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9.1 What's the buzz?

(1) What can you deduce from the following facts, figures and quotes?

1. Even the most impressive minds are not flawless, they merely pave the way for the next
level of understanding. Mario Livio (author of Brilliant Blunders on scientists’ break-
through mistakes).
2. Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them . Albert Einstein
3. Post-it notes were created by Spencer Silver, a researcher in 3M Laboratories, while
trying to make a strong adhesive. He actually inadvertently created something that was
weaker than the adhesives available at the time. Ink-jet printers were invented by an engi-
neer at Canon who mistakenly put a hot iron on a pen, and notices that ink was injected
from the pen a few moments later. Alexander Fleming noticed that mold on a contami-
nated Petri was dissolving all the bacteria around it. He then grew the mold by itself and
discovered penicillin.
4. The inventors of the following products initially had their ideas rejected by potential man-
ufacturers: Barbie doll, the hovercraft, the board games Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, the
safety razor, the vacuum cleaner.
5. Even octogenarians can produce quality work. At the age of 87, Francis Rous was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Medicine, and at 88, Michelangelo was still painting.
6. Marie Curie (researcher into radiation, winner of two Nobel Prizes), Thomas Midgley
(chemist who studied leaded gasoline), and Henry Smolinski (engineer who invented a

flying car) all died as a direct result of what they were studying / inventing.
(2) Describe one limitation of your research, and counter any objections to this
limitation.

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This chapter highlights the importance to the scientific community of discussing the

possible limitations in your research and explains how to present your negative
results.

Of course, you may have got negative results for other reasons:

• your hypothesis was incorrect and needs to be reformulated
• you had a bad experimental design and / or low statistical power

However, this chapter is based on the assumption that both your hypothesis and
experimental design were reasonably sound.