Things That Don’t Make Sense
Sarah Lauser sent me an article that she thought I’d love. And, of course, I did.
13 Things That Do Not Make Sense
One of the most beautiful things about science is that there are still mysteries.
Johannes Kepler discovered his eponymous laws by studying the outlying data points on his Mars orbit calculation. Mars has the most eccentric orbit of the planets Kepler studied, and it was only by analyzing the mystery of Mars’ motion was Kepler able to make the breakthrough he did.
We learn the most in science from the exceptions to our concept of the universe. When we can’t generate an explanation with one of our models, physics gets really phun. It’s very possible that the “errors” in our models that allow for these unexplained phenomena will lead to more insight into the physical laws that cause them. That means new physics, whether to bring an existing model into alignment with the new data, or to scrap a model entirely and start again.
It’s also possible that these unexplained phenomena are due to some collective oversight or poor assumption. That’s still science. Only time and research will lead to the root of the situation.
That’s how science goes. We don’t want the newest, sexiest physics we can come up with — we want the truth about nature. How beautiful is that?
August 18, 2008 12:55 pm 3 Comments
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By Annie, August 18, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
I was at a conference this winter discussing how to teach critical thinking in statistics and research methodology.
The presenter gave an example of a map of the cholera infections in a city during a cholera outbreak. (where each little dot indicated an infected individual)
It was only by examining the outliers that someone discovered which public well was responsible for spreading the disease. The outliers were a brewery next to the well that had no infections (workers were given free beer) and a woman who lived well outside the city limits (but had her sons bring her water from her favorite well near where she grew up).
A lot of interesting information can be obtained by examining the outliers rather than just casting them aside.
By Jim, August 18, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
@Annie
Wow, great examples. Thanks!