This was linked to from UserFriendly today:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/user/kovar/hall.html
A write-up of an experiment which failed to provide the results he expected; a little rant. Here's the abstract:
The exponential dependence of resistivity on temperature in germanium is found to be a great big lie. My careful theoretical modeling and painstaking experimentation reveal 1) that my equipment is crap, as are all the available texts on the subject and 2) that this whole exercise was a complete waste of my time.
I don't think I ever actually produced a single working item in the first two years of my degree.
Re:wow! thats familiar
jdavidb on 2002-08-22T20:44:19
Somehow, this item reminded me of the time my lab group in Physics experimentally disproved the law of conservation of energy -- three or four times in succession.
Checked the measurements, checked the math, repeated the experiment. Who knows, we might have had the solution to the world's energy needs, but that day we were just glad to leave and forget it!
