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152 points rbanffy | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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Mistletoe ◴[] No.42473324[source]
“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” -Ernest Rutherford

Is this stamp collecting? Do these exotic hadrons mean anything?

replies(4): >>42473372 #>>42473381 #>>42473395 #>>42479281 #
1. iterance ◴[] No.42473381[source]
That quote isn't real; it was a metaphor Rutherford purportedly once used, posthumously recalled by John Bernal. It was incorrectly converted into a direct quotation by later writers. But even then, you're misunderstanding the quote, by which is meant that physics has supremacy and all other sciences are collecting specific instances of physics; the LHC is decidedly doing physics.

However, even if you take the quote to mean what you imagined, it is unnecessarily cynical. LHC has advanced our understanding of physics.