Neutrinos, they are very small.
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
—John Updike, “Cosmic Gall” (New Yorker, December 17, 1960)
Fuzzy waves that zip through space,
Neutrinos might in fact be large.*
Measuring their wave packet charge
Is these days raising quite a racket.
It's feared that neutrino oscillations
Could be causing bad vibrations:
Dark matter and dark energy
Distort the things that we can see!
Meanwhile, in a different place,
viroids are found extremely small.†
These critters now generally appall.
Smaller than viruses or germs,
they very seldom come to terms.
Their biased nature we must face:
The simplest-possible replicators,
They bite, it seems—like alligators!
The moral of such analysis
Is never be too sure of this.
What you believe might all be guff.
You couldn’t make up this stuff!
Nothing’s for certain in our world.
Keep that big umbrella unfurled.
Monday, February 16, 2025
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