"Perfect" Electron Roundness Bruises Supersymmetry

astroengine writes "New measurements of the electron have confirmed, to the smallest precision attainable, that it has a perfect roundness. This may sounds nice for the little electron, but to one of the big physics theories beyond the standard model, it's very bad news. 'We know the Standard Model does not encompass everything,' said physicist David DeMille, of Yale University and the ACME collaboration, in a press release. 'Like our LHC colleagues, we're trying to see something in the lab that's different from what the Standard Model predicts.' Should supersymmetrical particles exist, they should have a measurable effect on the electron's dipole moment. But as ACME's precise measurements show, the electron still has zero dipole moment (as predicted by the standard model) and is likely very close to being perfectly round. Unfortunately for the theory of supersymmetry, this is yet another blow."

Comments

ACME

[Tablizer]

"ACME collaboration"?

Then just bang the electron on the head with an ACME anvil, and it will grow lumps.

It's a heisenberg moment

[Anonymous Coward]

If you measure it, an electron is perfectly round. The rest of the time it's kind of oval.

Perfectly spherical?

[Anonymous Coward]

Science is going to be really screwed when they discover frictionless planes also exist.

Re:Perfectly spherical?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, they'll all stand up and say this is what they've trained for all those years of assuming spherical cows and frictionless surfaces.