Ah. The garden shed version of discovering dark matter, perhaps ?Just to investigate what exactly various ore samples I have collected over the years are giving off in term of radiation. Have a google, it’s quite fascinating and you can identify individual isotopes and decay daughters with a gammaspec setup
But to get good clear spectroscopy you need to isolate out background and cosmos radiation and run it for a long time. And that will take several dozen kg of lead cast into bricks to surround the setup! That was I can detect emissions that are lower than naturally occurring background (or that are masked by background radiation)
Geek on!
I believe nullified by the mathematical realisation that the inverse square law was calculated taking into account that there was no external input formulated into the equation.
When used in the real world, the maths results didn't tally with the actual results. The discrepancy became 'dark matter'. When the discovering scientists realised this, one became a staunch anti dark matter-ist. The others kept sctum and kept applying for funding.
It's no longer a science thing, it's a political and economic thing.
It was in really great depth in a Suspicious Observers episode.
#Absolutely fascinating