When I was young, my father – a talented engineer and a caring but austere parent – liked to remind me of the old proverb,
Wise people learn by others’ mistakes, fools by their own, and complete idiots do not learn even by their own blunders.
He accompanied each reminder with the same advice:
It doesn’t look like you have a chance to reach the first of these categories. So, try to cling to the second of them as much as you can, making every effort not to slip into the last one.
I tried to follow his advice all my life but with very questionable success. Now rather old, I have compiled a list of the major errors I had made through these years. I am publishing this list now to give the reader a chance to laugh at my mistakes and decide which category I fit in each of the described matters. (Just for fun, you may like to record your grades and then go to https://xyscientist.weebly.com/forum to compare them with those posted by other readers.)
It is also my hope that some young readers wiser than I was might use these notes to avoid at least some of the listed errors, thus making their claim for the top category.