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Tue 3 May, 2011 12:56 am
What does the title mean? I think using military force to take/seize a village is quite easy, which discover the nature of dark matter is elusive and difficult.
Context:
Whether or not Hooper’s claim stands up, the debate surrounding it underscores two characteristics of the search for dark matter. First,
nailing down the particles’ properties will likely require connecting many subtle and ambiguous clues. “To discover the nature of dark matter will take a village,” says Rocky Kolb, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois. “I don’t expect a eureka moment,” when one
decisive observation makes everything clear. Second, it’s a particularly contentious fi eld. With several relatively small teams (by particle physics standards) competing for a piece of a huge prize, researchers are cagey about discussing their results. And accu-sations of spinning the data to bolster one claim or another fl y this way and that.
Mr. Kolb is using an expression which has recently entered the language in an awkward manner. Military force has no relation to what he is saying. Recently, an expression entered the American language (i don't know if it is used in England) which is "It takes a village to raise a child." It means that many people (one assumes, well-meaning people) are needed to properly raise a child. Mr. Kolb is suggesting that there won't be a single individual who reveals the nature of dark matter, but that it will take many people working on the subject to yield an answer.
(That's pitiful stuff--a poor choice of expression on Mr. Kolb's part, although the meaning should be clear to native speakers familiar with this expression.)
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