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MADem

(135,425 posts)
1. He doesn't look vindicated to me--he looks like he's been given something
Thu Jul 5, 2012, 05:11 AM
Jul 2012

to eat and he's not sure if that's what he wants.

Is that Peter Higgs? If so, he has been vindicated, even though he looks a bit bemused in that shot.

For anyone who doesn't understand the OP, here's the story:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/48073695/ns/technology_and_science-science/

GENEVA — Peter Higgs was no good in the lab, but he never doubted that one day his theory of a powerful subatomic particle that bears his name would be proven right in practice. His surprise was that he lived to see that day.
Speaking at Geneva's CERN research center on Wednesday after experimental physicists announced the discovery of a new particle, a boson much as Higgs imagined half a century ago, he confessed to Reuters he felt "rather dazed but very pleased."
As a schoolboy in Bristol in the southwest of England, the now 83-year-old Higgs admitted to being "incompetent" at science in the laboratory. He went on, however, to specialize in the theoretical realm, applying mathematics to exploring the outer reaches of our understanding of the universe that makes us.
One paper he dispatched from Edinburgh University in 1964, as he was formulating a theory of an elusive particle to explain how an ordered universe emerged from Big Bang, was rejected by an academic physics journal edited at CERN.

MADem

(135,425 posts)
12. Oh hell, it ain't snark--I am a science DOLT.
Fri Jul 6, 2012, 05:01 PM
Jul 2012

I'm not kidding. I did very well in the language arts and humanities, but science and math? Those qualified as childhood torture segments in my long-ago academic life.

That doesn't mean I find the topic uninteresting--I find much of it fascinating, I just sorta, kinda, suck at it! Anything that could be explained to you in a simple paragraph, would take, for me to get it, a year of patient repetition--and even if I did "get" it, it would probably be more rote memorization than actual understanding.

Everyone has their talents. When it comes to science, all I can do is stand on the sidelines, and marvel, and applaud. It's why I am an avid supporter of more science and maths in the schools--perhaps, if I'd gotten it earlier and from better teachers, I wouldn't be such a ... dolt!

I enjoy the science forum. I learn stuff here--maybe not terribly well, but I do learn a thing or two!

dipsydoodle

(42,239 posts)
4. I did read once
Thu Jul 5, 2012, 06:25 AM
Jul 2012

that Cain and Abel were twin gods. Cain the punisher and Abel sweetness and light. The Jews got the dud one.

tclambert

(11,080 posts)
5. He was actually looking at pictures of puppies the whole time.
Thu Jul 5, 2012, 06:48 AM
Jul 2012

That part of the context may not come through from these isolated photos.

tclambert

(11,080 posts)
6. You should be ashamed of yourself, making fun of a great moment in science
Thu Jul 5, 2012, 06:49 AM
Jul 2012

and a personal triumph for Professor Higgs.

FraDon

(518 posts)
9. bravo to the science folks (assuming you're not making all this up)
Thu Jul 5, 2012, 07:47 AM
Jul 2012

Last edited Thu Jul 5, 2012, 11:30 AM - Edit history (1)

… you know, like the so-called wars on drugs, poverty, terror

… you know, jobs programs (just kiddin about you scientists)

Bravo to Dr. Higgs ~ stick to your crazy connect-the-dots visions.

I heard on NPR that a reviewer came up with the descriptor "the goddamned particle" (due to its elusiveness), and THAT person's editor shortened it to the god particle – and it just stuck.

[On Edit:] Just saw this:

Meanwhile the Sun sums up the complexity of the subject: "Never in the field of human knowledge has so much been written about something understood by so few."

lastlib

(22,981 posts)
11. well, there's a reason they didn't let me play with sub-atomic particles.....
Thu Jul 5, 2012, 08:26 PM
Jul 2012

I won't go into that.........

MADem

(135,425 posts)
13. Ha ha ha!
Fri Jul 6, 2012, 05:04 PM
Jul 2012
"Never in the field of human knowledge has so much been written about something understood by so few."

I resemble that remark!
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