“There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes” – Richard Buckminster Fuller

From the same essay, here is Emerson’s opinion about our fondness of quoting others; the irony of using the quote is not lost on me: “We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see, painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them, and are willing to let the words go; for, at any time, they can use words as good, when occasion comes.”

Here are two interesting essays on getting quotations right. The author sets the bar very high for both quoters and readers:

http://www.tartarus.org/martin/essays/burkequote.html
http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote2.html

From the conclusion of the second essay:

Principle 1 (for readers)
Whenever you see a quotation given with an author but no source assume that it is probably bogus.
Principle 2 (for readers)
Whenever you see a quotation given with a full source assume that it is probably being misused, unless you find good evidence that the quoter has read it in the source.
Principle 3 (for quoters)
Whenever you make a quotation, give the exact source.
Principle 4 (for quoters)
Only quote from works that you have read.

Richard Feynman’s life as a comic. Wondering when they will do that with Karl Popper & Richard Dawkins :-)

Lykken’s quote is fine, but Feynmann’s isn’t. If the theory doesn’t agree with experiment, the experiment itself can be wrong, not necessarily the theory.

And I’m not being a nerd here. The only reason I’m writing this reply is because, ironically, a good half of the posts in this very blog of yours prove that the theory was right and the experiment was wrong.

Alex.

“Science is organized common sense, where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.”