Supercomputer Adds Credence to Standard Model

ScienceDaily is reporting that researchers at the University of Edinburgh and Southampton in cooperation with partners from Japan and the US have shed some light on the Standard Model of physics using a new computer model. "The project's enormously complex calculations relate to the behavior of tiny particles found in the nuclei of atoms, known as quarks. In order to carry out these calculations, the researchers first designed and built a supercomputer that was among the fastest in the world, capable of tens of trillions of calculations per second. The computations themselves have taken a further three years to complete. Their result shows that the Standard Model's claim to be the best theory invented holds firm. It raises the stakes for the riddle to be solved by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which will switch on later this year. Physicists' efforts to confront Standard Model predictions using the most powerful computers available with the most precise experiments offer no clues about what to expect."

Comments

Boycott ScienceDaily

[jnana]

I wish people would stop posting crappy science articles from ScienceDaily and related sites.

From this article, we learn that computer modeling confirmed something "about the behavior of quarks". That's it. There is nothing of substance in the article other than this and that the computation took three years.

Re:Boycott ScienceDaily

[wizardforce]

it's much worse than that, the article was pretty much mirrored from the source university of south hampton article here: http://www.soton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2008/feb/08_31.shtml which has absolutely nothing to add on the subject. three years of work and they don't even say what it is that they were modeling... what exactly was the point? perhaps a better article is required like the one here: http://www.physorg.com/news121963192.html

Re:Boycott ScienceDaily

[ortholattice]

I wish people would stop posting crappy science articles from ScienceDaily and related sites.

I've found a better site to be http://www.eurekalert.org/ which is run by the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) and has less annoying ads. A very high percentage of ScienceDaily stories - although oddly not this one - are the same as those on Eurakalert, but Eurakalert seems to have them first (at least based on RSS feed). I think Eurakalert also provides the original press release from the university/organization - not a watered-down, clueless-journalist-rewritten "adapted from materials provided by [university/organization]" - and also gives the link to the actual "materials", usually not provided by ScienceDaily.

Re:Boycott ScienceDaily

[jnana]

All this has done is said "We made a computer program that gives us the results we would expect from running this computer program."

No, it's not nothing more than a tautology as you're implying. You're ignoring the nature of the program, which aims to embody the standard model well enough to make predictions about reality for phenomena that it's not been possible to directly observe. It's a little more than just a program that spits out arbitrary but predictable results, since the results do in fact have some relation to reality. If the model is any good at all, the correspondence will be very good.

Nothing in computer modeling makes a connection to reality and truth.

You must also believe that computer models of aerodynamics that predict a racecar will experience less drag than a Hummer also have no connection to reality and truth. I'd argue that to the extent that a model makes accurate predictions again and again, there is some connection to reality and truth.

Uncertainty

[Sorthum]

So they talk about how fast this new supercomputer is.

I presume that means they have absolutely no idea where it is?

Higgs

[Lord Byron II]

Before we claim that the Standard Model is the end all of particle physics, lets see if we can find the Higgs Boson. Afterall, Fermilab has come very, very close, so the LHC should be able to seal the deal.

An article with actual substance

[Vellmont]

Rather than "they used a supercomputer to do physics"

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=08-x5

No!

[TheWanderingHermit]

I am Vroomfondle and that is not a demand, it is a solid fact.

We are philosophers (though we may not be). We are here as representatives of Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries, and Other Professional Thinking Persons and we want this machine off and we want off now.

What's the use of our sitting up all night saying there may (or may not be) a God if this machine comes along next morning and gives you his telephone number?

We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

You'll have a National Philosopher's Strike on your hands!

I asked my supercomputer...

[NotQuiteReal]

"Is the Standard Model correct?"

I only had to wait a few seconds for the answer: "Reply hazy, try again".

Re:Is there more detail online somewhere

[The Master Control P]

If it has to do with quarks and it takes a supercomputer, I'd guess a lattice QCD simulation.

Of course, no gravity!

[l2718]

Gravity -- certainly the weakest force -- is completely irrelevant as far as the physics of elementary particles is concerned. In real life there is no way to observe any kind of gravitational interactions on the scales where the other forces are relevant. In particular, if there is physics just beyond the standard model it need not have any connection to gravity. It's true that gravity is relevant on extremely large scales, but for these scales we have perfectly good theories (GR; in fact Newtonian gravity is quite sufficient in almost all cases). You'd have to go to Planck scale before there'll be any guarantee of gravitational effects playing a role.

This is not to say that a quantum theory including gravity is not an important goal of theoretical physics, it's just to say that so far we have not found any real-life situations where such a theory would be needed, that is when corrections due to quantum gravity would play any role whatsoever. Hopefully the LHC will probe the physics beyond the standard model. The number of orders of magnitude between the energy scales we can actually observe and the quantum gravity energy scale make it extremely unlikely, however, that gravity will be relevant to experimental fundamental physics for many millenia.

Theory and Experiment equally important

[Roger W Moore]

Observations tend to provide "eureka" information that theory might miss or not become main stream for a while.

I completely disagree. It is only when theory and observation both agree that you have a "eureka" moment. For example we have an observation that there is lots of dark energy (not dark matter - that is different) in the universe. However, so far, there is no good theory as to what it is. I don't seem to remember anyone going "Eureka! We have discovered dark energy!". Rather everyone is sitting around scratching their heads and wondering what it is.

To get a Eureka moment you must have BOTH theory AND experiment in agreement. The SNO experiment is an excellent example. Experiment: not enough electron neutrinos coming from the sun; theory: neutrinos can change flavour from electron to tau or muon so the total flux of neutrinos will be correct; experiment: SNO measured the total neutrino flux and discovered that it agreed with solar model predictions while still seeing a reduced electron neutrino flux. Result: EUREKA! Neutrinos oscillate!

Conclusion: theory and experiment are both EQUALLY important to advancing science. One without the other may be interesting but not very useful.