Is there such a thing as an "experimental genius?"

Factual Questions
1

If so, what is it?

I mean, I have heard of a theoretical genius (Einstein) but I have never come across anything referring to someone as “an ingenious experimentalist”. The closest person I can think of is Michael Faraday.

But, and making a huge assumption that I know what constitutes a great theorist, what makes a person a brilliant experimenter?

For example, is it a strategic type of thinking; what you must measure, and the methods by which you will obtain your results etc.?

Although I can imagine someone who can come up with extraordinary ideas (aka Theorist Guy), I cannot for the life of me imagine someone who is, “one of the greatest experimental scientists on earth”.

What talents would this person possess that distinguishes him/her in this way?

2

There are scientists who have been described as great experimentalists. Mostly not physicists, because of the nature of physics, but there are some great experimental biologists and chemists.

These are people who, usually early in the development of their science, made brilliant insights into the results of their experiments that often ran ahead of current theory. Often they stumbled on some concept that their science couldn’t explain with its current knowledge, but which was later found to be correct.

Simply adhering to good experimental procedure (accurate measurements, thorough recording of results) is part of being a good scientist, but not enough to constitute an ‘experimental genius’. It’s the correct interpretation of their results and the far-reaching implications of them that makes great experimental scientists.

Mendel is the only biologist that really comes to mind, and even he is rumored to have ‘cooked’ his data. But That’s Not My Field.

Some chemists who are generally considered great experimenters:

Henry Cavendish, analyzed air in 1785 and found that a very small fraction (0.94%) was a gas he couldn’t identify. He considered this to be the probable result of experimental error, but he recorded the data anyway. In 1894, over 100 years later, Raleigh and Ramsay determined that Cavendish’s unidentifiable gas was argon. He also invented a torsional balance that was able to estimate the gravitational constant G (and the mass of the Earth).

Emil Fischer was able to deduce the correct structures of glucose and all the other known sugars, including their stereochemistry, using the primitive organic chemistry available to him in the early 1880s. His complex, multi-step process of breaking down, modifying and identifying glucose atom-by-atom was an absolutely brilliant piece of deductive reasoning as well as of organic chemistry. His experiment is still taught today, and the logic of it is still impressive even if the results he gleaned through years of work can now be obtained by an undergraduate in an hour.

Those are probably the classic examples, at least in chemistry. There are some synthetic organic chemists, even today, who have worked out paths to complex (> 50 carbon atoms) molecules from simple (~< 6 carbons) starting materials. Their logic can be complicated, but it is deeply insightful. (Corey and Woodward are the classical Brilliant Synthetic Chemists, if you want to look them up.)

3

I think Galileo was certainly an experimental genius. He didn’t buy any of the old Greek crap that had been handed down and tested it himself.

At the time, the Math just wasn’t there to calculate a lot of major things. It had to be based on experiments.

(Notes: 1. We all know the Leaning Tower story doesn’t matter. 2. He is suspected of fudging some data, e.g., on rolling balls down inclines.)

4

Roches has a good idea. If “genius is the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way,” then an experimental genius is a scientist who notices something that others did not, and follows the observation up with research. And, since new ideas are often attacked by the supporters of the theories of the time, then to find experimental geniuses we should look for those who were ridiculed, but later vindicated.

Here’s an excellent book of essays on this topic:

Hidden Histories of Science
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590170520/

5

I’d say George Washington Carver many experiments on the peanut provided many items.

The Wright brothers? after much trial and error, aerodynamics, and experimenting with different designs, they were able to produce a working model of the plane

6

lets not forget kama sutra =-o

7

Tycho Brahe should be recognized as one of the greatest experimentalists of all time. He recognized the need for precice and detailed observation of stellar and planetary positions, and designed and built instruments to accomplish this goal. This data was later used by Kepler to derive the laws of planetary motion, which led indirectly to Newton’s Laws.

An experimentalist needs to be a jack-of-all-trades. A thorough understanding of the science is necessary, because part of the job is to look at various theories and identify how they can be tested. Engineering skills are vital, because experiments often require new instruments to be designed and built. Practical laboratory skills, especially troubleshooting skills, are also necessary. Then the results need to be analyzed, meaning they should be compared to theory. If you fail to notice the significance of an unexpected result, you may have just missed your Nobel prize.

I think theoretical geniuses are easier to identify because a brilliant theorist can jump into any sub-field of his/her academic field and start producing new results in less than a year. These days an experimentalist can spend over 5 years building a new instrument. I’m an experimentalist and I’ve been working on my current project for the past 4 years, starting with feasibility studies and the hunt for funding, through development and launch of the instrument (it’s a balloon instrument) and finally the analysis of the result.