Virginia Trimble: ‘Who first got it right’ is not necessarily important

In 1986, Caltech astrophysicist Virginia Trimble wrote a paper titled ‘Time Scales for Achieving Astronomical Consensus’ that explored the time-arc that major scientific observations took to be understood completely.

For 16 years, Virigina Louis Trimble wrote the most widely read annual reports on astrophysics for which she digested over 700 papers and publications. The reports are remembered for being brilliant and funny, in equal parts. Reading tomes of publications and research over a decade led her to think deeply about how science evolved, who was involved in the making of science, and how long it took to reach consensus.

Trimble photographed by Life Magazine

"Discovery" refers to the moment when at least a few people agree that something has been observed that requires an explanation. A problem counts as "solved" when most of the community has converged on an explanation and the convergent point has held down to the present.

In this journey, “The question "Who first got it right?" is not necessarily an important, or even appropriate, one.”

Every scientific consensus is preceded by a period of puzzlement, during which multiple theories and observations collide, combine, or splinter into other theories, until one or two survive the trial by fire. As the poet Mary Oliver knew, “Things take the time they take.”

Scientific conundrum and years spent in resolution (Data collated by Prof. Trimble)

“Norman Lockyer's announcement of the discovery of a new element, helium, was such a success that other observers were enticed to invent other –iums.” In quick succession, scientists across the world proposed coronium, nebulium, casseiopeium, asterium, aidebarium, decipium, phillipium and mossandrum – none found consensus.

Thousands of scientists spend time pursuing ideas that don’t pan out, and that do not receive consensus. Each of those ‘failed’ explorations becomes a lighthouse for scientists in that field- ‘ships wreck here, try another shore’. No scientist’s contribution is inconsequential, and no mad pursuit was in vain. Trimble’s conclusion is poignant given how her husband Joseph Weber is best remembered for his failed efforts to record gravitational waves. Joseph Weber was publicly shamed and discredited by his peers when his gravitation wave experiment results were found to be impossible to replicate. He passed away at 82, refusing to accept for 40+ years that his hypothesis did not check out. Trimble famously said,

Science is a self-correcting process, but not necessarily in one’s own lifetime.