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Supersymmetry Theory Dealt a Blow
Dupple writes in with some news from the team at the Large Hadron Collider. "Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider have detected one of the rarest particle decays seen in Nature. The finding deals a significant blow to the theory of physics known as supersymmetry. Many researchers had hoped the LHC would have confirmed this by now. Supersymmetry, or SUSY, has gained popularity as a way to explain some of the inconsistencies in the traditional theory of subatomic physics known as the Standard Model. The new observation, reported at the Hadron Collider Physics conference in Kyoto, is not consistent with many of the most likely models of SUSY. Prof Chris Parke, who is the spokesperson for the UK Participation in the LHCb experiment, told BBC News: 'Supersymmetry may not be dead but these latest results have certainly put it into hospital.'"
Because the greatest offshoot of SUSY is string theory. String theory relies on SUSY being true, and academic institutions are stuffed with string theorists making ever more grandiose claims about what string theory predicts (think Sheldon Cooper times a billion) without a single prediction of an experimental result that unambiguously proves string theory is correct.
I expect a petition by string theorists to turn off the Large Hadron Collider any day now.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Einstein's revolution was sparked by a moment of insight.
Wrong, it was the result of long hard work by several people.
It all started when Maxwell's equations gave results that did not agree with newtonian physics. In an attempt to get at the root of things, Michelson and Morley created an experimental setup to measure the speed of light in different directions in a very precise way. To everyone's astonishment, these experiments indicated that the speed of light is a universal constant, which does not depend on either the movement of the light emitter nor the movement of the detector.
Which was exactly what Maxwell's equations had predicted to begin with! If there was a true intellectual giant here, it was Maxwell.
Several scientists started creating equations that made the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment compatible with classical mechanics. Einstein was just the most successful one, because his equations were more elegant and simpler than those of the others.
However, this does not mean Einstein was absolutely right, his theory was only the best one for that particular period. Today we know things he didn't know, just as Newton didn't know that the speed of light is constant.
For instance, there IS a fixed frame for the whole universe, the one in which the cosmic background is symmetrical. This background was discovered only in 1965.
There's also the horizon problem, which was discovered only in the 1970s. If we look at the sky in opposite directions, we see the same characteristics. We are looking at different regions of the universe that never had contact with each other since the creation of the universe. They are so far apart that even light couldn't have reached one from the other during the universe's lifetime. To solve this problem in a way that's compatible with einsteinian relativity, cosmologists came up with cosmic inflation, a rather ugly and contrived kludge.
Besides, relativity does not give results that are compatible with quantum physics, this has been demonstrated experimentally.
It's rather unfortunate that Einstein's theory is so elegant and precise, because it's certainly wrong when your size scales too much up or down.