How Do I Do This Experinent

How do scientists conducting a new experiment know if it has been done already or not?

Maggie McFee makes a good point about replication. Sometimes you repeat an experiment to learn how to perform it so you can modify the technique. Also a negative result with a good explanation on what went wrong in the other person's paper can be a paper for you in itself (and the other scientist will usually thank you for the service).While I was attempting (and failing) my PhD candidacy about a quarter of my thesis draft was literature review, surveying what had come before.We did "journal club" every monday where everyone in the lab was assigned a different journal to keep tabs on and spend about an hour a day reading and cross referencing the citations so that we'd be able to intelligently discuss an interesting paper as a lab each week in some depth. My lab head read journals for three hours day because the lab head is an academic role rather than a technical one and so the lab head never got on the tools in the lab no matter how much he missed them. Other lab heads did both the academic work and the technical slave labor along side the students, but they never seemed to sleep which was superhuman.Every year we would all go to the Lorne Genome Conference to meet other scientists. If you had something big to report you'd be invited to present your paper as a lecture. If you had business as usual you'd present as a poster. We all spent a lot of time playing mario kart and finding out what research was being performed. Polite lab heads would deconflict their students from other students' work areas so that nobody at the conference was working on exactly the same area. Agressive lab heads (usually from medical institutes who were all competing for the same cancer council and national institutes of health grant money) would pitch students against each other which would make the question and answer sessions at those talks quite tense and political. One student couldn't fault the technique of his rival's experiment or the logic of the conclusion so he trashed the study's clinical relevance in a public fashion earning him no friends. I later found out he had been trying exactly the the same line of research, but got scooped at publication time.

How do I make a scientific experiment more accurate?

Learning how to make scientific experiments more accurate is one of the reasons for studying science. One way to read the history of science is the growth in experimental methods - methods that enable us to measure new things, methods that enable us to increase our certainty, methods that get applied in new ways. There are so many methods known that the best way probably depends on the experiment. For example, in medicine, double blind drug tests are well known and there’s a whole literature on the details.A couple of answers have already mentioned the well known method of collecting more data and averaging the results. This uses the “law of large numbers” to reduce the uncertainty in the average. A detailed knowledge of statistics can help you plan your experiments, e.g., by estimating how much data you need to establish a target level of confidence.Another quite general method is iteration. Do a first experiment; analyze the results; use what you learn to design a better experiment. Sources of uncertainty identified in the first experiment can be used to choose new methods that reduce those uncertainties. Uncertainties from the first experiment can be used to decide how many repeats are needed in the second experiment. Repeating the experiment may lead to different results because some unknown factor is different in the two cases - leading to more experiments to identify that factor. At a larger scale, the scientific community iterates interesting experiments, not only repeating but modifying earlier experiments.Just for fun I’ll add two very specific suggestions. They may not always be appropriate. Please don’t follow them blindly. But it’s often useful toUse a laser to make your measurements.Use a computer to automatically collect and store your data.Good luck.

Why do scientists run experiments?

Put simply, experimentation measures the extent of cause and effect between variables. That’s it and experimentation is the only research type that can do so.Thus, scientists run experiments to determine if one or more causative variables (independent) cause an change in one or more effective variables (dependent). This is done by collecting data through a specific protocol (e.g. times-series, pre/post test, and so forth) and then statistically deriving an answer from the data. The answer is roughly bounded to either cause or no cause and then associated levels of significance.

What do you call the person who carries out an experiment?

The person can be called an investigator. An experiment is a test, a trial or a tentative procedure for the purpose of discovering something unknown or testing a principle, supposition, etc. (www.dictionary.com)Experiments are usually taught in schools especially science subjects that needs to conduct the system. Students are taught to observe in real time and reached certain conclusions which they themselves observed and formulated during experimentation. This i considered a technique for students to learn to think and analyze that early in life as they tread the path. This is system in itself that served as guide to higher learning processes.

If an experiment failed should I continue to write a lab report?

If it is a true experiment you should have zero idea as to the exact results. You may still have some ‘theory’ or ‘estimate’ of results based on your existing knowledge. But you do not really know until the experiment is done.If you already know what the results should be for some careful protocol or procedure, THEN it is NOT an experiment. Rather it should be termed a science demonstration that yields a repeatable, known result.If a Demonstration is done with the correct protocol but does not yield the correct result, there must have been some error that changed the protocol, the elements or parameters of the protocol, the correct order of the steps, the specified ambient conditions, or perhaps contamination or extraneous forces were involved.Perhaps dirty glassware was used.You did not get the expected result. Write it up, all details, the protocol and the existing conditions. You report correctly results obtained. Science is not a lie. Lying reports are a FRAUD.Figure out where it went wrong if you got negative, differing, missing, altered, whatever results, or zero expected results.Something went wrong. Did you work carefully with quality attention to details? You did not rush, used correct timing, your experiment was done in secure area, no one about except you? No saboteurs? A fly did not land in it? No one sprayed poisons? Your gum did not fall into there?I described for wide range of sciences because you gave zero details. a big sign of insufficient attention to detail for others — perhaps for yourself as well?So, forget the ‘dry’ run that was unsuccessful.Do it again with CAREFUL attention to details of the protocol.If you still FAIL to get the expected result, ask the Lab Graduate Assistant, Professor, Teacher, whomever for help. Even better, get the 2d or 3d brainiest student who had good results to WATCH you as you “Do it again.”The brainiest student needs a break, why I said that. And one of the others might be busy or have no time to spare. Still leaves you 4 choices of expert observer.Is it physics or biology? Chemistry? Answer should cover those…