Sometimes I have found an inconsistency gives a helpful clue of how to improve a theoretical investigation. Early on I viewed mistakes as hurdles. I still think they are hurdles but have many times found them to be helpful. My view is that it encourages persistence to know that mistakes are part of the process of figuring things out. Are there articles about the role of making mistakes in theoretical physics?
Sofia D. Wechsler
Interesting distinction. I was thinking about my own mistakes, and you - about mistakes of other people.
Dear Robert Shour ,
"Mistakes" by you in any form are new "strengths" for others. Thus, "mistakes" are always negation-inviting "illations". Eventually, "mistakes" in any sector are the pillars to "refinements" in that sector imaterial of disciplines.
To add to the reply of P. K. Karmakar,
One might put it this way. The goal is not to avoid mistakes altogether, but if possible to put mistakes encountered to productive use, that is, to use the implications of mistakes to seek out "refinements" (to use P. K. Karmakar terminology). I agree with Dr. Karmakar that this approach applies not just to physics, but to all problem solving.
Dear Robert Shour ,
Thank you very much for agreeing with me.
Corrections of mistakes do lead to revision and amelioration of our works in a stepwise fashion.
Best wishes,
P.K. Karmakar
Physics, Tezpur University
I think "mistakes" is incorrect. From the "mistake" perspective, Newtonian mechanics was/is a mistake. So is Special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. The positive role is developing newer, better model based on the anomalies of current models. The older models are necessary to know the observation anomalies are anomalies.
All models are "mistakes" until humans can create a universe. "mistakes" concept is far too negative.
John Hodge,
Yes, theories that are approximations, that are stops on the way to better theories, might in some sense be called mistakes.
My question was referring to less grandiose problems where steps in pursuit of the solution to a problem result in an inconsistency. An inconsistency is not an imperfect approximation, it is just wrong.
The sources of inconsistency can be various, for example, a subtle problem with assumptions, a conceptual reference frame that appeals to perception and is difficult to diagnose as flawed, and more basically, a mistake in a mathematical step. Confronting the inconsistency and resolving it can restore the problem solver to the problem solving path.
My question is more about the learning process on an individual level rather than the grand march of science. I think your reply highlights that there is a difference between mistakes encountered in working through a problem on one hand and imperfect physical models on the other hand.
Igor Goliney
You write: Mistakes that are not corrected are useless.
Your aphorism is both marvelous and important.
Your aphorism applies to pedagogy. Learning requires persistence. Giving up before correcting mistakes defeats the learning process. For a student, it is not a failure to encounter a mistake, but it is wrong not to exploit the opportunity to learn by working to correct it.
Does making mistakes have a positive role in physics?
The January 2019 issue of Physics Today has a book review by N. David Mermin of Steven Weinberg’s Third Thoughts. The book review quotes the author: scientists ``often have an experience that is deeply enlightening, and is not granted to everyone. It is the experience of finding that you have been wrong about something.’‘ The chapter in which the quote occurs is chapter 23, entitled On Being Wrong. Which might relate to the question raised above.
Mistakes (negative) by others are strengths (positive) for you without being penalized towards new amelioration.
Mistakes (negative) by yourselves are strengths (positive) for you; but, with penalization towards new amelioration.
Does making mistakes have a positive role in physics?
After posting this question I read a book review of Steven Weinberg's book, Third Thoughts. Chapter 23 is from an address to students called On Being Wrong.
He writes "It is profoundly instructive to learn that one has been wrong about something. It combats arrogance".
That is undoubtedly true. The issue this question is about is how encountering an inconsistency can (as a negative) point the problem solver in a different direction.
Here is a personal example. I had the idea about September 2005 that one might be able to scale a network. For example, for an individual suppose that each antecedent generation equally contributed to the knowledge of that individual. Then parents, grandparents and great-grandparents would multiply by 3 (as 3 generations) the average amount of information per generation reaching the individual.
But that would imply 2 as a base of the logarithm, and individuals also get information from people who are not forebears. What is the base of the logarithm if it is not 2?
For about a year and eight months I was stymied by this. After a long period of tackling this question, I concluded that there was an inconsistency that prevented finding what number of people would provide a base for the logarithm.
If the individual knows more people (the base of the log is larger) that (naively) implies that the base of the log should be large. But if the base of the log is large, the multiplier effect of the log would be reduced.
When I faced the inconsistency, I soon realized that the inconsistency had blocked resolution for a year and eight months, but it was also an important clue. And the clue led in a couple more days to resolution (Article Lexical growth, entropy and the benefits of networking
). So I was lucky to find an inconsistency, but unluckily it took a long time before I realized I had found that lucky inconsistency
A method of solving/attacking a very complex problem is by trial-and-error.
Mistakes are like salt and pepper - good in small amounts. Firstly, one should always think about ways of detecting mistakes (checking limiting cases etc.) Secondly, even if you know a mistake has been made, locating it is a separate business. On detecting and locating a mistake, one is always left with much better understanding of the physical problem. Well, IMHO.
I think it motivates others to solve the same problem removing all the possible errors. You can learn much from the mistakes once you correct them.
Ishfaq Ahmad Rather
Agreed. I even have a paper written along such lines: Authors of ... left out an alternative explanation of their experiment - let's see - yes, they are right given their experimental conditions - under such and such conditions, another effect could be seen.
Thankyou L. I. Plimak .
I am myself involved in such situations. I would make many mistakes in my calculations, but when I find them and correct them, it gives an immense feeling that I have corrected myself. It boosts the confidence within you.
It happened to me many times to learn interesting things from articles which, basically, were wrong or of no value.
Sofia D. Wechsler
Interesting distinction. I was thinking about my own mistakes, and you - about mistakes of other people.
L. I. Plimak
What's your problem? If I am doing mistakes it's bother and trouble. This is why I put my articles on RG, hoping for criticism. It's big trouble when someone publishes a wrong article, especially on a printed paper. All the world falls on his/her head with accusations, and the fellow has no means to withdraw the article.
I only said that no work should be dispised. I know great physicists who do that. I am not such a one.
There are fruitful mistakes in Physics which were positive and fruitful. And it would be interesting to consider the mistakes in research:
ones are made everyday and which help us to put out certain possibilities, and others that we find in the literature on questions that we are studying. Both of them play an important role at least in my researh and it would be fantastic to have a review for publishing these interesting blunders. Some of them are even more interesting than the good answer and help a lot for sharing different possibilities of solutions with students. Their pedagogical interest is obvious.
Let me just consider two. One of them was the scattering of the alpha particle by the central repulsive Coulomb force of gold atoms which leads to a hyperbolic trajectory made by Rutherford. From the scattering angle and momentum, one can calculate the impact parameter and closest approach to the target nucleus using a classical wrong formula but whose result coincides with the quantum one.
Another very well known is the introduction of the cosmological constant in the Einstein's equations for creating a gravitational repulsion and therefore an equilibrium not necessary due to the Hubble expansion of the Universe. But nowadays is reconsidered such idea under certain conditions for solving the Dark Matter and Dark Energy problems.
Physics, as theoreticians understand it, is an error frequently in itself. Instead of investigating a phenomenon, these too often investigate its model, extending model results to much more complex phenomena without evidence. I am not an opponent of the physical approach, as it may seem, but even physicists must proceed from reality, soberly assessing the limitations of their models.
Mistakes have greatly contribute to development of many things in physics
The March 2019 issue of Physics Today at page 32 has an article by Joshua Roebke, Ernest Lawrence’s brilliant failure. The article is not about a physics mistake but about a failed effort to market a color TV by Lawrence and colleagues in post WWII USA. Physics played a prominent role in devising mechanisms for color TV display. If one can generalize from the more narrow category of `mistake’ to the more general category of `failure’, the article describes how despite the lack of commercial success there were fruitful (and profitable) outcomes, leading in 1967 to the Trinitron TV by Sony. In other words, a failure bore fruit. The same can be hoped for physics mistakes: that the mistake yet bears fruit.
We live to keep learning how to live.
We, similarly, commit mistakes in science to keep learning how to correct science irrespective of specializations.
24 July 2020 Jennifer Newton interview of Janince Cosy, professor organic chemistry, ESPCI, Paris, France in Chemistry World
"I’m not so interested in the positive results – negative results are more important because they are about solving problems."
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