The Physicist's Guide To Data Skepticism

The unwritten rule of physics grad school: if your data looks too perfect, it's probably wrong. Nothing in nature aligns that neatly unless you've massaged those numbers harder than a chiropractor with student loans to pay. Real experimental data should look like it was drawn by a caffeinated squirrel—chaotic but following a general trend. When a physicist sees a suspiciously smooth graph, their skepticism meter breaks the scale faster than you can say "statistical anomaly." Trust me, your committee will be less impressed by your perfect curve and more concerned about which Excel function you used to "enhance" your results.