(no subject)

[highlyeccentric]

The physicist George Darwin used to say that every once in a while one should do a completely crazy experiment, like blowing the trumpet to the tulips, every morning, for a month. Probably nothing will happen, but if something did happen, that would be a stupendous discovery.
-Kate's History and Philosophy of Science Readings

Comments

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

I am a huuuuge fan of that idea. A lot of the things that have been discovered were flukes and random accidents that turned out in our favour (and not so much).

And just because we don't see any results from trumpet-blowing at tulips now, that doesn't mean there aren't any! That's something that has to be kept in mind when doing such random experiments - you have to look everywhere and investigate everything, otherwise you'll miss the freaky cool random funky results.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

although one must be careful when interpreting funky results. If, for example, I blow the trumpet to the tulips every morning for a month, and I notice over that month that my lung function has improved, *clearly* that is because trumpeted tulips emit spores with miraculous powers which should be harvested and used on asthma sufferers.