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RE: A final song for OPERA: 6 years of neutrino data, nice events and an exemplary open data policy
First off, the open science aspect is what got my initial attention. Yay for that!
I am really tickled that the detection system is tangible - a bunch of lead brick and film sandwiches. It is high tech and precise, but it's also just a fun mental contrast with the almost alien type of detectors people (including myself) usually subconsciously assume are used.
we need certainty to claim anything in physics ;)
In my field, alpha of 0.05 is just fine. We can also live with a 10% measurement error.
Fundamental physics is one of the pickiest field of science, I think. 0.05 is what we require to exclude an hypothesis (more or less). However, for claiming a discovery, 5 sigmas are in order (for the opera results, we are reaching 6.1 sigmas). But it is important to tune this in a field-dependent way :)
I keep reading this as 'picklest field of science.'
We also eat pickles... once in a while ;)
Pickle science!
@mountainwashere Obligate video.
:facepalm:
This is what made me think twice before choosing to study in the Aerospace at the Politechnik Institute. I presumed that everything was high tech and less tangible than it was. Only later when I reviewed some of the works there I found out that even the most advanced industries use simple methods to overcome problems. Either because of cost or because of the simple fact that it is working like this, why complicate it? :D
I work with molecular biology, computational fluid dynamics, and the occasional recombinant organism. My most useful lab tools? Silicone caulk and zip ties.
Very often, the simplest is the best. But I already told you (or actually someone else) this recently. Nature has to e somehow simple. It is only us, humans, who can't decode the simplicity as it should be.
A related thought I often have to this is thinking about how the systems I look are are massive collections of differential equations, and yet nature 'solves' them effortlessly. More poetic than accurate, I know, but I think it touches on something.
As long as we haven't found the way to exploit simplicity in the best possible way, we are bound to deal with complicated methods :)