Here are a few “brainsnacks” for a Sunday morning:

1. This past Wednesday scientists at the CERN particle research facility in Geneva claimed that they have found a particle traveling faster than the speed of light. If this is verified it would mean that all of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (and almost all of modern physics) is wrong.

Here’s the full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8782895/CERN-scientists-break-the-speed-of-light.html

2. A materials scientist from SINTEF, a research organization in Norway, has published a new model offering his explanation of what actually caused the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers on September 11th. His model includes explosions caused by a chemical reaction between water from the sprinkler systems and melted aluminum from the airplane fuselages.

Pretty interesting stuff: http://news.yahoo.com/twin-tower-collapse-model-could-squash-9-11-201204097.html?cache=clear

3. Quick! Think of a Brontosaurus. In your mind do you see that giant long-necked beast that was the logo for Texaco? Well, it never existed. Seems there was a mixup. Something about placing the wrong head on a skeleton from several miles away. The error was discovered and the “thunder lizard” is no longer a member of the dinosaur family.

Full article at: http://www.unmuseum.org/dinobront.htm

4. When you get on an airplane what makes you confident that the giant aluminum beast in which you are seated can get off the ground? Most of us probably remember that science-class illustration showing an airplane wing with arrows flowing over the top and under the bottom. We were told that the “Bernoulli principle” provided lift to the wing because the air flowing underneath went faster than the air going over the top. Oops. Turns out it’s a bit more complicated than that. Seems you need calculus (Newton) rather than arithmetic (Bernoulli) to explain this one.

NASA has an explanation here: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/bernnew.html

5. And, finally, more news rocking the scientific world is coming out of the CERN collider. All that you have been taught (and much you haven’t) about atoms, electrons, protons, and all those strangely named particles are based on formulas that have assumed the existence of a particle which could never be seen. This particle, the “Higgs boson,” is often referred to as the “god particle” because it is an article of faith. The facilities at CERN were built, in large part, to be able to detect this particle and cement together our understanding of physics. Oops again. It seems that the “god particle” might not exist at all. Scientists are now 95% certain that it isn’t there. If confirmed, everything you were taught (and most of what you weren’t) about physics collapses. The standard model of particle physics is very close to becoming “flat-earth” theory.

Full article at: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/cern-higgs-boson-god-particle-likely-does-not-exist/ 

These few “snacks” should tell you something about anyone even daring to utter the words “settled science” about anything.