Héctor Morales PhD Candidate Department of Mathematical Sciences Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY 12180 USA

Contact Information moralj@rpi.edu 424 Amos Eaton Hall, RPI Phone: (518) 276-8500 Fax: (518) 276-4824

Computations: no-one believes them, except the person who made them. Measurements: everyone believes them, except the person who made them ...

'The well-known Gaussian law of errors teaches us that an observation error X follows a normal distribution if the error is an accumulation of a large number of small errors.' R. Kubo.
'Everyone believes in it because the experimentalists imagine that it is a theorem of mathematics and the mathematicians that it is an experimental fact.' J.H. Poincaré 1908.

When a new particle or new fact is discovered, I notice that all the theorisists do one of two things: they either form a group or disperse. R.P. Feynman, 1961.

`A demonstration will convince a reasonable person. A proof will convince a skeptic.' Mark Kac, remark during a lecture.

"With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk". John von Neumann.