"Oz" wrote in message
...
Dean Hoffman writes

OZ:

and only then if you get lucky ....


Are you really, really, absolutely, swear on a Bible sure, you're a
physicist?

Not something I claimed for myself. I dabble.

Luck???
I better go read the alt.sci.physics newsgroup some more. That word,
luck, doesn't seem to get mentioned much.

Oh, on the contrary. Many important advances have been due largely to
luck (look at 'this weeks finds' for one) and of course probability and
chance are an integral part of physics.

Those characters get down to my
level once in awhile so I actually learn something.

Never read that group, and don;t read sci.physics any more. Too many
kooks, I remember Archi in his prime (shudder). I moved to a rather more
demanding group, where I seem to be kept as a pet.

We have discussed special relativity on UBA, though.
Which was quite fun.

Luck or what ever you want to call unintended results being of value or just
what you need falling in you lap when you need is really great to have
happen. It happens a lot. One of the best ones I have seen documented was
when the Brit's brought penicillin over to have the USDA help them work on a
way to produce it in quantity a janitor found a colony of penicillin mold on
a cantaloupe that doubled the output. It was a long road to commercial
production. If you see the story read it. I stumble over USDA and USGS
people all over the country. In the postdotorate surveys they came up
several times in the top ten of the best place to work. Pay, interactions
with colleges and support come to mind. In an area that is often little more
than indentured servitude.

Many folks never know if they are lucky or not because they never kiss the
frog to see if it is a princess. If you never take a chance luck will not
likely have much effect on your life. If you take chances you will discover
luck both good and bad quickly when you start trying to do things that
haven't been done before and are more than a baby step forward.

I have had a some success and lot of failures and a few that are yet to be
decided. At least in Ag Engineering some of them were good to eat.

My son on the other hand is much more risk averse than I am. He grew up
while I went broke and his Chinese wife has really seen poverty. They don't
kiss frogs.

Luck will work for you if you give it an opportunity and have the good sense
to recognize when it happens.

Gordon