When typos matter
As in any essay, typos can often be encountered in a lab report. Some can be innocent (e.g. misspelling) and ignored; in the end what matters is the scientific understanding and interpretation of the results. But what happens when a little typo can completely alter the experimental outcome as well as shake the confidence of whether the author does understand what they are talking about, and not copy-pasting numbers and graphs? Below I am listing three of the most extravagant examples of lab report "typos" that made me cry like Phoebe: 1. How long can a Fresnel diffraction pattern be? Fresnel diffraction is observed when a spherical wavefront reaches a diffracting object such as a slit. Typically in a Physics lab, this experiment can be done with the use of a laser, an objective or other strong diverging lens, a slit (preferably that can be varied to observe patterns for various slit widths) and a detector to scan the pattern and record the light intensity changes. Brilliant.
