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Will the LHC Smash Supersymmetry?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-can't-even-balance-my-checkbook dept.

gbrumfiel writes "The Large Hadron Collider is just getting ready for its next big science run. One thing researchers hope it will find is evidence for supersymmetry, a theory that could help to unify fundamental forces and explain mysterious dark matter. But as Nature reports this week, the LHC has shown no signs of supersymmetry in data from last year's run. If super particles don't appear by 2012, then physicists might give up on the theory for good."

2 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Naive Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Suppose they prove super-symmetry and find the Higgs Boson, what are we going to be able to do with it. Other than completing the theory, is there any practical use for this new found knowledge?

    Genuine question, physics isn't my forté.

    Thanks,

  2. To be precise... by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I'm not even going to apologise for this pedantry, because I was at one time a member of the Royal Institution, before I foresook science for engineering.

    In fact Faraday's joke was better than that, It was the Prime Minister (in those days called the First Lord of the Treasury, hence your confusion), and the Government had recently introduced some unpopular taxes. So Faraday's actual reply, "I know not, but I wager one day your Government will tax it" was doubly apposite.

    The other one of these Victorian quotes is the response of the inventor of the dynamo when asked what use it was: "What use is a new-born baby?"

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."