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© Copyright 1999, Jim Loy
In 1903, Rene Blondlot (a respected French scientist) discovered a new kind of radiation, which he called N-rays, after the University of Nancy, where he worked. N-rays were very difficult to detect. But his experiments were confirmed by numerous scientists in France. Elsewhere, scientists could not duplicate his results. In 1904, Robert Wood, a physicist from America, observed Blondlot's experiments. He secretly removed a vital piece of Blondlot's equipment, but Blondlot continued to see N-rays. Wood reported the trick that he had played on Blondlot. And N-rays were never seen again.
Blondlot's self-deception (seeing what he very much wanted to see) is called "experimenter effect." This effect is one of the reasons for the many safeguards and double checks of science. The story of N-rays is not about an amusing aberration of science, but is an illustration of how science corrects itself when it goes off on a tangent. Science occasionally does go off on tangents (Piltdown man, polywater, and cold fusion). And then science corrects itself.