Physicists Discover "Doubly Strange" Particle

Tsalg writes "Physicists have discovered a new particle made of three quarks, the Omega-sub-b. The particle contains two strange quarks and a bottom quark (s-s-b). It is an exotic relative of the much more common proton and weighs about six times the proton mass. This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle that remains elusive even for the experiment that just discovered the Omega-sub-b."

Comments

AC Discovers "Doubly First" Post

[Anonymous Coward]

frost

Re:AC Discovers "Doubly First" Post

[spazdor]

If your Frist Pots had been made out of exotic particles, you could have sent it retrocausally back in time and posted it before the OP.

justify a paycheck?

[Pat Attack]

Sometimes I think physicists are just making things up. This is one of those times.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Anonymous Coward]

If all the other scientists in the field are in the scam, we will never know.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[eln]

No no, if they were just making things up to try to get more grants, they would have said they found a new particle made of vibrating strings.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[chefmayhem]

I worked at Fermilab last summer. This sort of thing isn't made up. The data they used is not public, but it would be too massive to look through anyway. It takes dozens of scientists years to find the signal from the background. They do publish papers with a summary of the evidence, however. It'd be tough to follow if you're not a particle physicist, but it's never too late to learn something new :-)

Re:justify a paycheck?

[somersault]

The 'Orchestron'?

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just get your Omega-beams ready. Superman is coming.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[WibbleOnMars]

This was a good day for me to wear my "Beware the quantum duck -- Quark quark" T-shirt.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[somersault]

Did you notice that Higgs boson that whooshed over your head right now?

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Gizzmonic]

Or, alternatively, The Orchestrion!

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Paaskonijn]

Or that they discovered that particles are changing due to global warming.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "Violon"?

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Curunir_wolf]

That's the problem I always have with this stuff... There is so much data and the "signals" are so small.. how do they know they're not just seeing noise?

They use those noise-cancelling headphone things. Except they weigh like 14 tons.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[recharged95]

Well, what I see is that they have this multi-million dollar machine, that take millions to run, and is run by a bunch of over-educated folks focused in one basic thing.

Ok, you smash some particles and guess what, some of the basic fundamental theories say that you have limited accuracy in measuring the outcome. So in the end, according to logic, you really don't know what your looking at.

Therefore, they are making things up. QED.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[putzin]

Was it the one making the whooshing sound?

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Trent Hawkins]

Sometimes I think physicists are just making things up. This is one of those times.

However it's worth having a few physicists around. One minute it's all "Hadrons colliding" and "strange quarks", and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of them says, "Incidentally, dropping a bomb with a nuclear device on the enemy would be a very interesting demonstration of atomic fission".

Re:justify a paycheck?

[i speak the truth]

It's true there is limited accuracy in measuring the mass of a single particle.. which is related to how long it sticks around before blowing up, but for many particles the uncertainty is very small!

Furthermore, these experiments can run until they pick up tens, hundreds, or thousands of particles of a certain type, and eventually the average mass of such particles can be measured to arbitrary precision.

It is wrong to think you need infinitely precise measurements (which have never been the case in the history of science) to compare theory with experiment. Random processes can still have predictable elements and be characterized.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Pat Attack]

Physicists: Can't live with 'em, can't bomb the enemy to into the stone age without 'em.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[somersault]

Indeed. I hypothesise this was due to the non-zero sense of humour expectation value of the particle dying a little inside.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's never a day good enough for that.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for the record: the nuclear bomb was designed with more primitive nuclear theory from way before quarks were suggested (1963).

You don't need highly detailed knowledge of nuclear physics to make a working bomb anyway (if you want to make a highly efficient micro-nuke, sure, but not a fat man or little boy device)

Re:justify a paycheck?

[CyberKrb]

particle made of vibrating strings.

... which play "Dueling Banjos", obviously

Re:justify a paycheck?

[glittalogik]

"Science is good when it teaches you how to turn a million ungrateful foreigners into glass."
- GTA IV

Re:justify a paycheck?

[aproposofwhat]

Squeal like a Higgs, boy!

Re:justify a paycheck?

[Killjoy_NL]

Where can I get that shirt ?? ;)

Re:justify a paycheck?

[LoRdTAW]

His team of scientists will take years to distinguish the woosh from background noise generated by other posts. So, no.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[BarryOn]

Sometimes I think physicists are just making things up. This is one of those times.

If they are who is to know.

Re:justify a paycheck?

[BarryOn]

Could someone tell me how I send a comment or post on here? Do I have to subscribe first? All I have been able to do so far is post a reply. email is d.john37@gmail.com Sorry for being dim.....JD

Excuse Me?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle that remains elusive even for the experiment that just discovered the Omega-sub-b.

How can you be so sure? It's not like CERN lays claim to all the greatest physicists in the world. Am I the only one that is a bit wary of all the eggs in one basket?

Re:Excuse Me?

[AvitarX]

Aren't they sharing the data it produces though?

Assuming the sensors are good I would assume that the data produced at CERN should be where the greatest physicists turn.

Of course IAAI, so I don't really know.

I guess where the discovery is made can be debatable to.

Re:Excuse Me?

[jeremyp]

That was my immediate thought too. Perhaps LHC emits some sort field that causes all other particle accelerators to mysteriously stop working. Yes, that must be it. European particle physics experiments are heavily influenced by fundamental particles called eurons and LHC has been sucking them up at a vast rate to the detriment of other experiments.

Re:Excuse Me?

[eln]

If history has taught us anything, it's that when someone predicts the end of scientific discoveries, they are invariably 100% correct.

Re:Excuse Me?

[oldspewey]

Perhaps LHC emits some sort field

In Richard Florida's book Who's your city? he actually gets into various theories about how centers of excellence (whether fashion, IT, finance, science, etc.) tend to create a self-reinforcing "buzz" that draws in more and more talented people, and the intellectual atmosphere and other elements of creative infrastructure then allow those people to achieve at a higher level than they otherwise could.

So according to that theory, yes, the LHC does emit some sort of field ...

Re:Excuse Me?

[Icarium]

It would be amusing if the Higgs particle was discovered before CERN really had a go at it. It may be far from the only experiment the LHC is designed for, but it is also the most publicised.

Re:Excuse Me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course IAAI, so I don't really know.

I Am an Artificial Intelligence.

Re:Excuse Me?

[Fieryphoenix]

He's talking about the energy levels produced at CERN. While scientists anywhere will be making discoveries, it will likely be with data produced from experiments at CERN.

Re:Excuse Me?

[The_Wilschon]

Won't happen. We're hard at work on it right now (except when we're reading slashdot...), and we're making some amazing leaps forward in analysis techniques, but we simply won't have enough data to be sufficiently sensitive to the Higgs by the time the accelerator shuts down. We might find evidence or even strong evidence, but not strong enough to call it discovery. We do have enough data to exclude certain mass ranges, however. When you combine our data with D0's (the experiment that did the analysis in TFA), we have enough sensitivity to say that the Higgs, if it is the standard model Higgs (and the lightest SUSY Higgs is sufficiently similar that this holds for it, too), does not have a mass quite close to 170 GeV (which is pretty close to the mass of the top quark, incidentally). http://www-d0.fnal.gov/Run2Physics/WWW/results/prelim/HIGGS/H64/

Re:Excuse Me?

[camperdave]

the data produced at CERN should be where the greatest physicists turn.

POET!!

Re:Excuse Me?

[AvitarX]

no, An Idiot.

Re:Excuse Me?

[AlecC]

Because the greater energy of CERN is like shining a brighter light even at the lower energies where CERN overlaps with earlier accelerators. It is like a searchlight coming on after people have been searching with a hand torch: the searchlight will show ups instantly things which the hand torch would have taken a long time to find. CERN is going to start with a half power run-up, but even at that power is should easily see everything that others have struggled to see. Indeed, I would expect them to do that routinely as a method of validating the machine's operation: they should be able to "see" all the known particles at their appropriate energies, and they may well be able to refine the values for those energies.

Re:Excuse Me?

[AlecC]

Of course they are sharing the raw data. But understanding the raw data means understanding a great deal about the physical structure of the detector. Basically, if you know enough about that, you are part of the CERN team, whether you are physically there or not. Relatively few of the thousands of scientists working "at" CERN are physically there at any time: most spend most of their time connected only electronically. Why do you think the WWW was invented there?

Re:Excuse Me?

[billybob2001]

Maybe the LHC has emitted/will emit some sort of field that's sending these particles back in time!

It was/will be switched on next week, and so far, we've found one, but as we get closer to the time it was/will be switched on, we'll detect more and more of them.

Which means...

FIRST POST!?

Re:Excuse Me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I smell jealousy...

Re:Excuse Me?

[cromar]

I thought it was because there are few, if any, predicted new configurations of the sort of subatomic particles today's colliders are designed to allow experiments on. That's why the LHC was created - to delve to a lower level of subatomic particle than we are currently capable. (IANAP)

Re:Excuse Me?

[Dragonslicer]

It will have switchen on next week, and so far, we've found one, but as we get closer to the time it willen been switchen on, we'll detect more and more of them.

Fixed that for ya

Re:Excuse Me?

[UnknownSoldier]

It's called The Power of Association.
i.e.
Hang out with a few millions and your perspective of money will change.

Re:Excuse Me?

[moosesocks]

There's also the funding issue. Largely due to being (mostly) redundant to the LHC, Fermilab's big accelerator, the Tevatron is shutting down next year.

Re:Excuse Me?

[Joe U]

Perhaps LHC emits some sort field that causes all other particle accelerators to mysteriously stop working.

You laugh now. When they start throwing black holes at the other labs and crush the planet, who will be laughing then?

oh, wait, nobody.

Re:Excuse Me?

[zigmeister]

As an addendum I would like to add "If history has taught us anything, it's that when someone predicts the end of the world caused by scientific discoveries, they are invariably 100% correct.

Interesting, but

[Instine]

Can someone translate that last sentence for me?

Re:Interesting, but

[morgan_greywolf]

Sure. Quarks are one of the two basic building blocks of matter, the other being the lepton. This particular particle -- a baryon, since it is comprised of three quarks -- consists of two strange quarks and one bottom quark. Strange quarks and bottom quarks are both very unstable. Another example of a baryon is the proton, which contains two up quarks and and a down quark. Up and down quarks are generally, by comparison, very stable. The instability of the quarks make this particular baryon difficult to detect.

Re:Interesting, but

[eln]

For reference, the last sentence is:

This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle that remains elusive even for the experiment that just discovered the Omega-sub-b.."

It's really quite simple to translate. It means that this will be the last noticeable sub-atomic discovery made anywhere other than CERN, because other sub-atomic discoveries are going to be way, way too small to be noticeable. However, CERN is in Switzerland, where people are used to working with very, very tiny things like watch mechanisms, and so are more likely to notice these very tiny particles.

The Higgs particle is simply another name for the "Higgs boson", which is a mythical creature said to roam the forests around CERN, although it may have just been a side effect of the earlier LSD experiments at that location. The Higgs boson is said to be 7 feet tall with bright red hair, red nose, and giant shoes (hence the name "boson", after Bozo the Clown).

The Omega-sub-b, of course, is supposed to mean the "Omega-sub-basement", which is a room deep under the FBI building where J. Edgar Hoover used to keep his "alternative" wardrobe, but the submitter appears to have died while in the middle of composing the sentence.

I hope this clears things up for you.

Re:Interesting, but

[florescent_beige]

Can someone translate that last sentence for me?

Done:

Dit staat waarschijnlijk een op het punt van de laatste merkbare sub-atomic ontdekkingen ergens gemaakt dan bij CERN anders aangezien LHC is de jacht voor het deeltje te beginnen Higgs dat zelfs voor het experiment ontwijkend blijft dat enkel omega-sub-B. ontdekte.

Re:Interesting, but

[hkz]

Oh man, you get my Dutch Grammar Nazi going on ;-)

I assume you meant something like:

"Dit is waarschijnlijk een van de laatste opvallende subatomische ontdekkingen die ergens anders gemaakt worden dan CERN, aangezien de LHC op het punt staat de jacht op het Higgs-deeltje te beginnen, dat ongrijpbaar blijft zelfs voor het experiment dat zojuist het Omega-sub-b deeltje heeft ontdekt..."

Yeah, that sentence is a b*tch in Dutch too...

Re:Interesting, but

[perspectival]

This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle that remains elusive even for the experiment that just discovered the Omega-sub-b.."

In actual English--with tenses--as it used to be used (which is now, as is evident, archaic):

"This recent discovery [of the Omega-sub-b particle] will probably be the last *notable* subatomic discovery made before the Large Hadron Collider at CERN begins to operate, which is scheduled to happen in October of this year. The LHC will be used to hunt for the Higgs Boson, which has thus far remained undetectable, even by experiments such as this one, which managed to find the Omega-sub-b particle."

* The author's clever-at-first-glance use of the adjective "noticeable" fails because it applies to "discoveries," and discoveries rarely go unnoticed, unlike grammar.

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Good explanation. GP: It is worth noting that the guy who came up with the names for quarks was obviously on acid while doing so (a requirement for understanding this stuff), so don't worry if the names don't make sense to you. A 'strange' quark is not really any stranger than, say, a bottom quark.

Re:Interesting, but

[McWilde]

Isn't the usual term "subatomair"? "Subatomisch" sounds like a germanism to me.

Re:Interesting, but

[hkz]

Actually yes, you're right. I spend too much of my time reading English technical literature ;-)

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear. Let's give that another try.

Dit is waarschijnlijk een van de laatste belangrijke sub-atomische ontdekkingen die niet van CERN komt, aangezien LHC op het punt staat de jacht op het tot op heden zelfs voor deze werkmethode ongrijpbare Higgs-deeltje te beginnen.

This is one of the most ridiculous sentences I've ever seen. It's the language equivalent of 100 nested "if" statements.

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

No. That wasn't the Higgs you saw. That was John Ellis

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Ontdekkingen worden niet gemaakt, ze worden gedaan.

(Translation for the English-speaking minority: Discoveries aren't 'made', they are 'done'. In Dutch, at least).

Re:Interesting, but

[i_liek_turtles]

Was your sister bitten by a moose?

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

A modern castle of Aaaauuuggghhhh, as it were ?
This is no coincidence, I say !

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, that is some wicked translation...
I am from future Flandria ( the flemish part of soon to selfdestruct Belgium ), and that was harder to understand than the original text.

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm gonna need a car analogy.

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me when they put together the particle consisting of 2 up quarks, 2 down quarks, a left quark, a right quark, a left quark, a right quark, a 'b' quark, an 'a' quark, a 'select' quark, and a 'start' quark. ;)

Re:Interesting, but

[morgan_greywolf]

And, strangely enough, a strange quark has a strangeness of -1, which to my feeble computer science-trained mind, would seem to indicate that it is not strange! (It actually makes sense when you realize that 'strange quarks' were named before quarks were discovered and that, by definition, the strangeness of a strange anti-particle is +1)

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Dit is waarschijnlijk een van de laatste opmerkelijke sub-atomaire ontdekkingen die ergens anders dan bij CERN worden gedaan, aangezien LHC op het punt staat de jacht op het Higgs-deeltje te beginnen, dat zelfs voor het experiment dat nu de Omega-sub-b heeft ontdekt ongrijpbaar blijft.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Interesting, but

[russotto]

It was worse. They used to be up, down, strange, charmed, truth, and beauty. But then someone decided that was over the top and truth and beauty were renamed to top and bottom.

Re:Interesting, but

[V!NCENT]

"This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle that remains elusive even for the experiment that just discovered the Omega-sub-b.."

Simplified:
This [sub-atomic discovery] is probably the last noticeable discovery that is going to be made outside of CERN. This is because, as you get more into 'deep' with science, particles are getting smaller and smaller and in order to discover them you need more and more money and bigger and bigger 'devices' (like the LHC). That means that only if you are as large and well-funded as CERN you can still make new discoveries on this particular front of science.

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I always liked to play 2-player myself as well. :)

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, one more question... was J. Edgar Hoover a bottom quark or a strange quark?

Re:Interesting, but

[bar-agent]

Call me when they put together the particle consisting of 2 up quarks, 2 down quarks, a left quark, a right quark, a left quark, a right quark, a 'b' quark, an 'a' quark, a 'select' quark, and a 'start' quark. ;)

It's the Cheat Code...of the Universe !

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Was your sister once bitten by a moose?

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do that! That's the code to trigger the total collapse of the Higg's field!

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous Coward I say that there is no need for all these experiment cos somebody with more than two brain cells can work out why we're here. Paradise is boring especially when your dead. So to breath the air and have a bounty bar you create your own universe and come back to this hell-hole for a bit of an adventure and a bonk. And we all live in our own universe that touches on all other peoples universes. Multiverses. Anyway there you go. PS If one could get a better telescope than Hubble even One could see there true birth with seeing their own big bang. jd

Re:Interesting, but

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be the "cheat" particle.
It can be found in many performance-enhancing drugs.

Quark

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists' current model of the structure of a quark here Imagine three of those things!

Re:Quark

[PJCRP]

Two on top and one on the bottom, what a horrible orgy.

Re:Quark

[eebra82]

Two on top and one on the bottom, what a horrible orgy.

Then you don't want to see what the Japanese quarks are up to.

Re:Quark

[oldspewey]

you don't want to see what the Japanese quarks are up to.

Bukkuarke?

Re:Quark

[PJCRP]

Quark tentacle zatex porn? Quark robot orgies? Quark bondage and tentacles? The possibilities are endless.

Re:Quark

[Pat Attack]

Do you have any idea what kind of targeted advertising you just spawned? I bet by the end of the day there will be a site dedicated to quark pr0n.

Re:Quark

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean BuQUARKke

Re:Quark

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Hmmm... But it's not two-top, one-bottom. RTFA!

Still, what I thought is this: they found a two-strange bottom? Yawn. I've already seen pictures of one o' those.

Re:Quark

[Gilmoure]

Heh. Omega-sub-b and a bottom. Yeah, I know what them thar physicists are doing.

Re:Quark

[Anonymous Coward]

Two quarks, one cup?

Hmm, ...

[Loibisch]

...that's strange.

Re:Hmm, ...

[Spatial]

A peculiar flavour indeed.

Re:Hmm, ...

[Monkey-some]

looks like a strangelet

Re:Hmm, ...

[Spatial]

Well, that's alright too. They're quite charming. :)

Re:Hmm, ...

[Anonymous Coward]

and colourful.

Re:Hmm, ...

[hoofinasia]

....doubly so

wait, what?

[hoofinasia]

"This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle that remains elusive even for the experiment that just discovered the Omega-sub-b.."

Easy on the sentence structure, fuller, you're gonna wet the bed.

not voyager

[ionix5891]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_particle_(Star_Trek)

Re:not voyager

[Thyamine]

I'm glad at least one other person was thinking this. =)

Relative of the proton =? baryon

[LotsOfPhil]

Hmm, I think that this is only a relative of the proton in that it too is a baryon (3 quarks). A proton is up-up-down, and this is strange-strange-bottom.
The charge on the new one is -1, the charge on a proton is +1.

Re:Relative of the proton =? baryon

[Anonymous Coward]

The charge on the new one is -1, the charge on a proton is +1.

So that would make O_b more a relative of the antiproton, right?

(Nice of Slashdot to filter HTML character entities. -_-;)

Re:Relative of the proton =? baryon

[LotsOfPhil]

The charge on the new one is -1, the charge on a proton is +1.

So that would make O_b more a relative of the antiproton, right?

No more so than an electron is an antiproton. Antiprotons are made of antiquarks (anti-up, anti-up, anti-down).

Re:Relative of the proton =? baryon

[Anonymous Coward]

A proton is up-up-down, and this is strange-strange-bottom.

I once dated a girl with a strange-strange-bottom. It was pretty hot.

Re:Relative of the proton =? baryon

[gnick]

No more so than an electron is an antiproton. Antiprotons are made of antiquarks (anti-up, anti-up, anti-down).

Two anti-ups and an anti-down? That must be why electrons are lousy gamblers - It's supposed to be one up and two downs. Everyone knows that you have to ante up before doubling down.

Re:Relative of the proton =? baryon

[Anonymous Coward]

It's none of that. If you'd RTFA, you'd know that this particle is up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A.

Re:Relative of the proton =? baryon

[MillionthMonkey]

By Standard Model standards this is an ordinary, fairly well-understood ssb baryon. What makes this one newsworthy is that there are no (stable) up or down quarks in it- strange quarks and especially bottom quarks are energetically expensive and have to be generated in huge colliders. The bottom quark is especially unusual- we rarely see those. The chance of making one of these guys and actually observing it is pretty small.

Strange + Bottom ?

[florescent_beige]

Ok I thought quarks, leptons, and neutrinos were grouped like this:

Group 1: quarks; Up & Down, lepton; electron, neutrino; neutrino

Group 2: quarks; Charm & Strange, lepton; muon; neutrino; muon neutrino

Group 3: quarks; Top & Bottom, lepton; tau, neutrino; tau neutrino

So this newly discovered particle is made of quarks from two groups, the strange quark from group 2 and the bottom quark from group 3. Has that been seen before? I never knew it happened.

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's been seen before. There's an ungodly amount of particles (even if you restrict yourself to baryons), in fact, including many weird ones - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baryons for instance, or locate a copy of the Physics Letters B/Review of Particle Physics, which dedicates ~150 pages to listing baryons (in my 2004 copy, that is; chances are it's even more today).

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[tchiseen]

Do you actually understand this stuff? I just read this ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_particle ) and understood exactly 0% of it. I can't freakin WAIT til they fire up the big nasty at CERN and smash stuff together! I'm not gonna understand ANYTHING!

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[John Napkintosh]

The article mentions a periodic table of Baryons. I was just checking that out and there are all kinds of combinations that contain quarks from more than one group, and even one that contains one from each of those groups. That doesn't mean they will all be discovered, but it looks like they're well on their way.

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[n1ckml007]

Ok so what about: up up down down left right left right b a start ?

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like dance dance revolution O.o

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[John Napkintosh]

The infamous Konami particle. Very controversial. For example, it may or may not contain a Select particle, depending on who you ask.

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[chrispugh]

Anyone who thinks they understand it hasn't really grasped it at all. ;)

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[PMuse]

Ok I thought quarks, leptons, and neutrinos were grouped like this:
Group 1: quarks; Up & Down, lepton; electron, neutrino; neutrino
Group 2: quarks; Charm & Strange, lepton; muon; neutrino; muon neutrino
Group 3: quarks; Top & Bottom, lepton; tau, neutrino; tau neutrino

Oh, that brings back the memories! (Just say that 'aloud' in your head -- with a beat.)

Ammeter, Indicator, Wye Level Wye. Slide Rule, Dynamo, Tau Beta Pi!

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[Anonymous Coward]

They already started the big nasty. Mind, it is not driven at nearly full tilt yet, but it's running.

So far the universe didn't vanish, chances are it won't happen when they "go to eleven" either.

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[Danny Rathjens]

Apparently not having quarks from group 1 is what makes this an Omega baryon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_baryon

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[Dragonslicer]

From what little I've read, there's no evidence that the three pairings of quarks and three "types" of leptons (electron, muon, tauon) are in any way related to each other.

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[JohnFluxx]

A well-hidden secret is to go to the simple 'translation'

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_particle

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[DMUTPeregrine]

There are, in fact, two konami particles: the spin 1 and spin 2 konami particles. The spin 1 is up up down down left right left right A B Start, while the spin 2 particle is up up down down left right left right B A select start. The spin 1 particle mediates the cheater force between one player and Contra, while the spin 2 particle mediates the cheater force between two players and contra, at the same time.

Re:Strange + Bottom ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your knowledge is amazingly unbalanced. How the fuck can you know about quark generations, but not know that they can be combined? That's like being able to classify cars by manufacturer, but not knowing that they can be driven on roads.

How does Garrett Lisi's theory of everything fit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the new particle one of the many predicted by Garrett Lisi's theory of everything?

Double Strange

[4D6963]

In other news, Slashdotters discover Newspeak is creeping in.

Re:Double Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, Slashdotters discover Newspeak is creeping in.

I think you mean to say, "Minitruth reports Newspeak doubleplusgood"

Re:boring

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you tired of discussions about Chrome already? It came out less than two days ago and everyone is a Chrome expert and judges it after a few hours of usage and compares it to other browsers they have user for years (thousands of hours).

You must mean

[MRe_nl]

"The measurement of the mass of the Omega-sub-b provides a great test of computer calculations using lattice quantum chromodynamics"

Discuss ; )

Re:You must mean

[Sponge Bath]

Discuss ; )

A diet rich in omega-sub-b particles may help lower triglycerides and increase HDL cholesterol.

Re:You must mean

[illeism]

Well, the chromodynamics in question affect the lattice in a pre-quantum way leading to the natural progression of the Omega-sub-b particle to a Neo-Post-Omega-sub-b-alpha-pre-c particle which in turn makes the Flux Capacitor a feasible theory, provided the higgs boson does indeed exist making meaningful time travel possible and allows the creation of more excellent water slides.

Re:You must mean

[gnick]

Research rich in omega-sub-b particles may help garner attention and increase LHD funding.

Re:You must mean

[gnick]

LHC - D'oh!

Re:You must mean

[alexj33]

"The measurement of the mass of the Omega-sub-b provides a great test of computer calculations using lattice quantum chromodynamics"

Of course it does, silly. We learned that back in the academy. Therefore it will help us to fend off the aliens attacking the Enterprise.

Re:You must mean

[srmalloy]

"The proton absorbs a photon and emits two morons, a lepton, a boson, and a boson's mate. Why did I ever take high-energy physics?"

Re:You must mean

[Poltras]

"The proton absorbs a photon and emits two morons, a lepton, a boson, and a boson's mate. Why did I ever take high-energy physics?"

Yeah, my family is just as screwed as this proton's....

Re:You must mean

[Remus Shepherd]

The mass of new particles can be predicted with extreme precision using quantum theory. Lattice chromodynamics predicts new particles using theorized hyperspatial symmetries that we have extrapolated from the symmetries in known particles. Because these symmetries are extremely complicated, the masses of these postulated particles are calulated by computer. If the computer prediction matches up to the measured mass of a new particle, that's one step toward verifying the theory.

And yes, I know that even though all of that is accurate, it often sounds like it could have been made up on the spot. :)

Re:You must mean

[stephentyrone]

The bosun says before I'm through /
John Kanakanaka Too-ri-ay /
You'll curse your mother just for having you /
John Kanakanaka Too-ri-ay

(Apologies to everyone who cares not a whit for Sea Chanteys)

Re:You must mean

[riff420]

Just to be safe, I think we should run a level 2 diagnostic, and transfer all available power to the aft thrusters.

Re:You must mean

[Oktober Sunset]

No LHD is correct, it's really called the Large Hadron Deceiver. It pretends to be doing something to get more money. It's really made from old toilet roll middles and tinfoil off kitkats. The billions that it supposedly cost has already been laundered by conversion to WOW gold.

Re:You must mean

[strelitsa]

Don't forget to reverse the polarity. You ALWAYS have to reverse the polarity.

Re:You must mean

[Eli Gottlieb]

But Doctor, why does this mean we need a some peanuts, a pound of iron ore and a sheep covered in chocolate syrup to fix the TARDIS?

Re:You must mean

[TheSpoom]

Cap'n, I cannae give ye any more technobabble, we're fresh out!

Re:You must mean

[Tired and Emotional]

Why is there a problem with that statement? They've calculated the expected mass using lattice quantum chromodynamics, and now they get to see if the calculation was even close. Its the physics equivalent of instant replay at Baseball - something that is clearly nice to have. Were the calculations fair of foul?

Re:You must mean

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle that remains
> elusive even for the experiment that just discovered the Omega-sub-b

was in cleef the other day and this hord zomb hibee stuns me and shit off to gold I go man id shard his purps in a sec if i cud. by when my friend logged his pewpew cowgirl dumass was gone. putz

Re:You must mean

[Migity]

So, what your saying is that now we can create an instrument that would not only provide inverse reactive current, for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal gram meters.

Re:You must mean

[Petersson]

Don't forget to reverse the polarity. You ALWAYS have to reverse the polarity.
While reversing polarity, compensate. Keep compensating, Mr.Sulu.

Re:You must mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to reverse the polarity. You ALWAYS have to reverse the polarity.

and whatever you do - DO NOT cross the streams. Crossing the streams would be bad.

The last sentence...

[chr1sb]

...doesn't make sense, not least because TFA notes that 13 out of 20 predicted baryons have been observed, leaving 7 still to be discovered. Surely these will be just as noteworthy as this discovery. Is the LHC the only accelerator capable of creating and observing these remaining baryons?

Also, to nit-pick, TFA states that the Omega-sub-b travels 1 mm in a trillionth of a second. This seems a little high to me, given that c is about 3*10^8 m/s = 3^10^11 mm/s. Rounding errors?

Re:The last sentence...

[meringuoid]

TFA notes that 13 out of 20 predicted baryons have been observed, leaving 7 still to be discovered. Surely these will be just as noteworthy as this discovery. Is the LHC the only accelerator capable of creating and observing these remaining baryons?

Who knows? Perhaps that's why they're yet to be discovered: that we haven't reached the right energies. Well, the LHC will reach far higher energies than anything else on earth. Every time there's been a substantial step up in collision energies, all manner of new particles fall out. That alone makes the LHC favourite to dominate the field for the foreseeable future. That's before you consider the fact that a project of this scale, with absolutely enormous long-term funding, attracts everyone. The best particle physicists in the world are going to be attracted to working on the LHC, or on analysis of the data it produces.

There'll still be discoveries made elsewhere, but for the headline stuff, watch CERN.

Re:The last sentence...

[Detritus]

Time dilation. Muon decay from cosmic rays is a good example of this.

Re:The last sentence...

[meringuoid]

TFA states that the Omega-sub-b travels 1 mm in a trillionth of a second. This seems a little high to me, given that c is about 3*10^8 m/s = 3^10^11 mm/s.

Following up the second part of your post: It's 3.3x10^-12 seconds per millimetre. That puts this particle at about a third of the speed of light.

Re:The last sentence...

[meringuoid]

That puts this particle at about a third of the speed of light.

No it doesn't, I forgot I'd taken the reciprocal. It puts it at about three times the speed of light. I'd guess the other poster is right, then, and that time dilation prolongs its lifetime.

Re:The last sentence...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't production by the accelerator or its beam energy, it's sorting through the chaff and triggering on events where exotic baryons have been produced. This is especially difficult at the Tevatron or LHC where event selection is optimized for much higher energy particles (>100 GeV). CMS and ATLAS are probably not the ones to make progress here; the LHCb experiment, OTOH, is designed to find ~5 GeV particles, so I would expect them to have an opportunity.

And the Tevatron can just keep looking: they have tons of data and papers to publish, they might not have got around to finding the other seven yet.

   

Re:The last sentence...

[MadMagician]

How does this mesh with surfer dude A. Garret Lisi's claims?

Lamen

[tom17]

OK, so I have been reading a lot about particle physics lately and find the whole subject fascinating, but there is one thing (amongst many things) that I am not quite understanding. I have looked it up and my understanding of particle physics is not "there" yet, or at least not enough to grasp this particular concept. Maybe I have just not read the right explanation.

Can someone in here put it in a simple lamen explanation?

The question is this:

This Omega-sub-b particle contains two strange quarks and a bottom quark and weighs about six times the mass of a proton.
A proton contains 2 up quarks and one down quark.

Strange quarks have a mass of 95MeV, bottom has 4.2GeV so the total mass of the Omega-sub-b would be 4.39GeV
Up quarks have a mass of 3MeV, down has 6MeV so the total mass of a Proton would be 0.012GeV

This would put the Omega-sub-b at 365.8 times the mass of a Proton.

So I am obviously not understanding how the masses of the quarks correlate to the masses of the fermions. What am I missing here?

Thanks,

Tom...

Re:Lamen

[Ihlosi]

So I am obviously not understanding how the masses of the quarks correlate to the masses of the fermions. What am I missing here?

IANAPP (particle physicist), but I guess you're missing the equivalent to the "binding energy". Just like the mass of an atomic nucleus isn't equal to the sum of the masses of the protons and neutrons in it.

Re:Lamen

[MrMr]

I'm guessing: E=mc^2.
See for instance here

Re:Lamen

[tom17]

Just like the mass of an atomic nucleus isn't equal to the sum of the masses of the protons and neutrons in it.

it isn't? (approximately).

I need to go back to basics...

Tom...

Re:Lamen

[Chris Pimlott]

I'm sorry, I fail to see what this has to do with magic pendants...

Oh, wait, maybe you're asking for it to be translated into Bislama? I suppose that could be considered "Lamen terms".

Or, hmm, maybe you mean "layman"?

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

From wikipedia:
The mass of the proton is the sum of masses of its quarks + the energy of the gluon field that holds the quarks together.

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot simply calculate thr total mass from the mass of the parts as a substantial mass is present in the gluons "holding" together the quarks. The same effect is present in nuclei (binding energy) but the effect is much weaker here.

Re:Lamen

[OneSmartFellow]

I think Spock said it best when he said, "Sometimes the mass of the many does not outweigh the mass of the one"

Re:Lamen

[Chris Mattern]

Approximately, it is, if your approximation is vague enough. Since it's that difference that makes nuclear fusion *and* nuclear fission both possible, it has to count as a pretty significant difference, though.

Re:Lamen

[Keith_Beef]

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrons

Note that the mass of a hadron has very little to do with the mass of its valence quarks; rather, due to mass-energy equivalence, most of the mass comes from the large amount of energy associated with the strong nuclear force.

To me, this seems to mean that you do not simply sum the masses of the quarks that make up the hadron (a baryon being a kind of hadron).

The image of a proton given in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Quark_structure_proton.svg) represents the three quarks in a triangle. OK, so this is simply a convenient representation, but it may help to think of the masses of the quarks as being vector forces. E.g., 10GeV in one direction + 5GeV in the opposite direction would give a net result of 5GeV, and not 15GeV.

Of course, IANAPP either, and my example is contrived as a metaphor.

K.

Re:Lamen

[bucky0]

Yeah, binding energy is what we harvest in nuclear fission or fusion.

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

Mass defect? i.e. the resulting mass depends on the binding energy

Re:Lamen

[The_Wilschon]

IAAPP, and you got it in one.

Re:Lamen

[camperdave]

One thing you seem to be missing is the letter Y from the word laymen [grin]. But, to answer your question, electron volts are a measure of energy, not mass.

Re:Lamen

[tom17]

OK, the binding energy is where it's at then. Just mentioning the concept of that, and the discrepancies between atomic mass and the mass of the fermions, suddenly makes the "magical" bit of fusion/fission much more clear to me.

I now know where to commence my reading. Thanks!

Tom...

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

Binding energy?

Re:Lamen

[tom17]

Yeah I had read that before, but that aspect must have skipped past my mind last time. I feel I am still held back by the physics I was taught in school in the 80's. Lots of concepts taught in school back then make it harder to visualise the currently accepted concepts. I need to start with a blanker canvas in my mind. I'm still stuck on spherical valence shells and other such simplicities, as it's what I was taught. Trying to get there though.

What are they teaching in schools now? I should be having a littlun next year and want them to be learning proper science.

Tom...

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at atomic masses on the periodic table, you can get a first-order idea of how nuclear reactions will go. For example, uranium 235 has a mass of 235.0439299, where if you add up the mass of 143 neutrons and 92 protons, you'd get 92.669427 for the protons and 144.239083 for the neutrons. This adds up to 236.90851. So, there is 1.86457995 amu of mass that is no longer present -- this is the amount of energy you need to add to completely break the atom apart into protons and neutrons.

U235 decays to thorium 231, which has a mass of 231.0363043 amu plus an alpha particle with mass 4.00150, for a total of 235.0378043, meaning that 236.90851-235.03780 units of energy are released in the fission.

Re:Lamen

[rasherbuyer]

Er, one thing _you_ seem to be missing, is that mass is a measure of energy...

M = E/C^2

Re:Lamen

[thrich81]

I haven't seen a really suitable answer to your question so I'll give it a try -- I'll use the analogy of protons, neutrons and helium nuclei since they are more familiar. The sum of the masses of two free protons and two free neutrons is larger than the mass of a helium nucleus. The bound combination of the four particles as helium has a lower energy state than the four free particles (due to the attraction they have for each other by the nuclear Strong Force and quantum effects). The difference in the energy states is the "binding energy" of the nucleus, and the nucleus is lighter than the sum of the free particles by the mass-energy equivalence of that binding energy. For composite "particles" such as the proton and this new particle the effect is the same -- the free quarks weigh more than the the composite particle they form with the difference being the mass equivalent of the energy freed up when they bond. In the case of atomic nuclei the mass difference is on the order of a few percent and in the case of the baryons (protons, neutrons, etc.) the mass difference is much, much greater but the basic principle is the same.

Re:Lamen

[thrich81]

Oops, not to say that everyone else's replies weren't excellent and "suitable". Not quite the right choice of words. Sorry about that.

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

As a laser physicist... REALLY? Mass deficit from binding energy in molecular bindings or even nuclei is only a small fraction of the total mass. In this case, over 95% of the sum mass would be in binding energy. I'd just like to make sure that can actually happen.

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

So I am obviously not understanding how the masses of the quarks correlate to the masses of the fermions. What am I missing here?

the common perception that there are only three quarks in a baryon is very wrong. there are particles with "valence quarks" that express a fraction of an electrostatic charge (+ 2/3, -1/3, -2/3, +1/3) and any particle with three (or more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pentaquark) valence quarks is called a "baryon." however, much of the mass in nuclear matter is spread out among the "gluons," which are analogous to the photons that bind negative electrons to a positive nucleus, and in the quark-antiquark pairs that gluons sporadically decay into.

hope that helps.

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a great observation. The mass of the proton is in fact much closer to 1 GeV -- so you're right, the mass of the quarks does not add up to the mass of the total baryon. The vast majority of the mass is in the form of binding energy in the QCD field which holds the quarks together.

Only a very small fraction (a few percent) of the mass of the universe comes from the mass of the elementary particles.

Re:Lamen

[rasputin465]

Strange quarks have a mass of 95MeV, bottom has 4.2GeV so the total mass of the Omega-sub-b would be 4.39GeV Up quarks have a mass of 3MeV, down has 6MeV so the total mass of a Proton would be 0.012GeV

It's not quite so simple. The masses of the baryons are usually dominated by the binding energy (i.e. in the 'gluon' field) and not by the masses of the constituent quarks. The proton/neutron are the extreme case where almost all their mass is from binding energy. Estimating the mass of the quarks themselves is a very tricky business; since you cannot observe free quarks, you have to infer their effective mass in bound systems. An up quark in a baryon (bound system of 3 quarks) has a different effective mass than when it is part of a meson (bound system of two quarks). The masses of the up and down quarks you quote are their effective masses in baryons; the mass of the proton is 0.938 GeV, which is clearly MUCH larger than the sum of the quark masses. The same goes for this new baryon (Omega_b), but to a lesser degree.

Actually, the question of the masses of particles can be considered a little bit moot (or not, depending on what you're studying); in the Standard Model, all elementary particles are massless, and pick up effective masses only through their coupling to the Higgs field, similar to the way the proton has its mass due to the quarks coupling to the gluon fields. But at the moment, no one has been able to calculate what the effective particle masses (of any particle) should be, since we don't know enough about the Higgs field (should it exist) to be able to work out the couplings to various particles.

IAAPP

Re:Lamen

[camperdave]

O...kay..., I guess I need some brushing up as well.

However, wouldn't the energy of a particle vary with it's velocity, and its position in a charged field if the particle had a charge?

Re:Lamen

[Culture20]

So Protons beat out Omega-sub-b particles as candidates for "Baryon Fission" fuel, assuming that's feasible, since their "quark binding energy" is so much more?

Re:Lamen

[Ihlosi]

As a laser physicist... REALLY? Mass deficit from binding energy in molecular bindings or even nuclei is only a small fraction of the total mass.

I would guess that that's the reason why it is so hard to observe quarks. Chemical bindings and nuclear bindings are low-energy enough to mess with on a kitchen table-scale, but if you want to delve into the world of sub-atomic particles you need a honkin' big particle accelerator that consumes a city-equivalent of power.

Re:Lamen

[The_Wilschon]

Yes. The strong force is really, really strong. Molecules and atoms only have EM binding energy, and nuclei only have residual strong binding energy (much weaker than the full-on strong force).

Re:Lamen

[Anonymous Coward]

E = MC^2

When quarks snap together they lose some of their potential energy , E , as the famous equation above shows mass and energy correspond to one another so lost energy implies lost mass. For most systems we are used to the energies things lose is typically small as compared to their mass, and thus we don't notice the change. In the case of subatomic particles the energy change can be quite large however, and thus gives a corresponding change in mass. This is why nuclear fusion, which powers the sun, can emit so much energy. As protons fuse together into light nuclei they lose some of their mass in the form of energy. This energy has to go somewhere and it becomes kinetic energy in the resulting particles, heating the plasma.

Re:Lamen

[tom17]

Ouch.

And thanks. The concept of mass is different down at this level anyway so I can't me using my built in concepts of mass being an intrinsic part of matter. It's just a force between particles.

That helps things, but old brain here still can't help wanting to think things have an intrinsic mass. Mass, as my brain knows it, does not exist. Arrgghh

ILTBAPPBFIAWTPI (I'd like to be a particle physicist, but feel I am way too past it)

Re:Lamen

[ThanatosMinor]

Proton mass is .938 GeV, counting said binding energy

Re:Lamen

[bucky0]

Suppose there is 1MeV of energy in Ob particles, in order to produce them however, we must have nescessarily already provided 1MeV of energy, so you wouldn't gain any energy (in fact, you would be gauranteed to lose energy since neither the production nor fission machines would be 100% efficient.

It's like the idea of hydrogen for fuel. Hydrogen doesn't exist in its unbound state naturally (it's bound to things like oxygen). To produce it, you have to put in a bunch of energy. Later on when you burn it, you get energy back, but less than you put in. An analogous situation with Ob particles.

Re:Lamen

[Culture20]

Protons win again for naturally existing (in our corner of space).

Re:Lamen

[JohnFluxx]

> wouldn't the energy of a particle vary with it's velocity,

Yes. It's kinetic energy increases. And so it's (relativistic) mass increase.

> and its position in a charged field if the particle had a charge?

Yes, the potential energy increases/decreases, with the energy being converted from/to kinetic energy. The overall mass/energy of the system remains constant if there's no external force.

Re:Lamen

[bucky0]

exactly. protons are convenient because there are a LOT of them around us.

Re:Lamen

[UncleTogie]

I should be having a littlun next year and want them to be learning proper science.

Tom, if you're giving birth next year, you have problems larger than we can resolve here at present.

Re:Lamen

[tom17]

lol. I hear it's gonna hurt.

Re:Lamen

[Ihlosi]

, it has to count as a pretty significant difference, though.

Well, even if the difference in mass isn't all that big (you need a _really_ accurate measurement to actually spot it), tiny amounts of mass still translate into huge (as in "E = m * c^2"-huge) amounts of energy.

Re:Lamen

[ConceptJunkie]

I have 4 little ones who aren't so little any more. Expose them to science yourself and they will likely be very interested. There are so many resources available now that it's hard not to take an interest in science. We've had great success and fun with the many great documentaries available on DVD by the BBC and others. A friend also lent me a copy of "Cosmos" which the kids really enjoyed too. These are television shows, so they are more accessible than books and will hook the kids, encouraging them to follow up with good books on these subjects, which I have a ton of around the house, is the next step. Reading to them and with them when they are younger is very important, because it shows them what it's like. Although my kids are all avid readers, they are all avid learners and really seem to enjoy it.

We also take many "field trips" to places of scientific and historical significance. While vacationing in west Texas last year, we spent a good chunk of the day at McDonald Observatory and returned that night for a program and stargazing party. The entire family really enjoyed it.

The science curriculum at school seems OK, but they usually aren't going to touch the most exciting topics, like the kind we are talking about right here on /. Even if the kids don't really grasp what's going on (like the rest of us do?) know that the LHC is going online and knowing the kinds of exotic things that are being studied, discovered and theorized about spurs imaginations and awakens curiousity.

Re:Lamen

[ConceptJunkie]

Ooops. Shooda proofread. I meant to say, "Even though my kids _aren't_ all avid readers..."

Hey /., can we PLEASE set the "Slow Down, Cowboy" thresholds to 15 seconds and 1 minute?! Some of us can actually think and type fast and this has been a real pain in my side for years. Have a heart!

You've discovered my brother-in-law...

[Anne_Nonymous]

...doubly strange, some quirks, and six times overweight.

Ed, you're famous!

Why not just say Fermilab discovered it?

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of the "not CERN" reference.

Are quarks real yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I learned about his stuff back in high school, my teacher said that there was some debate with regards to the "ontological status" of quarks.

Basically, whether they are real or just some kind of theoretical construct.

Admittedly, the difference is kind of irrelevant under the modern scientific paradigm, but I'd like to know if quarks are considered real these days.

Can they be seen, traced, maybe even isolated is some manner?

Re:Are quarks real yet?

[MobyDisk]

IANAP

In nature, quarks are always found bound together in groups like this, and never in isolation, because of a phenomenon known as confinement.

I think the problem with "real" -vs- "theoretical" is that we are talking about the things that make-up matter. So even the idea of "real" doesn't apply. People want something they can see and touch and interact with, and if that is what it means to be real, then quarks are not real. But scientifically, they exist and they can be seen and measured indirectly.

(Although, thanks to the magic of the internet, there is no way to know that I exist either)

Re:Are quarks real yet?

[The_Wilschon]

Ever since deep inelastic scattering experiments revealed that the proton is not a pointlike charge at sufficiently small electron wavelengths, but rather scatters electrons as if it contained three pointlike (at that scale) charges (+2/3, +2/3, and -1/3), quarks have generally been considered real. Prior to these experiments, there most certainly was ontological debate about quarks. There was also similar debate about atoms for quite some time (see Ernst Mach).

Re:Are quarks real yet?

[m50d]

The same question was asked about electrons before them - after all, they don't behave like point particles (e.g. they diffract). Ultimately, there are no answers - QM is just too divorced from human experience.

They can't be seen or isolated, but we know the reasons why we can't do that. They can only be traced insofar as we observe the particles they make up, like this one. So it's rather like asking whether the electromagnetic field is real - we can't observe it directly, but it simplifies our theories a lot.

Whether that's good enough is up to you. You're never going to be able to separate out a quark and hold it in your hand, but it makes one's life a lot easier to treat it as if it were real, and all the measurements that we can make give the results we would expect if it was real.

6 times the weight?

[RTHilton]

Must be an American particle.

Re:6 times the weight?

[rcamans]

Yes, but who is he going to vote for? Strange - strange - bottom would be a submissive with two tranny masters (strange tops)? Is this an independent or just a typical Democrat?
heh heh

LHC "Just about to start"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, we've been waiting for the LHC to go online for a year and a half now, and every month during that time it was "just about to" start, yet every month we keep getting a new target date.

Just like the Big Dig, just like the FAA/FBI/IRS/NHS software rewrite/upgrades, just like every other government-funded foray into science and technology, with the exception of the Apollo Project and perhaps the Arpanet, this thing is going to go on forever.

I wouldn't expect to see the LHC do anything for at least another 5 years.

Re:LHC "Just about to start"?

[caramelcarrot]

I think it's more accurate to say that it is "starting", and will continue to start for a while. These things don't just turn on, and the LHC has actually been pretty much on-target with the exception of that magnet blowing up.

Re:LHC "Just about to start"?

[Candid88]

"with the exception of the Apollo Project"

Parts of the Apollo projects were put back several time, not to mention ending up costing around double the original estimate despite consisting of less missions than originally planned (cost overruns are almost always closely related to time overruns).

That's just the nature of big projects (of all types). Nothing specific to do with publicly funded ones, all really big projects commonly take longer than expected. The difference with publicly funded ones is that we all tend to have access to those estimates; whereas private companies tend to just say "it will be done when it's ready" (whilst internally, the estimates are getting put back further and further).

static? noise?

[acvh]

They looked at 100 trillion pieces of data, and found 18 that they could call Omega-sub-b. Wouldn't this fall into the realm of randomness?

Re:static? noise?

[ceoyoyo]

No. In order to decide whether what you're seeing is random or not, you have to use statistics to estimate the probability that the result you got could be due to random chance. In particle physics they have insanely high standards. I think six standard deviations is fairly standard to announce a discovery. Six standard deviations corresponds to odds of the result occurring by chance of one in a billion.

The Omega Directive

[La Gris]

Hopefully Quark should not grab that very dangerous particle for huge profit.

Oh dear ...

[garett_spencley]

Three Quarks ? Odo will not be happy to hear about this :(

Omega particle more dangerous than the LHC

[DataPath]

Oh no! We're going to destroy the fabric of subspace before we even develop warp drive! We'll never make it to the stars now!

Re:Omega particle more dangerous than the LHC

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no! We're going to destroy the fabric of subspace before we even develop warp drive! We'll never make it to the stars now!

Another good reason to not watch Gilligan's Starship.

It's the final countdown

[Candid88]

Countdown to the end of the world:
6 days and counting....

At this point I would like to say I've enjoyed reading Slashdot for the past few years.

It's too late anyway

[signalingNaN]

This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN

Actually, this might be the last sub-atomic discovery made by mankind at all, knowing that CERN is suspected to produce a black hole and suck up the earth .

Re:It's too late anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

The more than 5,000 magnets inside are expected to accelerate tiny particles almost to the speed of light, dispatching them around the tunnel in one-11,000th of a second, according to the Daily Mail. The particles then will smash headon in collisions that will generate enough heat to melt a small car.

Note to CERN employees: please do not park small cars in the accellerator tunnel.

Scientists hope the collisions will produce new scientific information.

Local residents are just hoping for new Pr0n.

Re:It's too late anyway

[somersault]

Sweet! Looks like we won't all die virgins after all!

Too Many Particles

[JaneTheIgnorantSlut]

I stop thinking about all these particles and fall back to the Stevens (as in George 'Kingfish' Stevens) model of atomic structure: protons, neutrons, fig newtons, and morons.

It's...

[jav1231]

It's "quarky!" It's "quarkalicious!" It's three times the quark of the leading particle!
Let's face it marketing hype and physics just don't mix!

Thanks for clearing that up

[cizoozic]

This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle..."

Oh see I read that as, "Since the universe, or at least our corner of it, will end as soon as they fire up the LHC"

I'm actually attending a "Party at the End of the Universe" to celebrate our last days as a species. A terrestrial version of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters will be served.

Re:Thanks for clearing that up

[albyrne5]

What a f*cking great idea for a party! When are they due to go full "live" with LHC?

Re:Thanks for clearing that up

[somersault]

You missed it. It already happened 500 years ago but the activation caused some strange time dilation effects meaning that we're all stuck in 2008, and whenever you hear about someone planning a party, you've already missed it.

Re:Thanks for clearing that up

[BotnetZombie]

Ok, that clears up some things. I can certainly acknowledge that John McCain looks 500 years old, but what about the year of Linux on the desktop? I assume that will always be 2 years in the future (wait, hasn't it been like that for at least 10 years?). This probably also means that Bush will be president forever.
Well goodbye then, going to hang myself - at worst it'll just be the groundhog day effect.

Re:Thanks for clearing that up

[dotancohen]

You missed it. It already happened 500 years ago but the activation caused some strange time dilation effects meaning that we're all stuck in 2008, and whenever you hear about the year of the Linux desktop you've already missed it.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Quark pr0n

[Ackmo]

Gives me a hadron.

SSB

[Anonymous Coward]

The quarks from all the groups get mixed up in threes to form baryons. The heavier ones are less stable and harder to form. This one is impressive because it contains so many of the heavier quarks, it is a sign higher energy interactions are being observed.
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon

Re:SSB

[somersault]

Heretofor it shall be known as the Super Smash Bros particle.

Well what do you know

[Anonymous Coward]

Three quarks... but is it for Muster Mark?

Strange Strange Bottom?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dated a girl like that in college.

Re:How does Garrett Lisi's theory of everything fi

[The_Wilschon]

It is predicted by the Standard Model, which Garrett Lisi's theory of everything had better also predict, so yes. But not exclusively so.

Re:Hmm, ... ssb

[pbhj]

It's not charming at all, it's doubly strange and bottom-ish. It's like a cranky old professor, a weird ass.

Been a while since physics class

[Taibhsear]

I was always fascinated by particle physics but it's been a while since I studied it. Can someone explain how a proton-antiproton collision (u,u,d quarks and anti-u,anti-u,anti-d quarks) could produce strange quarks? I thought all that was left after a matter-antimatter collision was x-rays and gamma-rays.

Re:Been a while since physics class

[Anonymous Coward]

What you get after anti-matter/matter collide is lots of energy. E=mc^2 so you can also get particles.

Re:Been a while since physics class

[jstott]

I was always fascinated by particle physics but it's been a while since I studied it. Can someone explain how a proton-antiproton collision (u,u,d quarks and anti-u,anti-u,anti-d quarks) could produce strange quarks?

There are three fundamental forces that matter in a particle collider: the strong force, the weak force, and the electro-magnetic force. When the interactions are through the strong force (which is described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics [QCD]), the result is either things start to stick together or you create a pairs of quarks (a quark and its anti-quark, to conserve charge). These quark pairs can, in turn, either produce new pairs of quarks or they can stick and produce new particles. So, strong interactions can produce strange quarks out of nothing if you supply enough energy, but they'll always come in a strange/anti-strange pair. Given that the \omega_b has both a strange and an anti-strange quark in it, I'm guessing that it probably is coming out of a series of strong nuclear interactions.

At low energies, electro-magnetic forces deal with the interactions of particles and photons, which is important but kinda boring (at high enough energies life is more complicated and EM forces become a kind of weak force, but that's getting off track).

The final force, the weak force doesn't interact very strongly with particles (hence its name), so weak events are much less common than strong events. On the other hand, because they obey different symmetries, weak events can do some things that strong events can't do. In particular, weak events can change the flavor of quarks, for example, from a down quark to a strange quark. So, the second way you can get a strange quark from a bunch of up and down quarks is through a weak interaction that changes the flavor of one or more quarks.

-JS

Re:Been a while since physics class

[Anonymous Coward]

You can produce pairs of strange quarks and strange anti-quarks (which count as -1 strange quarks when tallying the numbers of quarks produced). A quark/antiquark pair is equivalent to a gamma ray in that, were they to meet under the right conditions, they would annihilate into gammas. When quark/antiquark pairs get separated into different particles spraying out of the collision, you can get matter coming out of a particle/antiparticle collision.

Re:Been a while since physics class

[Anonymous Coward]

No, all you get in the collision is *energy* (mostly the kinetic energy of the particles smashing into one another), which then will manifest in the shape of different particles. X-rays and gamma rays are one example - specifically, they're photons -, but as long as enough energy is put in, anything can be produced, at least in theory.

Re:Been a while since physics class

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, you've got it all wrong. The three forces are the Light Side, Dark Side, and they both use the light saber force to interact with each other, which can lead to catastrophic collisions. These collisions may lead to the disruption of the lattice of quantum chromodynamics, which may "seduce" Quark to join the Dark Side of the force. If Quark remains within the Light Side of the force, and keeps taking his omega_b capsules, then the "strange" happens, and an Anti-Quark forms in the Dark Side of the force, by means of reversing the polarity of the quantum force fields. This Anti-Quark (Quark's evil twin brother) will seek to interact with Quark, by evoking the light saber force to "split" Quark into as many tiny particles as possible. Things can get really "strange" if we are able to persuade Yoda to utilize his famous law of the light saber interaction force. By jumping "up" and "down," turbo-dynamically interacting with the Anti-Quark, swinging the orbit of the light saber force, in the direction of the "up, down, left and right," Yoda may effectively "down" the Anti-Quark and turn him into a mass of "flavorless" goo.

Frankly

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't give a flying quark.

Brief explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

The proton weighs a little under a GeV, most of which is binding energy. Since the u and d quarks have so little mass, you can effectively ignore it and look at the dynamical relationship of 3 bound quarks. This is why early models which treated protons and neutrons as different states of the same particle (called isospin symmetry) worked so well. The equation's not all that simple, since binding energy is itself a function of the masses of the quarks involved. The only real theoretical calculations are heavily computational lattice QCD simulations, and experiments like this are a good test of those calculations.

As a sidenote, the headline makes very little sense. We observed a "triply-strange" particle, the original Omega, ages ago. What makes this special aren't the two s quarks per se, but their appearance alongside a bottom quark.

IAAPP

Re:Hmm, ... ssb

[sconeu]

But they're the wrong color.

I was daydreaming and

[mcneely.mike]

That's what she said!

But only in my mind.

Scientology Adds on Slashdot?!

[Knux]

Dude am I the only one who has noticed a "Scientology Get the Facts Video Channel" add on Slashdot?!

I do have a screen shot of that :|

It points out straight to scientology.org

Still waiting

[Bemopolis]

Where are all of the scientifically-expert global-warming deniers ready to gainsay this discovery by the obviously-liberal elite particle physics community and their media pawns in the pocket of Big Quantum Chromodynamics?

probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic dis

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a lot we don't understand about the quark/gluon interactions even at relatively low energies (say anything containing less than one b quark). It's great to go after the Higgs and all because it (theoretically) determines the mass of all the rest. Knowing the Higgs mass doesn't necessarily mean you understand interactions.
Shucks, the lowest mass iso-scalar scalar (I=0,JPC=0++) mesons are not understood after say 35 years of hard study and many PhD theses. And if you want ultra-high energy things you have to harken back 75 or so years and re-visit the ultra-high energy cosmic ray showers. There is more to life than LHC.

If only there were...

[DanielJosphXhan]

If only there were some sort of theory to string these things together sensibly!

Re:If only there were...

[Curunir_wolf]

If only there were some sort of theory to string these things together sensibly!

There is, but the computer needed to do *those* calculations hasn't been built yet.

Re:If only there were...

[bar-agent]

If only there were some sort of theory to string these things together sensibly!

My own thoughts on the subject keep looping back to gravity...

Re:If only there were...

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been built. It's called Earth.

Big questions unanswered

[sweetser]

Like why-the-donkey-kong does charge come in factors of 1/3 and 2/3's? Why is the standard model composed of the symmetries U(1), SU(2), and SU(3) instead of some different combo meal of groups? It takes amazing data mining skills to spot an Omega-sub-b, but it does not address any big issues. I know why nature uses U(1), SU(2), and SU(3) and Diff(M) for gravity, but I am not telling.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not Last but Certainly Least

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere else than at CERN since LHC is about to start the hunt for the Higgs particle that remains elusive even for the experiment that just discovered the Omega-sub-b..

i am not sure about dzero, but the cdf experiment at fermilab is certainly not done searching for new particles, some with higher discovery potential and more importance than another vanilla hadron! many of the papers currently being published in physics review are using data that is three to four years old, and even after FY2010 and the inevitable shutdown of the tevatron there will still be many thesises and papers comming out of fermilab.

on a second note, the lhc will not have a chance to produce a new result for SEVERAL years after its engineering run ends this december. firstly, atlas and cms must re-discover all the standard model particles and confirm their rest masses are within those set by fermilab. they must use this information to better understand their own detector, and to prove to the rest of the world that their data is meeningful. ...this could take years...

so we will most likely not see a new particle out of the lhc before 2012. ample time for the us experiments to make new discoveries!

So?

[Tylerious]

So?

Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

> Dit staat waarschijnlijk een op het punt van de laatste merkbare sub-atomic ontdekkingen ergens gemaakt dan bij CERN anders aangezien LHC is de jacht voor het deeltje te beginnen Higgs dat zelfs voor het experiment ontwijkend blijft dat enkel omega-sub-B. ontdekte.

Wow! It's all becoming clear to me now!

M-Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I think M-Theory proponents are just stringing us along.

Different units

[Moraelin]

Well, they come in 1/3 and 2/3 because we're using the wrong unites for them, basically. If we were using a unit that's 1/3 of the proton charge instead, I'll call it a Moraelin, the quarks would come in 1M and 2M flavours. Which is actually quite palatable. Of course, the the proton would be +3M and the electron would be -3M.

Re:Different units

[sweetser]

Scaling by a factor of 3 does not change the issue. Now we have some quarks that are -1M, while others happen to be +2M of that, and these particles happen to like to combine to be some number such that mod 3 = 0. I would appreciate a reason why this is the way Nature has to be. Why can't there be a +1M or a -2M? We have the observation that there are no such quarks.

All my research money is on the math, how to do spacetime calculus correctly in 4D. Odd factors of a third and 2/3 show up when I looked into analytic quaternion functions, but I too have no explanation at this time for the factors, just a hunch.

Large Hadron Rap

[splatter]

This was strangely just sent to me from a friend of mine. Upstages white and nerdy by a landslide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

Link is SFW.

DP

What to do with a higgs...

[Oktober Sunset]

When they find the Higgs Boson, I heard they are going to press the master copy of Duke Nukem forever out of them.

Importance?

[Twinbee]

How important is this? How does it change our understanding of physics? Did we previously imagine that this other type of particle could exist?

I thought Quark worked at some space station bar?

[DJRumpy]

I never did like that show. This is probably just some bastard half-breed resulting from too much free time from that crappy ass spin-off from TNG.

OP's grammar is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably one of the last noticeable sub-atomic discoveries made somewhere other than at CERN...

There, fixed that for ya.

Headline misleading.

[BitterOak]

The headline, although factually correct, is somewhat misleading as it seems to imply that what is interesting about the particle is that it is doubly strange. In fact, doubly strange particles have been observed for some time. (Eg. the so-called "cascade" particles, which are baryons consisting of two strange quarks and a light quark (u or d).) The discovery discussed here is a baryon consisting of a b quark together with two strange quarks. This particle is not unexpected, but this is a first observation of a b baryon with no light quarks, so it is interesting.

It's layman.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "layman" or "laymen" from the term "laity" meaning not clergy.

Made of Or Creates

[moozoo]

"made of three quarks, the Omega-sub-b. The particle contains two strange quarks and a bottom quark (s-s-b)." How do they know this. Or is it that X smash into Y produces results Z It doesn't follow that X and Y is made of Z.