Science advances one funeral at a time.
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
A Pioneer as Elusive as His Particle
As is often the case in the zigzag progress of science, however, that’s not what Dr. Higgs thought he was doing. When he invented his boson in 1964, he said, “I wasn’t sure it would be important.”
.. His first paper on the subject was rejected. He rewrote it, spicing it up with a new paragraph at the end, emphasizing the prediction of a new particle.
.. He was trying to work on a fashionable new theory called supersymmetrythat would further advance the unification of forces, but “I kept making silly mistakes,” he said. Indeed, he told the BBC last winter that his lack of productivity probably would have gotten him fired long ago if he had not been nominated for a Nobel Prize.
.. Moreover, lacking any evidence for supersymmetry or a more encompassing theory, physicists can’t explain the mass of the Higgs itself, which standard quantum calculations suggest should be almost infinite. This has led some theorists to propose that our universe is only one in an ensemble of universes, the multiverse, in which the value of things like the Higgs is random.
Quantum Experiment Shows How Time ‘Emerges’ from Entanglement
Time is an emergent phenomenon that is a side effect of quantum entanglement, say physicists. And they have the first experimental results to prove it
The Quest to Scan Millions of Weather Records
They’re easy to miss if you’re not looking for them—often taking the form of, well, piles of moldy papers. But on those pieces of paper are hundreds of years of weather records—data that could make climate science far more accurate.