Jennifer Fisher Wilson, on George Johnson's The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments: When reading about scientists, I am often struck by how much confidence — as well as intelligence — is required to do the job. So much of the work that goes into great discoveries is based on an anomalous idea, conducted in lonesome obscurity, and carried out through the repetition of small tasks — titrating liquid, measuring output, tracking results. There seems to be so much room for mistakes and so much time to lose faith. Johnson seems similarly awed by how it all happens, wondering how the scientists who conducted these “beautiful experiments” kept from confusing their instincts with their suppositions, “unconsciously nudging the apparatus, like an Ouija board, to come up with the hoped-for reply.” As he asserts, “the most temperamental piece of laboratory equipment will always be the human brain.”
Martin Schwartz: Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it.
From the archive: Galileo was an astrologer. Newton was an alchemist.
Have you seen Synecdoche, New York? Knowing that you don’t know is the most essential step to knowing, you know?
Experimental Nonfiction | 
