Just imagine: these guys could have stumbled upon a great discovery. Note: This sentence is crazy. As if the odds weren't 999 to 1 in favor of "experimenters m

Just imagine: these guys could have stumbled upon a great discovery. Note: This sentence is crazy. As if the odds weren't 999 to 1 in favor of "experimenters made a boneheaded systematic mistake" rather than "experimenters have discovered the fifth force", or "one of the experimenters is made entirely of lead and has never noticed it before". But, note also: This sentence is how you have to think if you're going to make a great scientific discovery. The folks who discovered the pulsar were sure that they'd made a boneheaded mistake. The folks who discovered the cosmic microwave background had to work through the "this has got to be a mistake" phase. Even once you are convinced there's no mistake, it can take years or decades to convince others that there isn't a mistake. You have to work through your mistakes in science. You can't be afraid to face them. The good news is that it's a lot easier to practice this as an undergraduate than when you've got a whole lab full of students riding on the reputation of your pet theory.