[time-nuts] Opera coordinator has resigned

[J. Forster]

> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 7:42 PM, J. Forster <jfor at quikus.com> wrote:
>> There are failures and there are failures.
>> A negative result is a failure that is worth reporting.
>> A failure due to an improperly mated connector...  not so much.
>
> That is saying to anyone who wants to do a similar experiment in the
> future that they need at least two redundant systems. I believe that
> is quite a valuable lesson.

Not quite, IMO. You need to do "sanity checks". When you are doing science
in unknown territory, you need to eliminate everything you can, as a
source of error.

Remember the problems Perkin Elmer had with the Hubble mirror?

> Concerning the OCXO, one has to bear in mind that this experiment was
> not meant to measure time of flight, but rather neutrino oscillations.
> The message for me here is that it's good to publish all your designs,
> including gateware sources, as soon as possible, but I don't know how
> compatible that is with today's highly competitive scientific world.

Was there any real competition to this experiment? Seems like they have a
lot of very, very big, expensive, unique hardware that can't exactly be
bought at Radio Shack.

Which is more important? Getting it fast, or getting it right?

-John

=============


>
> So I think there is an important lesson behind each one of the two
> issues. Of course this is easy to see from outside and after the fact.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Javier
>
>