PHYSICIST Jim Al-Khalili last year promised to eat his boxer shorts live on TV if neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light. Such neutrinos would be paradoxical for our current conceptions of physics. But as Al-Khalili points out, most apparent paradoxes are no such thing – they are misconceptions that challenge and often improve our understanding of nature.
Why is the night sky dark when it should be filled with an infinite array of stars? Does Einstein’s relativity give someone different ages depending on how far and fast they have travelled? How can Schrödinger’s cat be both dead and…
