Common sense

I have been reflecting recently on the fact that I feel that a lot of what I do science-wise is to some extent, well, common sense. Sure we do our bit of tricky data collection and treatment, we use advanced statistics, and that kind of things. But also, to some extent, it's, well, empirical, and empirical enough that you can, if you bother, explain it to people in terms that they could directly relate to (not that it always works at making it sound more respectable. Anyway.).

This came up in a conversation in the coffee room in work this week when a colleague was mentionning a book he had been reading on quantum physics and how it compares to Einstein's view of the universe and that kind of things. Apparently these people elaborate models that need 11 dimensions! Common sense or empirical experince are pretty much useless there, and I admit that the simple thought of 11 dimensions makes me dizzy. I then mentionned my feeling on the whole common sense business. And someone said "Yeah, I agree. That's probably why we don't get Nobel Prizes..."

So is that it? Science gets hotter when it's further away from everyday experience?

Mh. I'll continue meditating on this, but I like the common sense I can use in what I do, even though a bit of a technical or methodological challenge from time to time keeps things interesting and exciting!