Via CNET News, I found this interesting site, with introduction
Robert P. Crease, a member of the philosophy department at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory, recently asked physicists to nominate the most beautiful experiment of all time. Based on the paper of George Johnson in The New York Times we list below 10 winners of this polling and accompany the short explanations of the physical experiments with computer animations.
Great stuff! When I have time I’ll have to think whether there are any other experiments I’d substitute for any of these in my personal top 10.
January 11th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
I think Sean alluded to this earlier Mark.
What was important is that corrections were made if one followed through? But I take it, there is more there then in terms of reporting, and the mistakes that were made, versus the legitamcy of how and what is being transmitted?
I think this is what Sean alluded to in his reporting? He’d have to respond to that. A Sokal Affair, on a much more simplistic level?
A painting with the article, identified as an image of Henry Cavendish, was published in error. It showed another 18th-century scientist, Joseph Priestley, who did not figure in the list.
Correction: October 7, 2002, Monday An article in Science Times on Sept. 24 about physicists’ selections of the 10 most beautiful experiments misstated a portion of Newton’s theory of gravity, cited in a discussion of Cavendish’s torsion-bar experiment. Newton held that the strength of attraction between two objects increases with the product of their masses, not with the square of their masses.
I may be wrong here.
January 11th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Does roemer’s calculation of the speed of light using the moons of Jupiter count as an experiment? Because that still amazes me.
Also, why not the Michelson-Morey experiment?
January 11th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Definitely the Michelson-Morley experiment. Have you read their paper? It’s a wonderful example of scientific writing, when the physics was on the cusp of the modern era.
January 11th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
The experiment number 2 ( Galileo dropping balls from the top of the Pisa Tower ) probably never took place in any case. Besides, it is equivalent to the experiment number 8 (balls rolling down inclined planes). So I guess a different experiment may be included. Besides the already mentioned Michelson Morley others worth considering are the Eotvös experiment, the Coulomb determinacion of the electic force; and for a more recent one , the experiment performed by Aspect.
January 11th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Man, some people don’t even read their own blogs.
January 11th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Give him a break! It’s easy for the good stuff to get missed in all the noise about buses and planes and bikes and oranges and noodles……
-cvj
January 11th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Hey, sometimes humourous and sometimes serious.
Overlaps are bound to happen, even with Clifford’s list of, “five of ten.”
As a Focker
, I don’t consider “my blog” part of this circle of trust yet 
So I am a innocent.
January 11th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Double slit diffraction with the first maximum opposite the barrier is good. I especially like Poisson’s spot using a projector without a slide inserted and an unopened soft drink can inserted between lens and screen with its long axis parallel to the light path. Millikan did some raw data cleanup to remove fractional charges. Perhaps they should have gone for the full kan.
Among ongoing experiments I like the the CERN Axion Solar Telescope and its friends,
http://cast.web.cern.ch/CAST/CASTwebB/CAST.htm
http://www.icepp.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~minowa/Minowa_Group.files/sumico.htm
http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~axion/Welcome.html
http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~tanner/axion-papers.html
Supersymmetry is like the Department of Education and Project Head Start. Every experiment demonstrates supersymmetry has no observables. Supersymmetry is therefore true – and only lacks a confirming experiment.
January 11th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Clifford:
Some minds at times, think alike? Non! Oui!
So how about this then.
Clifford, you travelled back in time and knew what Sean was going to post? Is this a “layover effect” from travelling “back to the future?”
I like these kind of stories.
January 11th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Sean – sorry – I guess I’ve revealed myself as one of those people who uses http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/?author=-2 on a daily basis. I guess it’s OK now that you’ve told everyone else about the trick.
January 11th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
LOL!
-cvj
January 12th, 2006 at 3:20 am
I’d nominate the original finding of Poisson’s spot, because it so clearly shows the scientific method:
Fresnel: I’ve come up with a wonderful new theory of light.
Pascal: Your theory is absurd, it predicts that there will be a bright spot in the middle of a shadow!
Arago: I did the experiment, and that spot really is there.
January 13th, 2006 at 7:03 am
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January 19th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Hmm: this (ex)lurker is particularly fond of Stern-Gerlach.
February 13th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
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