> just that it's reassuring that the signal is so strong that you can see it by eye It's really something when this happens. I worked on a big neutrino experim

> just that it's reassuring that the signal is so strong that you can see it by eye It's really something when this happens. I worked on a big neutrino experiment searching for theta_13, where our goals were to (a) determine if theta_13 was dead zero or not (being truly zero would have a Seriously Major Effect in theories) and then (b) to measure its value if not. Our experiment was big, expensive, and finely tuned to search for very, very small values of theta_13. We turned the thing on and... right there there was a dip. Just... there. On the plot. All the data blinding schemes needed to guarantee our best resolution kind of went out the window when anyone looking at the most basic status plot could see the dip immediately! On the one hand, it was really great to know that everything worked, we'd recorded a major milestone in the field (along with our competition, all of whom were reading out at basically the same time), and the theorists would continue to have nothing to do with their lives because theta_13 was, in fact, nonzero. On the other hand... I wasted how many years of my life dialing this damned detector in for what now? (It wasn't wasted effort, not at all... but you get the feeling.)