Fermilab Scientists Discover New Particle

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Fermilab Scientists Discover New Particle

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 20, 2011 @08:30AM from the isn't-it-cute dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Fermilab today announced that scientists working at the CDF (Collision Detector at Fermilab) experiment confirmed the observation of a new particle, the Xi-sub-b. The Xi-sub-b is categorized as a baryon, which are formed of three quarks. Commonly known baryons include the proton as well as the neutron."

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Really new? by mswhippingboy · 2011-07-20 08:33 · Score: 3, Funny

My guess is they've discovered an old particle.

--
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
1. Re:Really new? by blair1q · 2011-07-20 08:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Nope. They made them.
  It's possible, even likely, that something somewhere else (supernova, the big bang, etc.) made some in olden times. But these were brand-spankin' new.
2. Re:Really new? by mswhippingboy · 2011-07-20 08:47 · Score: 2
  
  Nope. They made them.
  It's possible, even likely, that something somewhere else (supernova, the big bang, etc.) made some in olden times. But these were brand-spankin' new.
  And I get called pedantic!
  Given that energy and/or matter cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another, I submit that nothing was "made" here, only converted from the same energy that had existed since the moment of the big bang.
  
  --
  Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
3. Re:Really new? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-20 09:01 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Nope. They made them.
  It's possible, even likely, that something somewhere else (supernova, the big bang, etc.) made some in olden times. But these were brand-spankin' new.
  And I get called pedantic!
  Given that energy and/or matter cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another, I submit that nothing was "made" here, only converted from the same energy that had existed since the moment of the big bang.
  Umm... How do you think we make antimatter at CERN? How do you think antimatter behaves when exposed to matter? Matter can be made and destroyed, but energy can only be converted from one form to another (matter is just a form of energy). You may say semantics, but that is a huge difference.
4. Re:Really new? by blueg3 · 2011-07-20 09:35 · Score: 2
  
  That's not actually true of particle physics, but even if it was, you'd be wrong. The essence of the thing is not just its constituent parts. You can't look at an ingot of steel and say that it's a sword until it's been shaped. Likewise, you can have a bunch of energy, but it's not a Xi_b until you make it one.
5. Re:Really new? by haruchai · 2011-07-20 14:14 · Score: 2
  
  Then one of you will end up with 2 lumps of steel.
  
  --
  Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Science! by blair1q · 2011-07-20 08:35 · Score: 4, Informative

Favorite quotes from TFA:
"existence of the Xi-sub-b has been predicted for some time"
"the Xi-sub-b was observed in 25 instances among almost 500 trillion proton-antiproton collisions"
Original paper by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-20 08:44 · Score: 5, Informative

http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.3753
1. Re:Original paper by vlm · 2011-07-20 08:49 · Score: 2
  
  Despite being posted by an AC, I can confirm thats the real thing and not a link to the 2G1C particle or something like that.
  Check out the multi-page list of authors... lots of people getting resume stuffing today.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
link to actual press release by vlm · 2011-07-20 08:46 · Score: 4, Informative

If you'd prefer a link to the actual release instead ofconceivablytech's take on it:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/presspass/press_releases/2011/CDF-Xi-sub-b-observation-20110720.html
does anyone have the arXiv link to the actual paper, not the PR fluff?

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Yawn... by Entropius · 2011-07-20 08:49 · Score: 2, Informative

They haven't discovered a new fundamental particle. All they've done is to arrange some quarks into an arrangement we've already known about.
This is an engineering accomplishment -- sticking together an up, a strange, and a bottom quark to make a bound state. It doesn't represent any great discovery in physics; people have known for a long while that such a particle exists, simply from the properties of quarks. In fact, lattice QCD has been able to simulate such things for a while now, and (although I have not seen such a result) could calculate its mass.
Making a big deal about this could be a political move, since the Tevatron (the particle accelerator that the CDF is attached to) is due to shut down soon.
1. Re:Yawn... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-20 09:09 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  One we theorized existed. Now we know. Not all physics is done with paper and pen.
2. Re:Yawn... by tenco · 2011-07-20 09:15 · Score: 2
  
  Confirming that this particle actually exists, otoh, is a completely different kind of story.
3. Re:Yawn... by lennier · 2011-07-20 10:46 · Score: 2
  
  Many of those measurements are fantastically precise, and are sometimes even better than those done by experiments.
  That is an interesting definition of the word "measurement". Don't you perhaps mean "prediction"?
  It ain't measured until it's actually measured, in my book. But perhaps I'm old-fashioned.
  
  --
  You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Re:Growing list by Entropius · 2011-07-20 08:50 · Score: 2

No, it's *not* another new particle. It's a new arrangement of particles we have known about since the 1970's, when such a re-write happened and the quark model was introduced.
Re:Useful? by blueg3 · 2011-07-20 09:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

You're thinking of engineering or applied science at best. You won't know the benefits of fundamental research until later. You know, little things like electricity and semiconductors.
Re:Useful? by NoSig · 2011-07-20 09:52 · Score: 2

Number theory was known as the most useless of all branches of mathematics, yet now you couldn't pay your bills online without the public key cryptography it has made possible. By your standard of what should be investigated, we would still be banging big rocks together. Now we are banging tiny, tiny atoms together. That's progress.
Re:Useful? by PPH · 2011-07-20 10:07 · Score: 3, Funny

Yes. Speaker cables.
We haven't decided whether Xi-sub-b free cables or cables with a surplus of Xi-sub-b will sell better. But we'll be ready when marketing figures it out.

--
Have gnu, will travel.
my cell phone is billions of years old. by rossdee · 2011-07-20 10:29 · Score: 2

I guess thats why the cell phone company keeps sending me 'free upgrade' offers. (I am happy with my existing phone thankyou.
Does anyone know if you can make stuff with this new particle? Protons and neutrons make up the nuclei of atoms...
(What is the charge of this new particle? I don't really care about the spin, I will leave that to Fox news.
1. Re:my cell phone is billions of years old. by Thing+1 · 2011-07-20 16:43 · Score: 2
  
  you)fail)lisp
  
  --
  I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.