Faster than a Speeding Photon!

Big news! Physicists at CERN have clocked neutrinos going faster than the speed of light. This article in the NYTimes outlines their findings. This may lead to a radical updating of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, if this discovery can be replicated and verified by others.

This is a great textbook case of the process of science at work. A key tenet of a dominant theory is called into question by an observation. Is the theory wrong? As Richard Feynman eloquently stated,

It doesn't matter
   how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is.
   If it disagrees with experience, it's wrong.  That's all there is to it.

On the other hand, what if the measurement is wrong?  This is why we have replication and confirmation built into the process.

New Science Standards Coming -- Inquiry Rediscovered!

The NYT yesterday reported on a New Approach Proposed for Science Curriculum, a new science framework advanced by the National Academy of Sciences. The essential features of the framework are that science curricula should focus on a small set of core principles and on problem-solving skills to apply this principles, rather than on learning about a welter of information about science. The framework is coming out now and a set of standards using this framework is due out in about a year. This publication, A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas, is available from the National Academy Press.

This is a welcome announcement, though it is hardly news. This same basic message has been sounded by scientists and science educators since forever, going back at least to the TIMMS work and before. This really is inquiry science, the same inquiry science called for in the "old" standards issues by NSTA, NAS, and AAAS.

Most schools and school districts are in the thrall of the textbook publishers and their massive tomes that cover science ideas a kilometer wide and a centimeter deep. A few schools, however, such as the Nueva school in the SF Bay Area, actually do practice true inquiry science. May their tribe increase.