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Re: Scientific method was physical pendulums/ an opportunity/cosmic rays



Hi

I passed this post on to Dr Eric Christian, head of the ACE project at the NASA/Goddard
Space Flight Center, with whom I have worked for a few years...he suggested for general
info the following as a site of interest:

http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/gamcosray/hecr/owl_new.html

Pat

"JACK L. URETSKY (C)1998; HEP DIVISION, ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB ARGONNE, IL 60439" wrote:

Hi all-
This is directed to the postings that have made very general comments
about how the "Scientific Method" works.
You now have an opportunity to observe the "scientific method" at work
and to construct your own paradigm. Cosmic ray physicists are confronting a
major puzzle.
It was long thought that there was a natural cut-off for high-energy
cosmic rays at about 10^20 ev. Particles with that much energy are believed
to be extra-galactic because any measured magnetic fields in our galaxy are
too small to contain them. If they are extra-galactic then they will lose
their energy by collisions with photons from the microwave background radiation.
The prediction seemed true because the flux, which dies off with energy like
E^(-2.7) seemed to go to zero at about this limit (1 event per yr per squate
kilometer, or some such number).
New detectors are finding events above the presumed cut-off. In the
last couple of years about 14 such events have been detected. The questions
are: how are such events generated? Where? Is there really a cut-off and, if
so, where is it.
Please direct your speculations to the editor of your favorite journals.
There are a number of conjecture ("hypotheses" if you will) being bandied about.
Regards,
Jack

"I scored the next great triumph for science myself,
to wit, how the milk gets into the cow. Both of us
had marveled over that mystery a long time. We had
followed the cows around for years - that is, in the
daytime - but had never caught them drinking fluid of
that color."
Mark Twain, Extract from Eve's
Autobiography

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