How long will it take?


At yesterday's UQ Chemistry seminar Paul Mulvaney underscored the importance of the following law in scientific research.
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
– Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
However, in todays UQ Quantum Science seminar we heard an apparent violation of Hofstadter's law! John Teufel said that successful fabrication of the micro opto-mechanical resonator featured in a recent Nature paper took less time than he expected. Indeed the first device he made worked!

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