I agree --at least for the most part. Now and then, no, but usually. message dated 10/7/2011 10:06:15 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
I love Krauthammer. I've felt for a while that he's really one of us. On Oct 7, 12:44 pm, [email protected] wrote: > Gone in 60 nanoseconds > > By _Charles Krauthammer_ > (http://www.washingtonpost.com/charles-krauthammer/2011/02/24/ADJkW7B_...) , > > < > “We don’t allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” says the bartender. > A neutrino walks into a bar. > > — Joke circulating on the Internet > The world as we know it is on the brink of disintegration, on the verge of > dissolution. No, I’m not talking about the collapse of the euro, of > international finance, of the Western economies, of the democratic future, of _the > unipolar moment_ > (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/46271/charles-krauthammer/the-...) , of the American dream, of French banks, of > Greece as a going concern, of Europe as an idea, of Pax Americana — the > sinews of a postwar world that feels today to be unraveling. > I am talking about something far more important. Which is why it made only > the back pages of your newspaper, if it made it at all. Scientists at CERN, > the European high-energy physics consortium, have announced _the discovery > of a particle_ > (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5in1T5nvGNckqh0WyG9Y...) that can travel > faster than light. > Neutrinos fired 454 miles from a supercollider outside Geneva to an > underground laboratory in Gran Sasso, Italy, took less time (60 nanoseconds less) > than light to get there. Or so the physicists think. Or so they measured. > Or so they have concluded after checking for every possible artifact and > experimental error. > The implications of such a discovery are so mind-boggling, however, that > these same scientists immediately requested that other labs around the world > try to replicate the experiment. Something must have been wrong — some > faulty measurement, some overlooked contaminant — to account for a result that, > if we know anything about the universe, is impossible. > And that’s the problem. It has to be impossible because, if not, if that > did happen on this Orient Express hurtling between Switzerland and Italy, > then everything we know about the universe is wrong. > The fundamental axiom of _Einstein’s theory of relativity_ > (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-12/31/066r-123199-idx...) is the > absolute prohibition on speed faster than light. Einstein’s predictions about how > time slows and mass increases as one approaches the speed of light have > been verified by a mountain of experimental evidence. As velocity increases, > mass approaches infinity and time dilates, making it progressively and, > ultimately, infinitely difficult to achieve light speed. Which is why nothing > does. And nothing ever has. > Until two weeks ago Thursday. > That’s when the results were announced. To oversimplify grossly: If the > Gran Sasso scientists had a plate to record the arrival of the neutrinos and a > super-powerful telescope to peer (through the Alps!) directly into the lab > in Geneva from which they were being fired, the Gran Sasso guys would have > “heard” the neutrinos clanging against the plate before they observed the > Geneva guys squeeze the trigger on the neutrino gun. > Sixty nanoseconds before, to be precise. Wrap your mind around that one. > It’s as if someone told you that yesterday at drive time Topeka was > released from Earth’s gravity. These things don’t happen. Natural laws don’t just > expire between shifts at McDonald’s. > Not that there aren’t already mysteries in physics. Neutrinos themselves > are ghostly particles that travel through nearly everything unimpeded. > (Thousands are traversing your body as you read this.) But that is simplicity > itself compared to quantum mechanics, whose random arbitrariness so offended > Einstein that he famously objected that _God does not play dice with the > universe_ > (http://books.google.com/books?id=cdxWNE7NY6QC&lpg=PP1&dq=inauthor:"Walter%20Isaacson"&pg=PA335#v=onepage&q&f=false) . > Aphorisms don’t trump reality, however. They are but a frail, poignant > protest against a universe that often disdains the most cherished human notions > of order and elegance, truth and beauty. > But if quantum mechanics was a challenge to human sensibilities, this pesky > Swiss-Italian neutrino is their undoing. It means that Einstein’s > relativity — a theory of uncommon beauty upon which all of physics has been built > for 100 years — is wrong. Not just inaccurate. Not just flawed. But deeply, > fundamentally, indescribably wrong. > It means that the “standard model” of subatomic particles that stands at > the center of all modern physics is wrong. > Nor does it stop there. This will not just overthrow physics. Astronomy and > cosmology measure time and distance in the universe on the assumption of > light speed as the cosmic limit. Their foundations will shake as well. > It cannot be. Yet, this is not a couple of guys in a garage peddling cold > fusion. This is no crank wheeling a perpetual motion machine into the patent > office. These are the best researchers in the world using the finest > measuring instruments, having subjected their data to the highest levels of > scrutiny, including six months of cross-checking by 160 scientists from 11 > countries. > But there must be some error. Because otherwise everything changes. We > shall need a new physics. A new cosmology. New understandings of past and > future, of cause and effect. Then shortly and surely, new theologies. > Why? Because we can’t have neutrinos getting kicked out of taverns they > have not yet entered. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
