+Quite often someone has a question, and the most straightforward way of answering that question costs far more than one is willing to pay.
Don’t just give up on it. Occasionally people figure out brilliant, clever tricks or loopholes, to get the answer at a fraction of the “obvious” cost.
I don’t care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do. – Gene Kranz (Apollo 13)
cheap experiments
- Millican oil drop experiment
- "CD Players Could Screen for Disease" article by Dwayne Hunter, Thursday, August 21, 2003 “Michael Burkart and James La Clair … Compared to the US$100,000 price tag for a fluorescent protein chip reader, he points out, a CD player costs as little as US$25. …”
Allegedly, a non-geek once said: “A perfectly ordinary item will not necessarily be improved by adding more technology to it.” Well, maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. There’s one way to find out …
toy science
“As a basic rule of toy science, never operate on a toy that you expect to work again. … After determining how all moving parts move or refuse to move, you might actually be able to fix the toy. Occasionally bits and pieces from several similar toys can make one toy that works even better than its ancestors.” -- Dr. Carolyn Summers in the book “Toys in Space: Exploring Science with the Astronauts” 1994.
measuring the Lense-Thirring effect
- "Spinning Earth twists space" article by Mark Peplow “The experiment, carried out for virtually no cost with Earth-based laser range-finders, scoops Gravity Probe B, the US$700 million orbiting craft launched in April to test exactly the same effect. … Ignazio Ciufolini at the University of Lecce, Italy and Erricos Pavlis at the University of Maryland in Baltimore charted the path of two NASA satellites, LAGEOS and LAGEOS 2, over 11 years with laser range-finders with the precision of a few millimetres. …”
- "Gravity Probe B gets scooped?" article “NASA launched the Gravity Probe B to help investigate Einstein’s theory of gravity with unprecedented precision. … While scientists are still waiting on data to be returned from Gravity Probe B, a pair of scientists have been looking at orbit data from a pair of LAGEOS satellites to see if they find the same space-time drag caused by the Earth. After analyzing 11 years of data from the satellites and factoring out effects from the Earth’s magnetic field and thermal radiation from the satellites, they believe they have found evidence of Earth’s dragging of space-time. Even though it may have been scooped, Gravity Probe B is expected to confirm the results and measure the effect with extraordinary accuracy.”
- "Relativity tested on a shoestring budget" article by Justin Mullins 2004-Oct-20 “A NASA mission costing $600 million, which aimed to be the first to measure an esoteric prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, has been pipped to the post by a pair of scientists on a shoestring budget. … To test for this effect, NASA and Stanford University physicists conceived Gravity Probe B … Meanwhile, Ignazio Ciufolini, a physicist at the University of Lecce in Italy, and Erricos Pavlis from the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology in Baltimore … using data from two NASA satellites that were sent up on an entirely different mission. … because the work was mainly analysing existing data, it cost essentially nothing, says Pavlis. …”
- "Hey, Mr. Science Guy! - Frame Dragging."
MacGyverisms
- MacGyverisms – for example, episode 140: How to get a car with no engine to “go:” Put booster rockets on side of car.
Unsolved questions
- http://rdrop.com/~cary/html/unknowns_faq.html
- What other unsolved questions do you have ?
discussion
(Is there a better wiki to talk about “science on a shoestring budget”?)
I’m sure Doctor Despair would say there isn’t 
That’s great. Thank you .