{"id":2550,"date":"2012-01-08T17:29:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-08T22:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2550"},"modified":"2012-01-08T17:29:44","modified_gmt":"2012-01-08T22:29:44","slug":"neutrinos-and-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2550","title":{"rendered":"Neutrinos and angels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neutrinos recently observed by CERN&#8217;s OPERA experiment may have been traveling faster than light. Or may have not. I have been discussing with physicists a number of possibilities: the <a href=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2401\">role of statistics<\/a>, errors in time or distance measurements, comparisons to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/SN_1987A\">SN 1987A<\/a>, Cherenkov radiation, or the necessity for a Lorentz-violating theoretical framework.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, there is one thing I did not need to discuss: How faster-than-light neutrinos relate to the Koran. Physics educators in Pakistan, such as Pervez Hoodbhoy <a href=\"http:\/\/tribune.com.pk\/story\/318468\/on-neutrinos-and-angels\/\">writing for the Express Tribune<\/a>, are not this lucky: they regularly face criticisms from fundamentalists, and if they choose to confront these head-on, they provoke ominous reader comments that call on all Muslims to &#8220;reject this evil experiment&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, there is a glimpse of hope: a Pakistani reader mentions Carl Sagan&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Demon-Haunted_World\">The Demon-Haunted World<\/a>, one of Sagan&#8217;s last books, and a superb one about rational thinking versus superstition. I don&#8217;t know how popular Sagan&#8217;s book is in Pakistan, but I am glad it&#8217;s not forgotten.<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2550' send='true' layout='standard' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neutrinos recently observed by CERN&#8217;s OPERA experiment may have been traveling faster than light. Or may have not. I have been discussing with physicists a number of possibilities: the role of statistics, errors in time or distance measurements, comparisons to SN 1987A, Cherenkov radiation, or the necessity for a Lorentz-violating theoretical framework. Fortunately, there is <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2550' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-physics","category-religion","category-41-id","category-3-id","category-38-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2550"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2556,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2550\/revisions\/2556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}