Mystery Physicist Story: Who Was the Experimenter?

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The discussion centers around a story involving a physicist, likely a Nobel Prize winner, who faced unexpected results from an experiment he conducted with the support of older faculty members. Despite the initial excitement surrounding the experiment, it ultimately failed to produce the anticipated outcomes. An older faculty member provided a memorable insight, stating, "the way things are is always more interesting than the way we thought they were," emphasizing the importance of understanding reality over preconceived notions. The physicist in question was identified as Arthur Compton, who was testing a theory related to atomic structure. His experience highlighted a key lesson in scientific inquiry: the value of exploring and understanding phenomena rather than merely attempting to validate existing theories.
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One of my professors told me a story about a physicist and I can't remember who it was. It's driving me crazy. This is what I remember about the story.

Apparently this physicist was a new faculty member and he had a seemingly brilliant plan for some experiment. All of the older faculty members got behind him and helped him build the experiment. There was a lot of hype, but the experiment ultimately did not produce the expected results. One of the older faculty told this younger physicist that "the way things are is always more interesting than the way we thought they were", or something to that extent.

The physicist in the story is famous, maybe a Nobel Prize winner later in life, but I just can't remember who it was about and what the experiment was. I googled the quote, but it must be worded differently or something.

If anyone has any ideas, I would love to know.

Thanks!
 
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Now it's driving me crazy, too. I vaguely remember hearing about that. I immediately thought of Rutherford, or one of his students rather, but I can't find anything about unexpected experimental results. I'll keep looking a bit.

Other thoughts: maybe something to do with the muon or pion, or maybe Feynman.

Maybe solar neutrino deficiency. I'm still looking (and going quite mad).
 
Last edited:
DanielFaraday said:
One of my professors told me a story about a physicist and I can't remember who it was. It's driving me crazy. This is what I remember about the story.

Apparently this physicist was a new faculty member and he had a seemingly brilliant plan for some experiment. All of the older faculty members got behind him and helped him build the experiment. There was a lot of hype, but the experiment ultimately did not produce the expected results. One of the older faculty told this younger physicist that "the way things are is always more interesting than the way we thought they were", or something to that extent.

The physicist in the story is famous, maybe a Nobel Prize winner later in life, but I just can't remember who it was about and what the experiment was. I googled the quote, but it must be worded differently or something.

If anyone has any ideas, I would love to know.

Thanks!

I googled your quoted string, and got two hits. The first hit was to this PF thread of yours (not a surprise), and the 2nd hit was to the Compton Effect:

http://www.google.com/search?source...eresting+than+the+way+we+thought+they+were",+

.
 
Yes, that link is perfect! I never tried googling the exact quote because I assumed my version of the quote was off, but I underestimated my own memory. It was definitely Compton. Here is a quote from the source cited above:

Compton wanted to test an old theory of Wilhelm Weber’s that regarded the atom as the ”ultimate magnetic particle,” as Compton called it. To do so, he reflected X rays from a magnetite crystal, turned a superposed magnetic field on and off, and looked to see if there was any change in position of a Laue diffraction spot caused by a shift of the magnetite atoms in their lattice sites. Try as he might, the diffraction spot never moved; it stayed right where it was. ”My heart sank,” Compton recalled, but just then the chairman of the department, ”a tall slender gentleman with the good Minnesota name of Henry Erikson,” walked in. Compton explained his depressing negative result to Erikson. ”Well, Compton,” Erikson responded, with a friendly slap on his shoulder, ”the way things are is always more interesting than the way we thought they were.” That, said Compton, was one of the best lessons in the understanding of science that I have ever had. The mistaken notion is to get some idea and then try to prove it· · ·. The real thing that a scientist tries to do when he is faced with a phenomenon is to attempt to understand it. To do that he tries all the possible answers that he can think of to see which one of them works best.
 
There is a neighboring thread Cover songs versus the original track, which ones are better? https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/cover-songs-versus-the-original-track-which-ones-are-better.1050205/ which is an endless subject and as colorful are the posts there. I came across a Buddy Holly cover by Eva Cassidy only to find out that the Buddy Holly song was already a Paul Anka cover. Anyway, both artists who had covered the song have passed far too early in their lives. That gave me the...
The piece came-up from the "Lame Jokes" section of the forum. Someobody carried a step from one of the posts and I became curious and tried a brief web search. A web page gives some justification of sorts why we can use goose(s)-geese(p), but not moose(s)-meese(p). Look for the part of the page headed with "Why isn't "meese" the correct plural?" https://languagetool.org/insights/post/plural-of-moose/

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