Your experiment went wrong

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posted on 2025-05-09, 08:56 authored by Matthew PartridgeMatthew Partridge

A humorous flow chart outlining the mental and procedural gymnastics researchers go through when experiments fail. Includes comical options and decision points with visual jokes.

History

Creation date

2016-11-23

AltText

Flowchart for troubleshooting failed experiments with humorous branching outcomes

Transcript

Your experiment went wrong A problem solving flow chart Did your experiment go wrong? Nope → Go be insufferably smug to your co-workers Yes → Did it go wrong in a spectacular way or a boring way? → Data looks wrong Did your PI or supervisor ‘fix’ anything while it was running? Yes → Curse their name, un-‘fix’ it, run it again No → Did you mess with it while it was running? Maybe a little? → Un-mess it, run it again → Write “I will not mess with my experiments while they are running” 100 times Nope → Really? Not even one tweak? Well… → Is it Friday? Yes → Abandon all hope, go home and try again on Monday No → Did it work before? Yes → Eat some chocolate, try it again No → Randomly change bits of it and run it again → Does fire count? → Switch to “Lab disaster planning – a flow diagram” Temptation to “tweak” your experiment (graph showing rise over time)