MY HERO

While I'm here... I was blown away by my first glimpse - on film - of Feynman lecturing. That was back in my student days, before Feynman was "discovered" by non-physicists. There's a passage that is often misquoted, which I have (correctly transcribed) pinned up in my study:

In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we comp– No, don't laugh, that's, ah, really true...

Then we compute the consequences of the guess. To see what – if this is right, if this law that we guess is right – we see what it would imply. Then we compare the computation results to nature, or we say compare with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it – if it works.

If it disagrees with experiment... it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.

It doesn't make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn't make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is... If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's all there is to it.

Richard Feynman