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LHC Discovers Pentaquark Particles
mrspoonsi sends news that researchers running experiments at the Large Hadron Collider have published findings confirming the existence of pentaquark particles, first predicted in the 1960s by Murray Gell Mann and George Zweig. The particles consist of five quarks bound together. Further research will examine exactly how this binding works.
Previous experiments had measured only the so-called mass distribution where a statistical peak may appear against the background "noise" - the possible signature of a novel particle. But the collider enabled researchers to look at the data from additional perspectives, namely the four angles defined by the different directions of travel taken by particles within LHCb. "We are transforming this problem from a one-dimensional to a five dimensional one... we are able to describe everything that happens in the decay," said Dr. Koppenburg, who first saw a signal begin to emerge in 2012. "There is no way that what we see could be due to something else other than the addition of a new particle that was not observed before."
Gillette: Fuck it, we're doing five quarks!!
When the mathematics is so powerful that it can make accurate predictions far in advance of their ability to be verified, you know you are connecting with the fundamental mechanisms that drive the universe.
Why do it? To understand the universe. Knowledge is better than ignorance. Where is the payoff? You're soaking in it. By the end of 1998 (my estimate), ONE spinoff technology of high energy physics--the World Wide Web we are using--had paid for the ENTIRE field, from its VERY BEGINNING up to that time, with interest. The rest since is gravy. You're welcome (IAAPP). What are we going to get by continuing? Well, of what use is a new-born baby?