day work, but are always looking for that unexpected piece that they can exploit to make more money if you are in business, or learn new things about the world if you are a scientist.

joe

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Retired Professor of Physics
Co-Director, Northern Indiana Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Collaborative (NISMEC)
Consultant I-STEM Network
574-276-8294
inquirybellina@comcast.net




> On Sep 18, 2015, at 7:37 AM, John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM> wrote:
>
> Without meaning to disagree with that, let me suggest
> that it should be the /second/ step.  There's a simpler,
> less-demanding step that comes first, namely this:
>
>   In many cases, you can learn just as much without
>   being wrong.  You can and should learn from mistakes,
>   but it's even better to learn without making very
>   many mistakes.