This is an IHeart podcast.

Hollywood tells us what it's like to make a scientific discovery.

Okay, set the scene.

A lone scientist wearing a lab coat, because they're always wearing a lab coat

for some reason, has a flash of inspiration, sometimes during a musical montage.

And that's when the ideas come together.

He, and it's almost always a he, rushes out to tell the world and everyone greets the news

with enthusiasm.

That's a fun bit of storytelling, but what does it really like? Does that

scenario ever happen, or are scientists working slowly for decades pushing the fuzzy bits of the

puzzle together until people are finally convinced? And yes, I have to admit that wouldn't make

quite as good of a movie. But anyway, today we're going to pull back

the curtain on the process of scientific discovery and tell you stories of dramatic, as well as

frustratingly slow discoveries. You'll hear the actual historical audio of scientists being

shocked at a discovery that they were making in real time, a conversation with

a historian of science, and an interview with a man who has spoken to more Nobel Prize winners

than maybe anyone else on the planet, and we'll try to learn what led to moments of understanding

and discovery. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary universe.

Hello, I'm Kelly Wiener-Smith.

I study parasites and space,

and today we're going to talk about how many times I have not discovered things.

Hello, I'm Daniel Weitzen. I'm a particle physicist, and I got into particle physics to reveal the fundamental nature of the universe and make earth-shattering discoveries. But in 30 years, I've made exactly zero. You've made exactly zero. Okay, well, that's a nice lead into the question I have for you today. So, at least in my field, and I assume this is the same in your field, before you start an experiment, you have a prediction. You have an expectation for how the results are going to go. And then you design your experiment well so that if you're wrong, you can be sure that you're wrong. That's a good experiment. So what percent of the time,

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