The observer had spent several days measuring the length of shadows cast by a particular stone.
The measurements were consistent.
Repeated observations produced the same results, and the observer’s records agreed with one another.
The observer was pleased.
The measurements had been intended to help explain why a nearby stream sometimes reached farther into the surrounding ground than it did at other times.
But the shadow measurements revealed no clear relationship to the stream’s changing reach.
The observer checked the records again.
The measurements remained consistent.
They also remained unhelpful.
For a while, the observer considered the investigation a failure. The question had not been answered, and the work had produced nothing that could yet be used to answer it.
Then the observer added a note to the record.
The measurements appear reliable. Their relevance to the question remains unknown.
The observer did not discard the records, but neither did they claim a discovery.
The stone continued to cast its shadow.
The stream continued to change.
And the observer had learned something about the limits of the investigation, even if not yet about the behavior of the water.
Some results become useful only after the question changes. Others remain accurate records of something that was never relevant to the question at all.
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