Monday, August 13, 2012

The Higgs boson enters cocktail party chit-chat

It is amazing to me how much the Higgs boson has featured in the press and entered the public consciousness lately. I fear this is partly because CERN has such a large and effective press office. This was particularly brought home to me when my wife sent me the above cartoon which one of her friends had posted on Facebook.

On the one hand, I think it is good that physics is getting all this publicity. On the other hand I think the scientific significance of this discovery is being blown out of proportion, driven by the large budgets involved....

1 comment:

  1. Possessing even a scant amount of knowledge about quantum mechanics makes you an instant expert since you know far more about it than most people ever will.

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