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Scientific method say that if observation contradicts your theory, then your theory is wrong.

• gus_massa 10y ago
  One of the more important things that you learn in a laboratory is that experimental science is hard. There are many source of experimental errors. So it's not enough to have an experimental result, it's necessary to check very carefully the details to be convinced that it breaks the theory. In this case, the problem is that they are measuring a very small force, and many things can cause small forces. So you must be sure that all the other possible small forces sources are under check and that the force you are measuring is created by the method you are trying to measure. In this case, the most obvious candidates for errors are: * Thermal: The device gets very hot, so there may be some thermal expansions and some thermal air currents. * Electromagnetic: They use a lot of current, so the wires that connect the device may be acting as an electromagnet or something. They try to bound this error, but it's very hard to estimated correctly how big each one of them are, and prove that they are smaller than the force they see in the experiment.