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Supercomputer Adds Credence to Standard Model

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the start-watching-for-vogons dept.

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."

8 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Boycott ScienceDaily by jnana · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Boycott ScienceDaily by wizardforce · · Score: 4, Informative

      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

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    2. Re:Boycott ScienceDaily by ortholattice · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.
    3. Re:Boycott ScienceDaily by jnana · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  2. Uncertainty by Sorthum · · Score: 5, Funny

    So they talk about how fast this new supercomputer is.

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

  3. Higgs by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. An article with actual substance by Vellmont · · Score: 4, Informative

    Rather than "they used a supercomputer to do physics"

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

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    AccountKiller
  5. I asked my supercomputer... by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 4, Funny
    "Is the Standard Model correct?"

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

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    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.