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New Type of Particle May Have Been Found
An anonymous reader writes "The LHC is out of commission, but the Tevatron collider at Fermilab is still chugging along, and may have just discovered a new type of particle that would signal new physics. New Scientist reports that the Tevatron's CDF detector has found muons that seem to have been created outside of the beam pipe that confines the protons and anti-protons being smashed together. The standard model can't explain the muons, and some speculate that 'an unknown particle with a lifetime of about 20 picoseconds was produced in the collision, traveled about 1 centimeter, through the side of the beam pipe, and then decayed into muons.' The hypothetical particle even seems to have the right mass to account for one theory of dark matter."
marshmallow?
Someone to replicate their results.
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If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
An absolutely good question. I've been wondering about the effect of radiation from GRBs, blackholes, and other radiation sources in the Universe for a while now. That radiation must have an effect other than raising the ambient temperature a little bit. Even if the radiation is not enough to fry all life on this planet, it's possible that radiation may have an effect on the Sun's activity... which in turn directly affects our climate.
I do understand that the collider is a bit different than our Sun, but does anyone know what effect gamma ray bursts have on the efficacy or activity of our Sun?
With all the hubbub about global warming, I've been getting more interested in what affect our planet's climate. Recently we have found/discovered a few things that might have some effect. While it seems a small thing at best, what is not known is the effect of combined events (or lack of) from outside our solar system on how our Sun behaves.
Note: I am not convinced that man has not contributed to climate change. I simply am not convinced that we truly understand how and what controls our climate. I'd like to know all the factors that have nothing to do with mankind's interference. Until we do, there is no method to fully describe the climate model, nor predict any change to it.
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... because a publication is not about excitement or popularity, but about solid results and conclusions.
For excitement and popularity one publishes in Nature or Scientific American.
The first thing to realise, regardless of which side of the debate you are, is that there is a lot more politics than science being done on climate change.
I believe this is why the acceptable term has now become 'climate change' rather than 'global warming'.
I'm pretty certain that we do influence the climate. But Parent has a very good point that argument without all the facts is still nothing more than rhetoric.
There are plenty of theories on either side of that debate, but way too much political pressure (agenda?) to even allow for any form of educated and intelligent debate.
Whoever thinks this is Al Gore vs. Big Oil definitely hasn't looked into it deeply enough.
If you want to reduce CO2, *plant trees*. Elaborating a CO2 tax scam is merely a tool for social control.
Mind the frickin' laser...
I conjecture that it's the same old physics, and that we only understand it a bit better.
Physics is not Truth, nor is it nature or reality. It is an attempt at a scientific model of nature. When we only had Newtonian mechanics, General relativity was new physics. New models, new math, new science, same reality.
> The hypothetical particle even seems to have the right mass to account for one theory of dark matter.
That may say more about the number of theories of dark matter than about this particle.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
The work is a ongoing one. You take measures all the time, it's not just one shot.
That's why I will believe the summary when a significant amount of particles fit for scientifically publication (say, 20) are detected.
Working against measurement mistakes and systematic errors should not be underestimated.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Watch the experts do a few, try a couple of the larger connections, get a feel for the correct heat and how the solder flows and you'll be fine. there's a touch to it, it's not hard but you need a little practice, the old fashioned 40/60 lead tin solder is easier than the newer stuff.
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I'm so disappointed. I thought you were going to ask the usefully blatant question: would it have been possible to discover a particle with a mass that didn't fit at least one theory of dark matter? If the stupid thing had weighed a kilogram, there is probably some (totally cracked) theory of dark matter out there it would fit into perfectly. The problem with modern physics is that "theory of everything" turned into "theory for everything" with a parameter space of 2^500, to bandy around another number consistent with something a physicist somewhere recently scratched onto a blackboard.
I'm not an astrophysicist, or a physicist of any kind, but just thinking about this a little bit, I don't think the effects on the sun would be too significant. Or at least, anything that would significantly affect the sun would likely significantly affect the earth directly as well.
The sun is so much larger, it has so much more mass in which to dissipate any energy that it receives. And either way, it's producing such a large amount of energy that I'd imagine whatever it receives from outside sources is just a drop in the bucket.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
What do you mean by "finally"? Fermi has discovered tons of particles over its lifetime and probably will continue to be very useful in particle physics.
Here's a link to the top ten discoveries:
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
But Parent has a very good point that argument without all the facts is still nothing more than rhetoric.
With respect, thats not necessarily a very good point at all.
The OP, for example, illustrates that we don't have all the facts regarding particle physics.
The application of your "very good point" to this would result in our concluding that anything involving particle physics is "nothing more than rhetoric".
Taking a slightly broader view, one can conclude that either all scientific fields are "nothing more than rhetoric", or that one can in fact, draw meaningful conclusions in the absence of all of the facts.
I would humbly submit that evidence overwhelmingly supports the latter position.
It may be true to say that in the abesence of sufficient facts, one has nothing but rhetoric, or that the confidence we can have in and the accuracy of conclusions is proportional to the completeness of the facts on which they are based...but thats an entirely different position to the one you took.
The question, regarding climate change (and, perhaps more importantly, the anthropogenic aspects thereof) is not whether we have all facts or not, but rather whehter or not we have sufficient facts from which to draw meaningful conclusions.
It wouldn't render the whole point of building the LHC an epic fail. Read Richard Feynman's chapter on "cargo cult science" (the last chapter of "Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman") as for why you don't stop repeating an experiment just because someone's already done it. It's unbelievably bad science to just stop doing an experiment because it's been done before.
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Physics (_VERIFIED_ well established physics) is _absolutely_ the mathemetical truth of the world around you.
If you want proof look at any electrical appliance in your house. They work _because_ physics does tell the truth of the nature of reality around you via mathematics.
That was an astonishingly ignorant statement.