A nod to Philip Bevington

I read with appreciation Charles Day’s important, lucid, and interesting editorial on reproducibility (Physics Today, December 2019, page 8 ). When he mentioned the need for better education in data analysis and named Philip Bevington’s Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences and its importance to him, I gasped audibly. For the first time, I appreciated how much that one small, clear tome had influenced not only my career but my whole approach to life and decision making in nontechnical areas.

For me, Bevington, as the book was affectionately known in my undergrad physics department, encapsulates the essence of the scientific method. I know such an ideal is infeasible on so many levels, but I believe that the world would be a much better place if everyone, not just every physicist, were to read the book as part of an undergraduate education.

We might want to revisit Bevington as an exemplar not just of scientific-method education but of meta-instruction in effective pedagogy in general. Phil Bevington seems to have struck the perfect balance of detail, rigor, practicality, and clarity.