http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002863682_cometdust14m.html
After Einstein turned the world on its head with his Special Theory of Relativity and again when he expanded it to his General Theory of Relativity, someone s reputed to have said "Newton created a universe that lasted for 500 years. Who knows how long the world Einstein created will last."
As it turned out, even the world he created with the new understanding of how the world works was and is in flux...to this day Quantum Mechanics, whether they work or not, how they work, why they work are still debated...it is intriguing to note that Einstein later turned on his own discovery and fought against it...nevertheless, Q-Mechanics are here for a while.
There is a valuable lesson here. For close to a thousand years the Aristotelian view of the universe...that spheres circled the earth, no concept of gravity, etc., ruled "science", were taken as indisputably true. Whereas Ray Stevens would say "Along came Jones", history will say along came Newton. Not to denigrate the contributions of Galileo, Brahe, and numerous others, but it was Newton who created the idea of gravity which allowed the creation of mathematical terms to explain everything. And his math worked...for 500 years it worked. Yet...it was wrong.
Along came Einstein. Suddenly the understanding of gravity...a "mysterious force" that "pulled" things towards the ground and was mathematically calcuable changed. ravity was created by planetary motion now...and the math works. But we found out we did not know as much about how the world worked as we assumed we did. Unassailable, indusputably accurate eliefs suddenly proved to be false. And when his investigation of Brownian motion brought about Q-mechanics...well, another reevaluation took place.
Now, these particles are proving once again the error of our ways. We know how the world has to have been formed to work the way we want it to and think it does...but these particles show we were wrong yet again. I was amused reading this story and seeing all the unproven presumptions taken as indisputable fact being shattered. As Apu would say, thank you, come again.
But perhaps the best line of all....the particle, found on Valentine's Day, shaped like a heart...what kind? A four-barrel cow heart? A human heart? Or the phantasy-driven shape the world calls a heart? I have a guess...