Dr. Mario Livio is an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland – the institution that runs the Hubble telescope. Livio is also an author. In his new book “Brilliant Blunders” he says that some of the most famous scientists like Darwin and Einstein made mistakes along their way to major discoveries. Livio says mistakes and blunders are a critical component of scientific progress.
“And that is true, you know, in business, in particular it’s true for anything that involves innovation. If you have innovative ideas, if you have new ideas, you want to try things that have not been done before, then you know you should be prepared to take some risks and be prepared to accept blunders as part of this progress that you are making. Because otherwise if you are way too careful and are not willing to take any risks, you know, and so on, then chances are that you will not discover something that is really interesting,” says Livio.
As an astrophysicist, Livio says he spends his days looking at what astronomers observe. He says he builds models incorporating mathematics to better understand the Universe. Livio is speaking at Black Hills State University in Spearfish on Thursday, April 25th. The speech is open to the public.