On 23-Sep-11, at 6:16 AM, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
[snip]
Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso
laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second
early.
You know, I'm convinced that the real victim here is not the Standard
Model but us half-educated laypersons who care enough to be informed
citizens. If I depended on up-to-date science news I would never know
anything:
1990: Neutrinos have no mass! (high school teacher explaining
conservation of mass in fission)
Some years later: Neutrinos have non-zero mass!
Yesterday: coffee/alcohol is bad for you!
Tomorrow: coffee/alcohol will save your family!
Last month: speed of light cannot be exceeded
Today: CERN exceeds speed of light with massed particle!
It's exhausting. I'd subscribe to a yearly science research omnibus
that updated my school textbook with Stuff Every Adult Should Know.
Otherwise any opinion I have on any public policy that depends on
science would be "provably" correct one day and laughably wrong and
dangerous the next.
That said, the day they disprove the Laws of Thermodynamics is the day
I move to the forest and learn Stone Age subsistence agriculture,
because I would at that point be unfit to be anywhere near technology.
-Taj.
