The Wrong Answer That Built the Modern World: How a 400-Year-Old Measurement Error Accidentally Gave Us Germ Theory, Statistics, and the Scientific Method

In the 1600s, astronomers trying to calculate the distance to Mars made a catastrophic mistake — and the tools they invented to cope with that mistake became the foundation of modern science, medicine, and even how we run clinical trials today. It turns out that being precisely, reproducibly wrong is one of the most generative things a civilization can do. This episode is about error as technology.