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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."
What do you think they make Peeps out of?!
That's no muon, it's a space station!
I'll show myself out.
Chewons
The hypothetical particle even seems to have the right mass to account for one theory of dark matter."
Not to ask the blatantly obvious, but if it's the right mass for one theory of dark matter, I can't help but wonder where they are all being produced. Given a life of 20 picoseconds, I can't imagine that there would be monstrous factories of these things all over the universe to account for the stupidly large amount of mass they are supposed to account for. How come we haven't found them before?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I wish it was the god particle, rendering the whole point of building the LHC an epic fail. It would just be deliciously ironic.
When asked about the new particle during the first test, one of the instruments that was monitoring it malfunctioned. One of the resident scientists were quoted as saying:
"Overhead capacitors to one oh five percent. Uh, it's
probably not a problem, probably, but I'm showing a small discrepancy
in... well, no, it's well within acceptable bounds again. Sustaining
sequence."
Someone to replicate their results.
Oops!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
i, for one, welcome our "long-lived particle" overlords
The New Scientist article points to a paper at arxiv:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.5357
with the rather less sensational title:
Study of multi-muon events produced in p-pbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV
I'm amused to note that the author list stretches over three pages, which I gather is common for this sort of paper.
The question here is about repeatability, and given how long it's taken to have an anomaly like this surface, the only other accelerator that might be capable of confirming this find (ie, doing it again) is probably the LHC.
Anyone know what the probability of doing this again might be?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Doctor " Congratulations professor!! you have a new bouncing baby particle"
Professor "look at those electrons, its hung like a horse"
Doctor "eer, sorry to disappoint your sir but that is just residual background noise"
John Conway talks about this over at Cosmic Variance: http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/11/02/cdf-ghost-muons/
Not that odd... read "From Eros To Gaia" by Freeman Dyson, he has a LOT to say about "big-money science" versus "small-money science". Guess which one the LHC is.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Poor little guy gets a single centimeter in 20 picoseconds-time and poofs into nothingness but I'll give it an A for effort. I hope this does ultimately afford us a new awareness into how things work down the road; preferably in my lifetime. (Read: Something absolutely astounding).
... 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 Tevatron is big money science. the LHC is bigger money science.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Warning: the following is from memory, so details may be off. The gist of it is correct.
There's a section in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" where he goes to see the collider at the new school he's just arrived at. The collider at the school he came from is state of the art, so he's expecting something even better at the new school, because they have been producing many remarkable, cutting edge, results.
The collider he finds is small, and far from state of the art, and almost held together by duct tape and chewing gum. He realizes that this is why it has produced such remarkable results--the scientists that work with it are very hands on, getting down and dirty with the experiments, coaxing every last bit out of them. The scientists using the shiny new state of the art collider are sitting back in their offices, just getting disembodied data that they haven't really connected with, and don't understand on a gut level like their colleagues using the "inferior" equipment do.
Feynman knew then he was going to happy at the new school.
I work in electrical engineering, and unfortunately very few people play with scopes and irons anymore. "Hardware" engineering is mostly abstract concept juggling on computers these days.
I'm the guy with the 45 year old tube scope with Nixie tube digital readout and the two soldering irons...
I conjecture that it's the same old physics, and that we only understand it a bit better.
the deliciously ironic particle
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And the best evidence for the Higgs? CDF and d0 found exactly what they were built for, and probably a lot more.
Yeah that's how I remember it, too. Great book, everybody with an interest in science should read it! You can even *aehm* find an entertaining audio book version.
Where are the folks who can solder, "feel" what a capacitor does and do all Ohm's Law calculation in their subconscious?
Trades schools used to produce them in quantity. All the guys at my company who do component level work are over 40 except for one who emigrated from China.
They have come from somewhere. I can't imagine Engineers getting anything work or fixing anything without technicians. :)
> 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.
I'm an engineer. I can use most of the equipment in the office except the soldering iron. I tried a few times and messed up a few things. Wasted some pads. Learned my lesson. Let the experts do their thing. I have mine...
subatomic particle.. its a Black Hoooo *FLASH*
"Particle May Have Been Found "
It is really good - and amazing - that they found this particle. I've lost sub-atomic particles before, and the things are just so incredibly small that it is unbelievably difficult to find them again. The resulting migraine from eye-strain can be terrible.
Better known as 318230.
Interesting. I'd guess that the Tev and the SPS (which is now the LHC injector) are sort of the-same-money physics, in real terms, as the LHC. But I don't know. The SSC, which was going to reach higher energy than the LHC, got far too expensive, mostly because of gross mismanagement. Disclaimer: I've worked on all the mentioned machines, and the demise of SSC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider hurt a lot.
Down with categorical imperatives
They're paper EE's from offshore colleges. That fad won't last.
You can buy a 2 channel USB O-scope for $140, and a datalogger for $80. Most electronics companies will send you bits of the latest science just for asking. I think if the kids today want to take over the world, they have the tools available. Do they have the wits?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The "old school" was MIT. The "new school" was Princeton.
And the brethren went away edified.
The real stuff has gotten pretty tough. I had the challenge once to rework a preproduction board to prove a design change. I was way out of my comfort zone.
Resistors these days are the size of a juvenile flea. If you drop one, let it go man... it's gone. ICs aren't much better. You have to use IPA and a lintfree cloth just to clean the soldering tweezers. It takes a 60x microscope and a steady hand. I was really regretting my caffeine habit. And the tiny static charges make everything sticky. The leadfree solder takes more heat so you have to be extra careful not so bake the components to death. And don't stab yourself with the tweezers. They look like pencil erasers in the scope but they'll penetrate your skin with no resistance, burning the whole way.
It worked. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. I am thrilled to have had the experience. I wish I knew a vendor for the surgical point soldering tweezers.
Respect to the asian ladies in the factory that do this all day for a pittance, with nothing more than a magnifying glass and grim determination.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"The hypothetical particle even seems to have the right mass to account for one theory of dark matter."
An excellent bet is that any new particle will rapidly give rise to dozens if not hundreds of theories as to why it is exactly what's needed to explain dark matter.
(In other words, instant physics is frequently not very trustworthy, and instant theoretical physics is especially frequently not very trustworthy.
It's out of commission by the definition everyone but you seems to be using. I double checked and it means exactly what I thought it does, so it seems you should look it up yourself and learn a little.
Where are the folks who can solder, "feel" what a capacitor does and do all Ohm's Law calculation in their subconscious?
We're still out here. I know a few. The end of electronics repair shops in the US in favor of disposable electronics has driven most to abandon the field.
But yeah, watching an electronics tech explain to an EE stuff most of us learned in high school is pretty sad.
Did your high school have an IBM 5150?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
They do that in the factory? I could've sworn they'd use robotic arms or something to place them.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Okay, maybe not 1.21, but it was still a Doc Brown moment for me...
Not only will we discover more particles with the LHC, we will create a greater understanding of the world in which we live. This will inevitably lead to the result the common man understands: cool new products! These products will of course be expensive at first and cost less over time, ultimately driving up the standard of living for all but the most exploited among us.
Research always pays. Sometimes embarrassingly much. That's why, although I would like NASA's budget to be increased to a few hundred billion dollars a year, I can live with the pittance they're given. Eventually somebody with a profit motive will explore space, succeed, and reap returns beyond the dreams of Midas.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
They do for the most part. But almost inevitably somebody makes 200,000 circuit boards, only to discover that something doesn't work and it to be reworked. Three resistors, a capacitor and an IO connector have to be changed. It's boring work in a toxic environment under appalling conditions. But it's got to be done if you want that new BluRay player under your tree.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The summary implied (to me at least) that "out of commission" was indefinitely, not two months. No need to get nasty, AC.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Upon further googling I see it's longer than two months; I retract my last statement.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Digital phosphor scopes are the way to go, man. My company bought one that cost more than my car, and it was used!
I totally agree with you, though. We need more people who aren't afraid to scope and solder. I enjoy looking on eBay for "broken" electronics on the cheap and trying to fix them. It's like a huge discount on a stereo receiver or a DVD player or a laptop...
:(){
an unknown particle with a lifetime of about 20 picoseconds was produced in the collision, traveled about 1 centimeter
That is 16000 times faster than light..!
Hmmm... I made an erroneous statement and had the decency to admit to it, and someone too scared to burn karma says I'm a retard. Log in and say that.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Digikey sells them. They're pretty cheap:
http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/T083/P2246.pdf
Maybe if you kept up with current events old news wouldn't be news to you.
Do you happen to be an editor for slashdot?
Thanks for that.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Aaah, nothing beats a capacitor's jolt in the morning, no even coffee
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.
Did your high school have an IBM 5150?'
Heh. My college got in a couple of IBM 5100s for a while to play with. We had a 360/50 (and a Burroughs B6700). The new-fangled 5150s (aka, IBM PCs) didn't come in until a few years later.
-- Alastair
Heh.
Actually that was a personal question. I think he's the guy that got me hooked on D&D. Thanks though. I bought one of those Burroughs machines as salvage once. They had like 300 lbs of aluminum in them. That was like two cases of beer.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Do you happen to be an editor for slashdot?
Nice one. ;)
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
There are several mysterious particles that aren't easily identified by the Standard Model. One in particular is the X(3872) particle, which was discovered by Japanese scientists and confirmed by other laboratories. It might be a tetraquark particle or even a meson molecule, but scientists are just guessing for now.
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2008/04/13/the-charming-case-of-x3872/
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
I just find it odd that with the introduction of a new collider this one has finally found something.
Right, because the Tevatron hasn't found anything at all in the past 25 years. Ever hear of the top quark? Remember that article a year ago about the "Cascade B" particle? You may have seen it, it was on Slashdot.
I think I speak for a great many PWDRUHTSW (People who don't really understand how this shit works) when I say, "WTF SCIENTISTS! WHERE'S OUR MOTHER FUCKING BOSON!".
An update on the status of the collider would be appreciated too, thank you.
Considering that most comments are modded as "Funny", I wonder why serious articles like this get posted on Slashdot.
the boogeron. I found one in my nose this morning.
I can (or at least used to be able to) do weapons spec aka NASA spec soldering. That said, as an electronics tech back then, when a "real" (not prototype) board needed rework, I brought it over to one of the "rework" ladies (Betty or Tasha), along with the replacement part, and a "rework order", and let the pros do the work. Trust me, I was good with a soldering iron (Hence being able to pass the WS soldering course), but the pros "On the line" made me look like a chump. Heck, those 2 ladies made the rest of the people on the fabrication line look like chumps, which is why they were the people you tool re-work too
Now my eyesight is gone, my hands shake - what used to be easy now take one of those lighted magnifing rings and a way to brace my hands, and when it comes to SMT stuff, I really want one of the nice 10x binocular stands with all the trimmings like we had, and I didn't need back when I was 25 years younger (Getting old sucks)
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I don't know if my high school ever got 5150s, they did have a PDP-8 and an HP-1000. The 5150 came out after I left... (first pro programming was on a 5150)
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
That's pretty fast.
Granted, there are a lot of zero's so my calculations may be off, but:
1 Centimeter = 0.01 Meters
20 Picoseconds = 0.00000000002 Seconds
Thus the speed was:
0.01 / 0.00000000002 = 500,000,000 m/s
The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s
Did I miss something or are we exceeding the speedlimit here?
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
The article is correct. A picosecond is 10-12s or a millionth of a microsecond. Light does 300m in a microsecond so 0.3mm in a picosecond.
The number of unexpected particles is ~10**5. This is not a statistical phantom, although the physical significance remains to be seen.
I love nixie tubes. I bought a big box of Russian ones for very little money a couple of years ago.
I'm thinking of making a decent bench power supply, and of course the voltage and current displays will be done with nixies :-) Mixing old with new, the electronics to drive the display (apart from the Russian 74141 equivalents) will all be fine pitch surface mount.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Hot air is your friend for soldering.
As a mere hobbyist, some of my designs use ICs with 0.4mm pitch pins (0.2 mm gap between the pads). I have made my own PCBs at home to mount these on. It takes care but it can be done and it doesn't require more than a magnifying glass. However, thanks to reasonably low cost PCB prototyping houses, I usually get the PCBs for that sort of thing made by one of those these days :-) I've even soldered 0.4mm pitch LQFP with a normal soldering iron with a pointy tip.
Hand soldering 0603 discrete components isn't hard and can be done with a normal soldering iron tip. Some hobbyists have used 0402 parts (and I bet some masochist has tried 0201), but I think 0603 for me is a good tradeoff between small size and my ability to handle them.
However, I've found solder paste and hot air really is the way to go. It's so much easier and neater. I have a little syringe of the stuff, it needs an incredibly small amount of it on each pad, and for ICs, just a bead of solder paste run along the pads. For hot air, I use an inexpensive hot air gun which on the low setting is the correct temperature for reflow. Surface tension is also your friend - slightly misaligned components will magically align themselves as the solder paste melts.
Others use electric skillets for reflow, or toaster ovens. Lots of hobbyists are doing fun things with tiny components now. Last night, I was soldering leadless packages on a home made PCB, using solder paste and hot air. Nearly all of my electronics projects now use fine pitch surface mount, and with hot air and paste I can mount resistors and capacitors etc. much faster than I can the equivalent through hole parts.
Hot air is also great for rework - use a nozzle to just heat the IC you want to get off, wait for it to all warm up, then remove it with tweezers.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Somebody has just discovered a tachion! The supremacy of causality falls!!!
And, yes, the parent's calculation is right. I didn't RTFA, so I don't know where is the error.
Rethinking email
Heh, I know a bit about this because I just translated some technical documents on the subject.
Soldering was one of the last parts of the manufacturing process to be automated because of numerous technical challenges involved (and lead-free solder only makes it worse). A consortium of Japanese companies finally came up with a high-dexterity robot arm that was ideal for soldering. Although these robots are still being adopted elsewhere around the world, hand-soldering remains a specialized and well-paid profession.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Just how often do particles go "through the side of the beam pipe"? That sounds ... bad.
stuff |
Bits of those poor time travelers left stranded after the LHC broke.
The scientists using the shiny new state of the art collider are sitting back in their offices, just getting disembodied data that they haven't really connected with, and don't understand on a gut level like their colleagues using the "inferior" equipment do.
Feynman knew then he was going to happy at the new school.
The thing is, as a research scientist in today's economy you just can't spend too much time doing hands on work. Spending all day in the lab works great in grad school when you have no other responsibilities and can spend all night reducing data and writing, but if you want to be a professor or a senior researcher you have to train your people well and then let them do the experiment prep and data collection for you. You can participate too, but the more time you spend working on the hardware, the less time you have for data analysis, writing papers and getting funding... which is what drives labs nowadays and keeps your students and researchers employed. Throw in a spouse and kids and you have even less time to spend screwing things together.
Of course, if you are a freaky genius like Feynman, you may operate a little more efficiently and be able to do everything. The rest of us have to compromise however.
1cm = .01 meter / 20 x 10^-12 seconds = 500,000,000 m/s.
How fast is c again? 300,000,000 m/s.
So this particle went 1.6c. So now that we've broken the speed of light when are we traveling to the stars?
I didn't read the article; is this a bug in the summary or in the article?
"feeling" what a capacitor does is very dangerous.
The Sun has been here for billions of years. It's not going to increase its output energy by 1.2% in 100 years. On the other hand, it's certainly possible for the Earth atmosphere to trap 1.2% more energy.
Actually, according to NASA, the Sun's total output has been increasing by about 0.05% per decade.
Quote from that link: "If a trend, comparable to the one found in this study, persisted throughout the 20th century, it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years."
Now again, I'm not saying that it covers the _whole_ global warming effect, but about 0.5 of that 1.2 increase is covered right there. It's almost half.
The moral of the story: yes, the Sun has been there for billions of years, but that doesn't mean it's been unchanged and perfectly constant output.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Chewans are mined near here. The province is named after them.
If you drop one, let it go man... it's gone.
Drop one? I used 0208 sized components on my graduate thesis project. If you so much as breathed funny within a meter radius of these things, you'd never see them again...
...if you were lucky, that is. If you weren't, then you'd just inhale them and be sneezing capacitors the rest of the day.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Well if he has a dorm there, he's going to happy at the new school one way or another at some point.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I think your sig needed to be appended to my message. I wasn't aware it was trolling to make a tongue-in-cheek statement (wink and all).
Hopefully he has fun when he happy at the new school.
Got any data to support that?
How about the data concerning foiled burglaries, rapes, etc. Where no one got shot, I figure the odds of a crook staying around to get shot vs running are likely in favor of running.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
It's big, but it's not an "all or nothing" project. It's not a prestige project. It's a functional scientific instrument, whereas the LHC is "Holy crapzor we built the biggest thing EVAR!"
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Go to google scholar, type in "gun in home death" and you will get a smattering of research from various disciplines indicating that this is the case. The crook being shot is not the point. Protecting your family is the point, and by bringing a gun into the home, you are more likely to hurt/kill a family member, defeating the point of a gun in the first place. This study should cover a lot of "buts..." that people have. Granted, if there *is* actually a crook in your home about to kill/rape or whatever, go ahead and shoot them. I'm all for self defense. The odds of that happening to most people are really slim, therefore self defense is not a valid reason to keep a gun around.
Mods: Troll? Come on.
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
"... it is not possible with this methodology to adequately assess whether access to a gun increases the risk of a violent death at the individual level"
And
"Blacks, persons less than 35 years of age or older than age 100 years, and persons who died from external causes of homicide, suicide, and unintentional injury were oversampled in this survey. "
And they quote a long discredited 'study' to back up their claims as well.
And I personally don't consider 1 in 5 all that slim of odds.
Mycroft.
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
"... it is not possible with this methodology to adequately assess whether access to a gun increases the risk of a violent death at the individual level"
This is a typical disclaimer in studies of this nature. It is more of an ass-covering than a real statement of what the study cannot say.
Further, the study does present strong evidence, and the only limitation that caught my eye was the possibility that the gun in a home was not in any way involved in a homicide.
The reality though, is that you are not arguing with me, but with mountains of research. Personally, I am pretty indifferent about the 2nd Amendment from a philosophical standpoint. However, what we have here is plenty of evidence, albeit correlational, that bringing a gun into a home is not the way to go to protect your family. (No true experiment in this area would be ethical, so we're gonna have to settle for this)
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
Unfortunately MOST of the "studies" and such I've seen have come from known ant-gun ownership groups or otherwise have credibility problems (usually relying on the Kellermans work of creative fiction).
The one you linked quotes just such a study, and if you're right and they're just saying things to cover their butts rather than give the facts, well that's also not so good for being taken seriously.
Though I'm more inclined to believe that correlation does not equate to causation.
Also the deterrent effect of gun ownership is very difficult to study.
The best 'evidence' is that in areas with high ownership have lower crime rates, especially violent crime. I put evidence in quotes because be a causative relation is not clearly established, and the studies are a bit few and weak last I checked.
Another factor I did NOT see in that study (though I didn't look to hard when I saw the Kellerman 'study' on the first page) you linked is any data concerning gun specific training or education or other non-physical measures to enhance safety, which is far superior to physical access restrictions. Indeed gun locks create a cumbersome mechanism around the trigger, and increasing complexity there seems a bit lacking in smarts in all cases except where very young children are involved (even then if there is ANY chance of discharge, including improper use of the lock).
Also I saw no indication one way or the other of whether gun ownership in the study correlated against real or perceived dangers prompting higher ownership. If so what are the rates verses those in the same risk group?
You can easily get faulty correlations by not properly sorting for various factors that may influence the numbers.
And personal protection is not the only reason for ownership.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea