«Shit happens»

1. Pigeons and telescopes

In the mid-20th century, physicists Penzias and Wilson built a radio telescope that allowed them to measure weak signals from satellites. The measured background radiation was 100 times stronger than expected. As it turned out, pigeons nested on the telescope and falsified the measurement.

2. Rotten sandwiches lie in the sun

Colombia, Summer, Math Olympiad. The grand opening ceremony is coming up. It starts with a long bus ride, from Santa Marta to Barranquilla, in two hours. The mayor is on fire, talks and talks, the celebration lasts an unbelievable three hours. The sandwiches are left in the Colombian sun for just as long. In the evening, several participants are lying flat and sick in bed. Not exactly the best preparation for the exam day!

3. A momentous essay

Since ancient times, philosophers have believed that "knowledge" can be defined simply as "justified true belief". Edmund Gettier threw this millennia-old definition overboard in 1963 with a three-page essay.

4. Would you like a little more metal?

Let's say you're studying at home for a chemistry test. You need a break and make yourself some tea. You are amazed at the first sip: the metal spoon in your cup has melted and the beverage is undrinkable.

5. The self-experiment

1984: science is adamant that bacteria cannot possibly survive in our stomachs because stomach acid kills every last bacterium. The doctors at the time explained that anyone suffering from stomach ulcers had psychological problems.

That doesn't convince the Australian Barry J. Marshall. He suspects that bacteria could be responsible for ulcers. His hypothesis is off-putting, but he doesn't let it deter him. On the contrary: he takes action and drinks a test tube full of bacteria. A short time later, an ulcer develops in his stomach that can only be treated with antibiotics. Marshall discovers the bacterium Helicobacter pylori on his own body, the bacterium responsible for many stomach ulcers.

6. Death of an essay

At a final of the Philosophy Olympiad, a participant saved his essay on the wrong drive, after which it was automatically deleted. Although we spent the afternoon trying to save the essay, it was lost forever.

7. Help, how do we get out of this?

Summer 2016, an idyllic valley in the Valais Alps, far from the nearest town. 5 young people put their heads together and train for the international physics olympiad. A single access road leads to the remote place and that almost becomes their undoing. The idyll is done when, the night before departure, there is a landslide that fills the road with boulders. Help, and so close to the big competition! No road, no Olympiad! Huge problem...

8. The millennium problem of computer scientists

One of the most well-known problems in theoretical computer science revolves around the question of whether the two complexity classes `P' and `NP' are equal. If they are not equal, then there are problems that are `hard'. This means that they cannot be solved efficiently. Much of the cryptography in use today is based on this very assumption. But since this assumption has not yet been proven, nobody knows for sure whether our current methods are actually safe.

In the summer of 2017, Norbert Blum, a German computer science professor, published a proof that `P' is not equal to `NP`. But not even three weeks later he withdrew it again: the proof of one of the theorems was wrong. Accordingly, this millennium problem is still unsolved and we still cannot be sure that the encryption methods used cannot be cracked.

9. Disenchanting the Aurora Boreali

There is something magical about the northern lights and many Nordic peoples interpreted them as symbols of the gods. It was believed that they wanted to warn the people of bad times such as war, plague or famine. In the 18th century, researchers initially suspected that the northern lights were reflections of sunlight on clouds or ice crystals. Then Edmond Halley came along and explained the formation of the northern lights scientifically for the first time. According to his theory, aurorae occur in the northern latitudes because the earth's crust is thinner there and the light from the hollow earth can shine through.

10. Hitno moram ići na aerodrom

Sometimes you miss flights because bus drivers and passengers just don't get along. This happened to a Swiss youth when he wanted to fly home after the Geo-Olympics in Serbia. On the bus to the airport were a driver who didn't speak English and four young people who didn't understand Serbian. The chauffeur took his job very seriously and waited for five registered people. One of the passengers - not the Swiss! − had overslept and was an hour late. The Swiss student couldn't explain to the driver that they had to leave urgently, so he missed his flight.  

11. Math in a nutshell

In 1966, mathematicians L.J. Lander and T.R.Parkin one of the shortest proofs. On one line they showed that Euler's conjecture is wrong. This postulates for a number "n" greater than 2, that the sum of (n-1) nth powers can never be an nth power. In their work, the authors gave a simple counterexample in which they added four 5th powers and got a 5th power. Unfortunately, they made it a little too easy for themselves. Funnily enough, when adding the powers, both made the same calculation error.