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Re: Reaching toward the Big Bang



Jack Uretsky wrote:
The Reuters posting is pure hype, with no substance.
[...]
Apparently the CERN group wanted to get its two cents in before
RHIC would have a chance to speak up.

Chuck Britton wrote:
The guy on NPR this morning said it would have been better done
as a Sci. Am. review article rather than an 'IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT'
of results that have been accumulating over the years.

A group of CERN researchers has put *five years* of their lives into an
intricate and important project which has culminated and is being passed
on to Brookhaven, and you're criticizing because they want lots of
people to hear about what they believe they've accomplished?

I know there are those who think that scientific knowledge ought to be
reserved for the elite few who have mastered the details and intricacies
and jargon necessary to pursue it professionally. Hey, let's keep those
discoveries couched in language that only specialists in the field can
understand; and publish them only in Scientific American and journals
and such sources as are only read by a relative handful of people.

Just because my neighbors are never going to understand how "the
observed enhancement, relative to proton-induced collisions, of hadrons
containing strange quarks signals a new and faster strangeness-producing
process before or during hadronization etc etc" doesn't mean they aren't
fascinated and impressed by the workings of modern science to the extent
that it is explained in something approaching everyday language.

I believe it is very important for the scientific community to bring its
accomplishments to the attention of the general public, the more
frequently and the more understandably the better.

Best wishes,

Larry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Larry Cartwright <exit60@ia4u.net>
Physics and Physical Science Teacher
Charlotte HS, Charlotte MI USA
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