h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

NEVER say that you didn't have time and that you couldn't get all the results in your write-up. Just make the results up. Draw a graph of the results you have so far, call one of the demonstrators over (but not one of the lecturers or professors), and ask what the graph should look like. If you're really lucky, they'll give you values of gradients, intercepts etc. Then look at your own results. Move any anomalies up or down to fit your data line (but never make it fit exactly). Make up any results you didn't get (always making sure that you never get an error of, say, more than 1%.

And it actually helps you to learn the material. In order to be able to alter results, you need to know what they should look like, so you need to learn the theory before doing this.

I think that you should at least save the 'understanding the theory' part until after the experiment, where possible...

Remember, it may actually pay off to have results which are not what they should be.
In this case you should be carefull to point out where the results are different from what theory predicts, and as a conclusion DISMISS the theory as faulty.

While you may think that you can see the fault in this line of thinking on first glance (namely that you have to understand the theory in order to do this), you are actually wrong. Just ask one of the demonstrators whether your results are right, and if he tells you they're wrong, let him explain why they are wrong. Keep a recorder well hidden taping all this, and you'll be fine.

A useful rule goes like this:

-------- Bossel's Golden Rule #1 for Lab Experiments ------
If the theory states that the outcome of your experiment ought to be a linear curve then you should take no more than *two* measurements.

Any more measurements will only bring you into trouble

I was way freaked out one time when I did five readings of a certain thing, and four of them were exactly on the line and one of them was only slightly deviated. I thought someone would have thought I cheated for sure, but I didn't....

I guess they wouldn't think that someone would be naive enough to cook up such perfect results...

Such precision surely isn't believable, given the outdated and worn-out lab equipment as I know it

I remember we once had to insert wider error margins into our discussion because we had 'measured' that absolute zero temperature was -290°Celsius, plus or minus 10°

lol...

I think that actually, as results are all essentially random, occasionally they may randomly be right...

Ha! Yes outdated equipment... We had meters which only worked I think with 19th century electricity. When used with modern electricity they demonstrated that Ohm was wrong after all! What a way to spend a Saturday morning.