To be honest, I do not expect much from all this neutrino fuss. I bet that, when the dust settles down, c will remain majestic in her velocity throne and forgive magnanimously our misgivings. Why? OK, first, because superluminal neutrinos would produce a vast amount of electron-positron pairs in their way (see this paper by Cohen and Glashow), which has never been observed. But, more importantly, because, as Alvaro de Rújula once said, “You must bet so that losing becomes the most intersting option”. That’s what xkcd said, using different words:
But, in any case, the best offspin from this story are few nice neutrino jokes that have come to stay among us:
MY ALL-TIME TOP SIX NEUTRINO JOKES
- A neutrino. “Who’s there?” Knock-knock!
- The bar-tender: “We don’t serve tachyons in here”. A neutrino comes into a bar.
- A neutrino and a photon come into a bar. For the next 60 nanoseconds, the neutrino complains about how dark it is.
- What does a neutrino do in an optical fiber? Honk the photons!
- A neutrino boyfriend: interacts weakly, goes through you without you noticing and ends before you even started.
- To reach the other side. Why did the neutrino cross the road?
And, profiting from the physics-jokes-revival, here you have two other physics jokes I didn’t know:
– Researchers from INFN have found traces of the elusive Berluschino, the supersymmetric partner of Berlusconi. As opposed to the original, it’s tall, honest and believes in democracy. Unfortunately, it is extremely short-lived in the current Italian political environment.
– Schrödinger’s cat comes into a bar. And doesn’t.
BONUS. I just invented three out of all those jokes. Can you tell which?
Physics Napkins 