Slashdot Mirror


Tiny Particle With No Charge Discovered

ZonkerWilliam writes to mention PhysOrg is reporting that a tiny particle with no charge, called an 'axion' has been discovered. From the article: "The finding caps nearly three decades of research both by Piyare Jain, Ph.D., UB professor emeritus in the Department of Physics and lead investigator on the research, who works independently -- an anomaly in the field -- and by large groups of well-funded physicists who have, for three decades, unsuccessfully sought the recreation and detection of axions in the laboratory, using high-energy particle accelerators."

13 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. What did the bartender say to the axion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "No charge."

    1. Re:What did the bartender say to the axion? by proxy318 · · Score: 5, Funny

      An atom walks into a police station and says "One of my electrons has been stolen!"
      The police say "Are you sure?"
      And the atom replies...

      "Yes! I'm positive!"

      --
      Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
  2. Won't hold a charge... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Even in the field of particle physics, there had to be a slacker somewhere.

  3. Re:Detected... by P3NIS_CLEAVER · · Score: 5, Informative

    FTFA-

    "They didn't know how to handle the detector for short-lived particles," Jain said. "I knew that for this very short-lived particle -- 10-13 seconds -- the detector must be placed very near the interaction point where the collision between the projectile beam and the target takes place so that the produced particle doesn't run away too far; if it does, it will decay quickly and it will be completely missed. That is what happened in most of the unsuccessful experiments." Instead, Jain used a visual detector, made of three-dimensional photographic emulsions, which act as both target and detector and that therefore can detect very short-lived particles, such as the axion. However, use of such a detector is so specialized that to be successful, it requires intensive training and experience. In the 1950s, Jain was trained to use this type of detector by its developer, the Nobel laureate, British physicist Cecil F. Powell. Jain has used it throughout his career to successfully detect other exotic

    --
    Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!

    http://financialpetition.org/
  4. They say the axion has no charge? by Z1NG · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are they positive?

  5. Re:They find an axion?? by Cyberax · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, physicists can do this, but this would involve smashing Earth to pieces and looking at its debris.

    BTW, and they would need about $10000000000000000000 funding for LEC (Large Earth Collider).

  6. Re:They find an axion?? by fimbulvetr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, physicists can do this, but this would involve smashing Earth to pieces and looking at its debris.

    BTW, and they would need about $10000000000000000000 funding for LEC (Large Earth Collider).


    About the same requirements as the US military then, eh?

  7. Re:and it means... by alexhard · · Score: 5, Funny

    axion () means worthy in greek. ;) I actually read 'geek' first and sat here wondering 'when did we get our own language?' for a couple of seconds..
    --
    Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
  8. Re:Detected... by Aglassis · · Score: 5, Informative

    "The wake of a bullet going through ballistics gel is due to the electromagnetic force."
     
    And the Universe is powered by stupidity. The wake of a bullet going through ballistics gel is caused by the shockwave of the bullet's impact with the surface of the gel; a bullet is not a charged particle, nor magnetic, and it's way to big to create the ionization effects that traditional particle detectors use. I don't know how it is possible that, not only could say that a bullet causes a wake due to electromagnetic force, but that a mod actually believed that bullshit. Thank you for your comment. I am happy you are interested in physics. There are 4 forces: electromagnetism, gravity, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Please feel free to tell me which forces you believe allow the shockwave of a bullet to develop. Be as technical as you wish (I have extensive experience in advanced physics). I will give you a hint though: particles that have a net neutral charge can still interact electromagnetically whenever the distances between the interacting charges isn't assumed to be infinite (think dipoles).

    I hope this is a good learning experience for you and I hope that you don't recklessly call other posters stupid next time.

    --
    Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
  9. Re:true? by rentedflowers · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're missing the really groundbreaking development here, though.

    This is a /. article, claiming a scientific discovery, that is traceable to a peer-reviewed journal article. A well-respected journal, no less. This is truly a first.

  10. Re:true? by mcelrath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This can't possibly be the axion. If it were a particle it must show up as a narrow peak in Fig.2(a) due to the claimed lifetime in Fig.1(a). The width of a particle in the Q graph is 1/lifetime, and the claimed lifetime is so large that it's width must be tiny -- literally a line on the graph (smeared by detector resolution). But instead Fig.2(a) is totally smeared out. This must be some off-shell phenomena or fakes. It is not a particle.

    Also, the standard for claiming discovery of a new particle is 5 standard deviations. The reason for this is because we often see fluctuations below this that go away with more data. The small peaks he does claim after massaging his data are only three standard deviations.

    So, the claim that it's a particle is dubious. The claim of a discovery is absolutely wrong. This does not meet the criteria for a particle discovery in particle physics.

    --
    1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
  11. Tiny Particle With No Charge Discovered by Dr.+Di-boson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This story is completely incorrect. The paper of Jain and Singh, available at http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0954-3899/34/1/009 does not claim that the axion has been found. They simply report the observation of a couple of narrow resonances which can be interpreted as a signature of new particles. The scientific interpretation of these resonances is unclear at this point. In fact, astrophysical bounds completely rule out that one of these resonances is the so-called axion. I work in this field, so I know. I have no idea how the press is getting the idea that this means the axion has been found. It is *not* based on scientific facts.