"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

Re:Time for some really new physics

[Spad]

Not to nitpick, but isn't the collapse of the universe *always* closer than ever before?

Re:Invisible unicorns in a garage

[CreatureComfort]

The trouble is that Mathematics can describe ANY universe, not just the one we happen to be able to perceive.

Math is great at describing perfect theories that fail to pan out in real life, but that are perfectly self consistent in the theory and equations. Just look at all of the great, and completely wrong, models offered in super-symmetry, string, and all the other Grand Unified Theories that mathematically are perfectly sound, but are disproved by actual experiment.

This is why Physics, e.g. "science" > Math.