> knocking them so far out of balance that it ceases to be a meaningful experiment Things in physics can sometimes be knocked so far out of balance during an e

> knocking them so far out of balance that it ceases to be a meaningful experiment Things in physics can sometimes be knocked so far out of balance during an experiment it boggles the mind, while still rendering perfectly sensible observations. E.g., I once heard the LHC described as "trying to determine how a grand piano works by throwing lots of them one after one down a very long set of well-defined stairs equipped with lots of very sensitive microphones and force sensors". In other cases, nothing could be farther from the truth. Say you are measuring heat transfer coefficients in high-Re laminar flow through a tube. A single 100-micron step imperfection in the tube wall will render your results pretty much useless. The distinguishing feature of physics is perhaps that one can know to a very high degree of precision before constructing the experiment which parameters/uncertainties it is very sensitive to.