I have been looking for 2 texts on the design of experiments. One that can be used by non-statisticians like graduate students in physics, chemistry, economics and the like. Another to introduce the non-mathematical to the field. One group who I think could benefit from the design and analysis of experiments are some people I know who run microcredit operations. Any suggestions? John

Abraham Pais, one of Einstein's many friends, has said that Einstein loved to joke. Are you sure his "sorry for the good Lord" wasn't a bit of humor?

In Boston we have heard many reporters claim that the delays in the Big Dig (the highways tunneled under the city and the harbor) were increased by contractors stretching out the work to increase their incomes. This suggests that there are strong incentives, particularly in projects paid for through government, to over promise (underbid) and under deliver (negotiate higher pay when work is under way).

Not so much a planning bias as a pocket book bias.

John

Eliezer,

Thank you for the quotation:

"We believe that we are already living in a democracy, although some factors are still missing, such as the expression of the people's will"

I hope someone can tell us who said it.

John

Eliezer,

School is all about words?

In shop class if the pieces didn't fit together, weren't sanded down smooth, or the contraption didn't work, you flunked the course.

In chemistry lab, if you didn't measure the pH right, same problem.

In physics if your measurements of waves or acceleration down the inclined plane were wrong down went your grade.

Guess we must have gone to different schools.

John

A student who said it was done by magic would, of course, have been correct. Because it was done by magic.

The teacher moved the plate when the audience wasn't looking. That is one of the ways magicians perform their tricks.

If they had used words such as "supernatural," "miracle," or "paranormal," then they would not have been discussing physics.

But good magicians are the best practical physicists.

If Richard Feynman can say:

What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it. ... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.

then it may be strange to the point of being beyond understanding.

(Nobel Lecture, 1966, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter)