Holbytla wrote:There is no such thing as zero length.
There is, but, like the number i, it's not worth breaking your brain over.
The crazy thing about this new neutrino result is that Fermilab actually saw this back in 2007 but their margin of error totally sucked so no one believed the result. But now CERN's reproduced the finding...and Fermilab is preparing to try and reproduce the CERN result. Round and round it goes...and that is how progress is made.
That said, even if the result stands, nothing about the world will change. Only our understanding.
River wrote:That said, even if the result stands, nothing about the world will change. Only our understanding.
Yes. OH yes. This. Exactly.
I LOVE science. (And I seriously want to be River when I grow up...)
Inanna: I know almost exactly squat about science from a physics point of view, but I would be very surprised if everything goes out the window at this point. Or even if the data is implying what we think it might imply. It's all good.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Some interesting conversations in the comments of Scientific American on the subject. Someone suggested that possibly neutrinos took a shortcut through parallel universes or something of the sort. Now, I have just enough background to understand every single word (which included "string theory") and make a guess at what the resulting sentences mean, but I am unable to speculate about validity of the claims. But it sounded exciting.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
Not bound by time or space you say? Can be everywhere all at once?
If this neutrino stuff proves true, all I can say is anyone who ever got an "F-" for getting the question "is anything faster than the speed of light" wrong -- or worse was prevented from having a career in science, assuming they would want one -- deserves an apology. Just saying.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
The comments of the newly announced winner of the 2011 Noble Prize for Chemistry, Dan Shechtman, are worth repeating in this thread. Schectman was absolutely ridiculed in the scientific community for thinking outside conventional wisdom. Until, of course, he was proven to be right.
A good scientist is a humble and listening scientist and not one that is sure 100 percent in what he read in the textbooks
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
Yes V I have to agree that the Nobel Prize this year was a great validation!
I'm actually right in the middle of a Solid State Physics class (this is my sixth year of taking university classes full time and hopefully my last!) and we were just talking about quasi crystals a day before the announcement. It's quite amazing. I'm in the middle of reading his break through paper right now in fact.
The idea behind it is pretty awesome and his courage is really just inspiring. To have people as famous as Linus Pauling verbally belittle you and stand your ground is such an inspiration!
Also it is worth noting that this is another instance of a Nobel Prize in a certain field being awarded to someone in another one. This discovery falls squarely in the realm of solid state physics but as science becomes more and more advances the lines between different majors has become quite vague! It's so exciting!
Voronwë the Faithful wrote:The comments of the newly announced winner of the 2011 Noble Prize for Chemistry, Dan Shechtman, are worth repeating in this thread. Schectman was absolutely ridiculed in the scientific community for thinking outside conventional wisdom. Until, of course, he was proven to be right.
A good scientist is a humble and listening scientist and not one that is sure 100 percent in what he read in the textbooks
I don't quite understand why this arrogance keeps surfacing in science. (And science is the field I'm talking about here, though I know this tendency happens in other fields, too.) So many times we've seen a scientist discover something new or come to a new conclusion outside of the realm of accepted science, get shunned and ridiculed, and then be vindicated. Shechtman's words ought to be taken to heart by every scientist: be humble, listen, and continue to question everything--the whole reason you became a scientist in the first place.
The big difference is that science is self-correcting. Scientists do resist change at times, but when change happens, it comes from within.
Plus, scientists are supposed to challenge conventional wisdom and each other. It's right there in the rules. When they don't, they're not doing their jobs. Religion of the faith-based variety is exactly opposite. If you accuse a scientist of being dogmatic, he'll need to either explain why he's not or admit that you're right and change his ways. Accuse a priest of the same thing and the response will be "well duh; it is dogma."
Last edited by Dave_LF on Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Although science itself has no room for egos or dogma or other human fallibilities the fact remains that scientific research is conducted by humans, so it stands to reason that those things will find their way in to the process from time to time. That doesn't make it right, but it is somewhat predictable.
I know almost exactly squat about science from a physics point of view, but I would be very surprised if everything goes out the window at this point. Or even if the data is implying what we think it might imply. It's all good. 
