Rumors

"Look at all these rumors surroundin' me every dayI just need some time, some time to get awayFromFrom all these rumors, I can't take it no more"

~Rumors, Timex Social ClubA month ago, Tommaso Dorigo wrote a blogpost Rumors about a light Higgs. I usually just ignore such blogposts. That day, I was in a particularly foul mood and bothered to leave a comment that expressed very clearly my disapproval of such rumor spreading. (You'll find it in the comment section to Tommaso's post, I'm the "not verified B".)In his post, Tommaso puts forward the opinion that rumors are a handy tool to make science more interesting. I think he's in the first line trying to make himself more interesting. In any case, the topic stayed on my mind. Last week, Dennis Overbye from the NYT wrote a nice essay on rumors in astrophysics that spread at light speed:"One culprit here is the Web, which was invented to foster better communication among physicists in the first place, but has proved equally adept at spreading disinformation. But another, it seems to me, is the desire for some fundamental discovery about the nature of the universe — the yearning to wake up in a new world — and a growing feeling among astronomers and physicists that we are in fact creeping up on enormous changes with the advent of things...