Science and Technology

Ironic as Mrs is currently cooking spaghetti.

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Thatā€™s interesting, but Bayesian interpretation would suggest this experiment is faulty. But itā€™s interesting timing. I was reading a review yesterday of a supposedly award winning book in which a fundamental aspect of the standard model was disproven and physicists started committing suicide believing their life to have based on a lie. The book got absolutely torn apart for completely misunderstanding the motivations of scientists. Particle physics is boring. The LHC cost $10 billion, has been operational for 15 years and has done nothing more than confirm things we already believed. Particle physicists are desperate for something like that might raise the possibility of a new physics, Rather than dismay them, this result will give them something they can jump into and try to solve, and this will at the very least give them something to pursue for a short while.

That BBC article touches on along standing question of physics that I donā€™t even understand why itā€™s being asked. Gravity is one of the 4 fundamental forces, and the BBC article states that science cannot explain gravity. That is a poorly explained statement and I think the questions different people have are slightly different, but one of the main questions people are trying to solve is why gravity is so much weaker than the other 3 fundamental forcesā€¦like orders of magnitude weaker. What I have never had coherently explained to me is why anyone think that is an anomaly that needs to be solved. Like, why do we expect it to be of similar magnitude to the other forces?

Um Higgs boson says hi. LHC did that at least.

Fair question to ask why should gravity be of the same order as other forces. My only response would be understanding. Crack gravity and another big part of the puzzle falls into place.

Weak argument sorry but this stuff does fascinate me.

Which is a confirmation of what we already assumed to be true. The real hope for these coliders was that the experiments would reveal things not predicted by the standard model. So far, prior to this experiment, all it has done is add confirmation to it.

Isnā€™t that their ultimate purpose though? Plus we hoped it existed, we werenā€™t certain and it didnā€™t appear at the mass we thought it would. Iā€™d like to think that the whole machine gets set up to confirm, disprove theories. I donā€™t think setting it up and smashing atoms without a clue on what to look for is quite the sensible approach. I think the detectors have to be set up for specific things.

On a far simpler scale Iā€™m on a steep learning curve on radiation, contamination and testing at work. Even at this level you have to be pretty clear on what you want from the measurements. Waving detectors round in a general way doesnā€™t really the you much. Detector types etc. all come in to play.

That is an awful restating of what I said though. There is an enormous difference between hoping that carefully crafted and defined experiments producing results you were not expecting (the effect of higher energies than the standard model has previously been tested) vs just pissing around aimlessly.

Perhaps the Standard Model is a really good representation of how the Universe is built?

Nothing wrong with that is there?

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You appear to want to refute things I havenā€™t said.

The standard model is fantastically good at explaining the universe. However, it is so good that it has left very few avenues for ongoing investigation for particle physics. There are a small number of elements of the theory that still lacked empirical evidence, such as the existence of the Higgs boson, and finally detecting that is a great achievement but does not push science forward. For that to happen, these experiments need to disagree with predictions from the standard model. That was the hope for these new generation of coliders, as that is what would open up the door for a new generation of investigation and discoveryā€¦something particle physics has lacked for 2 generations. This is not the first anomaly that has been detected but each of the previous ones have been reconciled pretty quickly. The likelihood is that this finding will meet the same fate, but my point is particle physicsts, rather than being dismayed, will be thrilled with the finding as it finally gives them something new to pursue in their field.

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Understood and Iā€™m certainly not here for an argument. I just get the impression that you donā€™t think thereā€™s much left for the LHC with regard to the Standard Model and particle physics. Iā€™m probably wrong on that feeling so apologies but I suspect that scientists would also say that they have heaps to look at.

Then again, working with scientists every day Iā€™ve quickly come to realise that theyā€™d happily debate the size of a building brick to the 10th decimal place.

Something might need hitting with a hammer, or possibly an infinitely minute re-calibration using ridiculously precise tools:

Thatā€™s interesting, but Bayesian interpretation would suggest this experiment is faulty. But itā€™s interesting timing. I was reading a review yesterday of a supposedly award winning book in which a fundamental aspect of the standard model was disproven and physicists started committing suicide believing their life to have based on a lie. The book got absolutely torn apart for completely misunderstanding the motivations of scientists. Particle physics is boring. The LHC cost $10 billion, has been operational for 15 years and has done nothing more than confirm things we already believed. Particle physicists are desperate for something like that might raise the possibility of a new physics, Rather than dismay them, this result will give them something they can jump into and try to solve, and this will at the very least give them something to pursue for a short while.

Well, its been operational for about 6 months in that time :wink:

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One for you @Limiescouse. More upgrades = more scienceā€¦

maybe.

Fascinating stuff here

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Little shit isnā€™t going to beat me!

One chess talent less.

Advanced AI :
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