DSD

As I sus­pect most high energy physi­cists do, I stay acutely aware of what’s hap­pen­ing on Lubos Motl’s blog.^[1] Today, he offered a par­tic­u­larly illu­mi­nat­ing anal­ogy describ­ing our rela­tion­ship to some cur­rent phys­i­cal theories

So we are some­what sim­i­lar to a prim­i­tive tribe that finds a wash­ing machine (pro­duced by some­one else). At the begin­ning, they will use it as a fridge. As their knowl­edge increases, they will learn how to do the laun­dry. How­ever, if they become even more skill­ful, they may update the device a bit — or press a hid­den but­ton — and use it as a fridge, too. I didn’t tell you: it was one of the wash­ing machines that can also cool the clothes down.

1. Self described as “The best the­o­ret­i­cal physics blog that the search engine can offer you.” What can I do? Appar­ently noth­ing. [↩]