I am a scientist. I am often wrong, and that’s OK.

You may have heard about major errors in science and engineering that made the news headlines, like the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, aka “Galloping Gertie,” or the 1999 crash of the Mars Climate Orbiter. Or maybe you’ve seen the recent video from SpaceX, “How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster.” You may not realize how often scientists are wrong, but being wrong is actually part of the process of doing science. The trick is to catch errors before they leave the lab, and certainly before they make the front-page news, though, obviously, that doesn’t always happen.

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