{"id":506,"date":"2008-06-04T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2008-06-04T05:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=506"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:26:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T20:26:17","slug":"entry-142","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/?p=506","title":{"rendered":"A Lot More Doors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tonight I watched one of the random Nova episodes that TiVo catches for me from time to time. This one was titled \u201cThe Ghost Particle\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m no physicist, but Nova has a way of bringing even the most esoteric of scientific studies within the reach of normal folks and making them interesting. This episode was all about the neutrino<\/a>. I found especially interesting the \u201cdrama\u201d surrounding this particle over the years. It\u2019s known as the solar neutrino problem<\/a>, and it surrounded two scientists, Ray Davis<\/a> and John Bahcall<\/a>. To shorten things a bit, Bahcall helped develop a model which predicted the number of neutrinos which should be emitted by the sun (and thus how many we should be able to detect here on earth). Davis and Bahcall headed a huge experiment to measure these neutrinos. The problem was that the measurements were showing only about a third of the predicted number of neutrinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, many people assumed that either the experiment or the predictive model was wrong. Davis kept refining the measurements, but the experiment ran for decades with basically the same results. Bahcall insisted that his model was accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To shorten this up, a definitive experiment was finally run which had the potential to resolve the conflict. It turned out that they were both<\/em> right. The problem was an assumption in the Standard Model<\/a> that neutrinos have no mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, a scientific theory which had been perhaps surprisingly predictive for many years contained an assumption which had just been proven wrong by experimental result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love<\/strong><\/em> the following quote. It\u2019s by an experimental physicist and Columbia University (and now MIT) professor named Janet Conrad<\/a> who specializes in neutrinos:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Scientists have searched for so long\u2014my whole scientific career\u2014to find a problem with the Standard Model, and it has been very resilient. And that is why it is so exciting to suddenly come up with this new information that neutrinos have mass, because that doesn\u2019t fit within our theory. And so, it\u2019s like opening a door, and of course when you open a door, behind that, you find a lot more doors.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(from the episode transcript<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, this perfectly exemplifies what true science is. Conrad is excited<\/em> that a longstanding theory has been (partially) proven wrong by real, hard, experimental result. Why? Because it reveals information. It points out new questions that need to be asked (and answered). Real science looks<\/em> for things that are wrong with the current theory. It expects change, and it does not seek to find \u201ctruth\u201d so that the \u201cright answer\u201d can be known once and for all. However, it also does not allow established theories to be toppled by just any old hypothesis<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who back a certain hypothesis which I will not name are fond of pointing out that a theory is not a fact. I wholeheartedly agree. Theory is so much more powerful than fact because of its ability to predict future observations (AKA facts). And don\u2019t you know that John Bahcall was thrilled<\/em> when he learned that the theory that he<\/em> helped create was able to predict the results of experiments performed decades<\/em> later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot more doors, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight I watched one of the random Nova episodes that TiVo catches for me from time to time. This one was titled \u201cThe Ghost Particle\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,7],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-deep-thoughts","tag-geekiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1604,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/1604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slidingconstant.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}