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Physicists Detect Whiff of New Particle At the Large Hadron Collider (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: For decades, particle physicists have yearned for physics beyond their tried-and-true standard model. Now, they are finding signs of something unexpected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's biggest atom smasher at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. The hints come not from the LHC's two large detectors, which have yielded no new particles since they bagged the last missing piece of the standard model, the Higgs boson, in 2012, but from a smaller detector, called LHCb, that precisely measures the decays of familiar particles. The latest signal involves deviations in the decays of particles called B mesons -- weak evidence on its own. But together with other hints, it could point to new particles lying on the high-energy horizon. "This has never happened before, to observe a set of coherent deviations that could be explained in a very economical way with one single new physics contribution," says Joaquim Matias, a theorist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. B mesons are made of fundamental particles called quarks. Familiar protons and neutrons are made of two flavors of quarks, up and down, bound in trios. Heavier quark flavors -- charm, strange, top, and bottom -- can be created, along with their antimatter counterparts, in high-energy particle collisions; they pair with antiquarks to form mesons. In their latest result, reported today in a talk at CERN, LHCb physicists find that when one type of B meson decays into a K meson, its byproducts are skewed: The decay produces a muon (a cousin of the electron) and an antimuon less often than it makes an electron and a positron. In the standard model, those rates should be equal, says Guy Wilkinson, a physicist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and spokesperson for the 770-member LHCb team. The new data suggest the bottom quark might morph directly into a strange quark -- a change the standard model forbids -- by spitting out a new particle called a Z9 boson. That hypothetical cousin of the Z boson would be the first particle beyond the standard model and would add a new force to theory. The extra decay process would lower production of muons, explaining the anomaly.

109 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Bob by Luthair · · Score: 1, Funny

    Was that you? Go to the bathroom man!

    1. Re:Bob by syntotic · · Score: 1

      Mmh? It is what we were awaiting, didnt we?

  2. When you think about it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Atoms are pretty big.

    1. Re:When you think about it by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Superstring to a proton is like proton to the solar system. As Feynman said, there's a lot of room at the bottom.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  3. There's a fart joke in here somewhere by DatbeDank · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can smell it.

    1. Re: There's a fart joke in here somewhere by Sultan+Of+Smut · · Score: 1

      He who denied it supplied it.

    2. Re: There's a fart joke in here somewhere by eeyore · · Score: 1

      They're about to announce ... the osmon - the fundamental particle of smell

    3. Re: There's a fart joke in here somewhere by penandpaper · · Score: 4, Funny

      He who articulated it particulated it.

  4. Oh sorry, that was me by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Funny

    I had a quantum burrito for lunch. The worst thing was that as soon as I opened the wrapper the wave form collapsed and it got all over my cloths.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Oh sorry, that was me by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Just blame it on the cat...or not

    2. Re:Oh sorry, that was me by Ronin+Developer · · Score: 1

      That usually happens AFTER you have consumed it resulting in a big bang in your clothes.

  5. Simulation by SumDog · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If we do live in a simulation, I wonder if particle accelerators could eventually find the loose pieces that don't add up; the holes in the matrix.

    1. Re:Simulation by Narcocide · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sometimes the hardware does not respond within spec. I've fallen through the map in first person shooters before. I've falling through the map in WoW even. He's not wrong that there is precedent for this.

    2. Re:Simulation by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

      The best evidence we have for a Simulation is the double slit experiment. If physics change just through simple observation, what other conclusion is there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      [($)]
    3. Re:Simulation by king+neckbeard · · Score: 2

      You've got to consider the scale of the technology too in comparison to the competence. Blizzard games can be largely simulated just by a spreadsheet and a relatively simple random number generator. Atomic level simulation of a leaf flittering in the wind blows a WOW server away. Let alone an entire universe.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    4. Re:Simulation by meerling · · Score: 1

      Actually there are a number of bugs and glitches that can allow software, or portions of it, to run outside their box.
      Crackers often use those to try and break into computer systems.
      Have you ever heard of Stack Overlow Violation?
      That's an old one that almost nobody fails to protect from anymore.
      If our existence is a computer simulation, it might be possible to find a way to probe around outside of it, possibly even influence it or relocate to another memory runspace. It wouldn't be easy, but unlike the software we run on our computers, we are sentient beings able to analyze and deduce things from observations we make, unlike let's say Duke Nukem or Sonic the Hedgehog.

      Yes, it's a rather silly proposal, and not backed up by any evidence, but it is still a possibility that we may be able to prove someday. Especially if their programmers make mistakes like ours do. ;)

    5. Re:Simulation by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Unless you fell through the map and the bottom of the screen and entered the real world that really has precious little to do with this.

    6. Re:Simulation by meerling · · Score: 2

      If you want to play with the simulation idea, then all the quantum uncertainty is just the computer saving resources by not computing every little particle specifically unless it has to, otherwise a less precise fuzzy kind of thing is used since you get the same macroresults and don't overload the system. :P

    7. Re:Simulation by meerling · · Score: 1

      Not really, it just depends on how you define observer. Nobody said it had to be us, or even sentient, or for that matter, inside the simulation.

    8. Re:Simulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Black holes doesn't break anything. A singularity is just a very simplified mathematical model of them.
      If you ever wonder what the difference between physics and math is you could always consider that we don't know if mathematics can accurately describe physics.
      None of the models we have tried so far is flawless so we don't even know if reality is consistent or follows mathematical rules for sure.

    9. Re:Simulation by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      Look, obviously I get that. I was merely pointing out where someone tried to invalidate the analogy and failed at it apparently because they didn't have enough experience with video games.

    10. Re:Simulation by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

      You've got to consider the scale of the technology too in comparison to the competence. Blizzard games can be largely simulated just by a spreadsheet and a relatively simple random number generator. Atomic level simulation of a leaf flittering in the wind blows a WOW server away. Let alone an entire universe.

      If the universe is a simulation, it's much more reasonable to assume that only my own experience is being simulated. If only the things I'm presently aware of have to be simulated, the computing power required is pretty low -- particularly as I don't have the expertise to examine leaf flittering at the atomic level, and at any rate the simulation can simply alter my memory to remove any mistake that I discover. The simulation may well have only been turned on a minute ago or might reset each day before the flaws become an issue. Simulation + Occam's razor = solipsism.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    11. Re:Simulation by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      I suppose you could connect to the meta-universe internet and then hack into a robot to remotely explore the real world from within our simulation. You're technically not leaving the simulation, but if you're using VR to control the robot that exists in the real world then it's practically speaking the same thing.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    12. Re:Simulation by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      Actually a better analogy would be to find the our-universe equivalent of WoW's dev-island. Though, if the devs in of a simulated universe were not sufficiently better to avoid needing that I would be surprized (and it could easily be 14-billion light years away from where our little solar system was had ended up after spawning).

      Even if we could PROVE we were in a simulation - it does not follow that we could break out of it, it would make our minds part of that simulation - just advanced AI's within a massive software project - that doesn't imply a possibility of existing outside that software infrastructure.

      And finally - it does not even imply a simulator. If an entire universe can be produced by the laws of physics, as modern science seems to suggest, then why can such a universe not subsequently produce an entire simulated universe by the mere laws of physics - without any particular intelligence trying to do it ?
      Even if you assume an intelligence did it, it still doesn't follow that creationism is true - it just brings us to -how did the universe of the simulator come about ? We can't know - we could try to guess based on studying our own but that's not conclusive, if they tried to simulate something akin to their own we would conclude that they are the consequences of processes much like the big bang and evolution and we may even be an attempt to study how those processes happened in their own universe by means of an simulation. But it could just as easily be an entertainment project (as it is in The Thirteenth Floor - though there the simulators are our own future selves) - in which case it need not bare any resemblence to reality at all. The cosmology around Azeroth is hardly like our own, hell it's a planet but nobody has ever even SEEN the thing as a spherical shape - only a flat map exists, and you can't go around it by traveling in one direction. For quite some time another planet in that system was nothing but some lose floating chunks of rocks which somehow, magically, had enough gravity for things to walk on.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    13. Re:Simulation by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Just replace 'observe' with 'interact'. No consciousness is required.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    14. Re: Simulation by budgenator · · Score: 1

      So you're the one that controls the roomba and is responsible

      Do not, under any circumstances, let your Roomba run over dog poop. If the unthinkable does happen, and your Roomba runs over dog poop, stop it immediately and do not let it continue the cleaning cycle. Because if that happens, it will spread the dog poop over every conceivable surface within its reach, resulting in a home that closely resembles a Jackson Pollock poop painting.

      It will be on your floorboards. It will be on your furniture legs. It will be on your carpets. It will be on your rugs. It will be on your kids' toy boxes. If it's near the floor, it will have poop on it. Those awesome wheels, which have a checkered surface for better traction, left 25-foot poop trails all over the house. Our lovable Roomba, who gets a careful cleaning every night, looked like it had been mudding. Yes, mudding - like what you do with a Jeep on a pipeline road. But in poop..

       

      Then, when your four-year-old gets up at 3am to crawl into your bed, you'll wonder why he smells like dog poop. And you'll walk into the living room. And you'll wonder why the floor feels slightly gritty. And you'll see a brown-encrusted, vaguely Roomba-shaped thing sitting in the middle of the floor with a glowing green light, like everything's okay. Like it's proud of itself. You were still half-asleep until this point, but now you wake up pretty damn quickly..

      And then the horror. Oh the horror..

      Jesse Newton

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    15. Re:Simulation by budgenator · · Score: 1

      but if "THAT computer" is a virtual machine,
      running inside a virtual machine,
      running inside a virtual machine,
      running inside a virtual machine ...

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    16. Re:Simulation by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Umm no but thanks for playing. http://backreaction.blogspot.c...

    17. Re:Simulation by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The "it is a simulation" idea is more of a "there is an analog universe that doesn't have approximations like quantum physics and planc length minimum distances. In that fully analog (and perhaps multidimensional) universe, a simulated universe run on those analog computers would have to make shortcuts that look like our physics.

      If you have a physical universe in which infinite precision of position is possible, the that opens the door up to hypercomputation.

      There is a God, and he is some grad student in a higher-dimensional university lab running the computer simulation. And the Jew/Christian/Muslims were right that He created the universe by speaking the words...

      Depends on how you define god, really. I'm not a god when I make simulations. Furthermore, even if I were, it still doesn't make the Abrahamic version correct: I'm not all powerful in that I can only get my simulation to do things within the capability of my own mind. Lastly, I'm probably working as part of a team. That makes the Norse ones a better fit, or Greek if the team lead is a total dickhead.

      But don't blame me, I inherited my codebase from Ymir and he's dead now.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    18. Re:Simulation by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      How do you observe without senses?

      --
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    19. Re:Simulation by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      If physics change just through simple observation...

      They don't, at least not in the way you're implying.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    20. Re:Simulation by RubberDogBone · · Score: 1

      You've got to consider the scale of the technology too in comparison to the competence. Blizzard games can be largely simulated just by a spreadsheet and a relatively simple random number generator. Atomic level simulation of a leaf flittering in the wind blows a WOW server away. Let alone an entire universe.

      And you can perfectly blend science and religion by combining the Blizzard games spreadsheet with an RNGeezus and you get players who find religion thusly:

      "Holy shit! The fucking random loot box gave me another goddamn torn cloth! Bloody hell!"

      This works very well for Korean MMOs.

      --
      Sig for hire.
    21. Re:Simulation by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      If our Universe is a simulation, there is no guarentee that we would "translate" properly out of it. If you took, say, a character out of WoW somehow and placed them IRL...they would quickly die. WoW doesn't simulate all the organs, tissues, etc that "real creatures" need to survive. The reality the simulator is running in might have a totally different set of physics than the simulation. It might not even have quarks, electrons, protons, etc. Our "style of consciousness" may not even "work" in the simulator world. Even if somehow we did discover we are inside a simulator, we might be trapped there due to radically different physical laws.

    22. Re:Simulation by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Sometimes the hardware does not respond within spec. I've fallen through the map in first person shooters before. I've falling through the map in WoW even. He's not wrong that there is precedent for this.

      Falling through the map is still within the simulation. Have you ever had Mario jump out of the screen and start flicking your bean?

    23. Re:Simulation by sexconker · · Score: 1

      And the Jew/Christian/Muslims were right that He created the universe by speaking the words...

      And then the Lord said, "BRB bio", but when he returned everything was fucked up.

    24. Re:Simulation by Altrag · · Score: 1

      Quantum mechanically speaking, any interaction is an "observation." To be more precise, any interaction forms an entanglement, some of which we can detect with careful enough machinery.

      "Observer" is a terrible choice of phrasing that's unfortunately too far stuck to be changed at this point, but it doesn't necessarily mean an actual sentient being (human or otherwise.) And really, that should be fairly obvious since almost all of our "observations" are done by computers and other machinery and just plastered on a screen whether we're watching the screen at the time or not. Its not like there is, has ever been, or likely will ever be, anyone on the planet that can directly observe say a beta decay with their own senses in any meaningful way.

    25. Re:Simulation by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      If this is a simulation, it might be possible to take advantage of bugs. This could manifest as magic or psychic powers (there's little difference between them, really). Telepathy could be a matter of shared variables. If I can push some of my thoughts into the physics engine, I may have flight or telekinesis. Of course, there's no way to tell from that if the Universe is weird or the code is buggy.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    26. Re:Simulation by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      If we're a simulation, we don't have laws of physics so much as we have a cosmic physics engine. Someone running the simulation can change things arbitrarily without running them through the physics engine. Someone might have a player character in the simulation and we're all NPCs. Said player character could be in some sort of God mode.

      However, your typical monotheist thinks God is morally superior to people as well as infinitely powerful, and that's not a characteristic of a player. Some of my PCs act like real assholes.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    27. Re: Simulation by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Think of the sequence in Babylon 5, "Deconstruction of Falling Stars", in which the characters wind up in a simulation rigged for propaganda effect, and Garibaldi manages to hack the system he's in and communicate with the outside world, with catastrophic results for the simulator.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    28. Re:Simulation by tendrousbeastie · · Score: 1

      I don't think that explanation works, and I'm not sure what the answer is.

      If any interaction counts as an 'observation' (I agree that the concept is not well enough defined to be useful) then the electrons in an atom are being constantly observed (there are constant electromagnetic interactions that have effects on the nucleons and the electrons).

      If observation is the process that collapses abstract quantum states into particular position/momentum observables, then an atom shouldn't be able to exist as it is in a constant state of being a particular observable rather than an abstract quantum state (and so we're back to an unstable solar-system model).

      Since atoms do exist then it seems that the electrons must exists in their quantum form (i.e. standing waves rather than particulate) even though they are in constant interaction, so it raises the question of what counts as an 'observation' sufficient to change this situation, since pure EM interaction is clearly not sufficient?

    29. Re:Simulation by martinfb · · Score: 1

      What do you thing the Higgs boson is?!

      --


      Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
  6. How many particles now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    62?
    And can you even accept that time travels forward? and since its just our measure of the passage of an effect, cause-effect must run forward in time? So you can't have particles going backwards in time.

    The only real difference in matter is plus and minus. Anti matter vs matter? Same matter, different charge. Different particles? Some combination fo charge.

    1. So take two particles. One plus, one minus.
    2. Spread them around in a simulation.
    3. They form spinning dipoles.
    4. The dipoles 'kick' each other and some will synchronize the spins.
    5. Those stick together along the spin axi.
    6. You get unstable chains of these twisting dipoles forming. The twists ripple along the chain.
    7. At certain lengths, the ends twist in compatble modes, and the ends of those join up forming stable hoops.
    8. Each hoop has a two spinning modes (twist along its axis and rotate).
    9. Try accelerating that hoop in a magnetic field, what happens.....yep, this is where the magic number c comes from.
    10. What happens when two hoops hit.... splits or joins, depends on the twist frquency.
    11. So now form each of the standard model particle from hoop combinations..... yep can.
    12. Do you have forces that are strong FAR away and weak close up? No but you have the net effect of two forces that do that... no more need to make weird forces, or invent particles to exchange forces.

    So if you can build the world with just two particles, why are there 61?...62?... 63.... 64... or perhaps, dare I speak this heresy? It's just a broken model. Like someone had made a model to predict moire fringes without understanding its an interaction between the limits of human vision and lines on sheets of plastic. Instead they think they're actually seeing black blobs jump around. Predicting the size and probabilty of where the blob will appear next.

    1. Re:How many particles now? by meerling · · Score: 1

      Actually the latest things they've been putting out on the tests of antimatter is that is seems it's not exactly the same as matter but with an opposite charge. Indications are that it acts slightly different. They are still check those experiments over to try and make sure they haven't goofed up anywhere. You know, that whole increasing the sigmas bit.

    2. Re:How many particles now? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      The only real difference in matter is plus and minus.

      I skimmed through the rest but this was the bit that pushed you over the line into nutterville. No-one who knows what they're talking about would say something that asinine. The rest merely confirms it.

      I think you could honestly classify this under 'not even wrong'.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    3. Re:How many particles now? by Altrag · · Score: 1

      So if you can build the world with just two particles

      If you look at string theory, there is only one "particle" -- the string. Maybe 2 if you consider open and closed strings as separate types of particle, but they're not any sort of equivalent to a positive and negative pair like you've suggested.

      why are there 61?...62?... 63.... 64...

      Because there are. There were hundreds before the quark model came into play which re-defined all of those mesons and bosons into just three quarks (later expanded to the six we know today.) And before that all the billions upon billions of things we see in the natural world got re-defined as combinations of around 100 elements and so on.

      There's a very good chance that once we find a solid direction out of the standard model, whether string theory or otherwise, we'll see a similar re-definition of the current particle zoo as combinations of a smaller set of even more fundamental building blocks.

      Or of course, there could just be 62 "things" out there. As Niels deGrasse Tyson said in some interview I can't otherwise remember.. "the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."

      dare I speak this heresy?

      I don't know, is that what comes out of your ass? ;)

      It's just a broken model.

      This is well known. In particular, it breaks down when you add gravitational singularities, and that's a much much bigger problem than either the number of particles or other "ugly" things like fine-tuning, which can all be wrapped up under the anthropologic principle (ie: that is, there's no fundamental reason for it, we just see things as they are because if they were different, we wouldn't be here to see them.)

      I mean most scientists don't like the anthropologic principle because it amounts to "nothing more to do," but its a viable option in many cases if we truly decide that we can't possibly delve any further in some direction or other.

      Gravity's incompatibilty on the other hand cannot fall into this category because its not just an observable (like the fine structure constant for example,) but an entire theory in its own right (General Relativity,) which has stood the test of time almost as well as the standard model, so the chances that its "wrong" are extremely slim -- but because of the incompatibility between QM and GR, they both absolutely must be the limit of some even more fundamental theory that ties the two together.

  7. good writeup from mfb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    ..over on physicforums.

    https://www.physicsforums.com/...

    1. Re:good writeup from mfb by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Go with David Wolfe or Alex Jones, all the certainly you'll ever need. Enjoy.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  8. Re:Smell-o-vision by king+neckbeard · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mosts atoms smells like plum pudding.

    --
    This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  9. Physicists are getting desperate by mjpvirtual · · Score: 3, Informative

    A year and a half ago, a 3.5 sigma 750 GeV bump appeared in the LHC data. New physics was heralded and a hundred theoretical papers attempting to explain it appeared. It was a statistical fluke and disappeared as more data was collected.

    Now we're faced with a 2 sigma anomaly and the shouts of new physics are once again repeated. This is even more likely to be noise.

    Physicists have been predicting new physics for 30 years. It was a major justification for the promotion of the LHC project. Nothing has been found. There's a lot of desperation at work here. It's sad.

    For a good summary of all of this from a CERN experimentalist who called the 750 GeV noise, see Tommaso Dorigo

    1. Re: Physicists are getting desperate by getuid() · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Getting desperate"?

      Projecting, much?

      I have news for you: this is not Silicon Valley stupid.

      Lack of "innovation" (i.e. new physics) is in itself a already good result. The LHC doesn't need any new shiny discoveries to justify itself. The very action of having looked for the first time in a certain place (or energy range) and having solid confirmation that there's nothing new to see would already be an outstanding scientifical result.

      And everyone at CERN knows this, as does any scientist worth their spit.

    2. Re: Physicists are getting desperate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      A lot of new research , knowledge and papers are coming out of LHC - you just don't hear about it because it is so esoteric. Hell even 'ancient' Fermilab is still operating and doing useful but mind-numbing-to-layman research.

    3. Re: Physicists are getting desperate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You've managed to completely ignore the several other 2~4 sigma anomalies which all suggest violation of lepton flavour universality in B decays. This result doesn't exist in a vacuum. If it were the only one, you wouldn't be hearing about it, just like the first few weren't news.

    4. Re:Physicists are getting desperate by Lord+Crc · · Score: 5, Informative

      Now we're faced with a 2 sigma anomaly and the shouts of new physics are once again repeated. This is even more likely to be noise.

      From what I understand the main difference between the 750GeV bump and this anomaly is that the 750GeV was a single bump which did not have a nice-fitting theoretical explanation while still being compatible with existing measurements.

      This anomaly might only ~2 sigma so far, but it is ~2 sigma in several channels, so not just "one bump", and it seems one can rather easily and naturally extend the theory to match observations.

      https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.09189

    5. Re:Physicists are getting desperate by Maritz · · Score: 1

      There's a lot of desperation at work here. It's sad.

      lol. Don't worry Donald, they'll be alright. This desperation is only in your head, after all. There was the small matter of the Higgs boson. The Higgs is about as new fucking physics as you can get, and is the newest physics for at least 30 years.

      Do enlighten us what would count to you as 'something'.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    6. Re:Physicists are getting desperate by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      It was a major justification for the promotion of the LHC project. Nothing has been found.

      Naw, nuthin' 'cept for the Higgs boson and verification of its properties to a confidence level sufficient for most to accept the field as existing.

      Clearly the diphon excess means that nothing interesting will ever come from the LHC!

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    7. Re:Physicists are getting desperate by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 2

      Actually journalists have been proclaiming new physics. Physicists have just been stating what they have detected. Happens all the time. Could be a mirage of statistical fluctuations or could be a new discovery. More runs will be needed in order to confirm. Standard operating procedure.

  10. Wish by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll be honest, I wish I understood this, but I don't.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  11. Not really a Good Result by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lack of "innovation" (i.e. new physics) is in itself a already good result.

    Not really. Lack of new physics means that we have no explanations for the myriad of things which need new fundamental physics to explain sch as what is Dark Matter? and why is the Higgs boson so much lighter than the scale of quantum gravity? By the end of this run in 2018 we will have covered about half the phase space that the LHC can reach and the high luminosity LHC upgrade will provide the other half...over the next ~15-20 years because increasing luminosity is not as good as increasing energy.

    This is not good news because it may mean that new physics is beyond the reach of the LHC and whether the world can afford to build a new, even bigger machine is far from certain. However we have zero control of the result - either the universe works in a way where there is new physics in reach of the LHC or it does not. So not seeing anything is far from a failure...but that does not make it a good result. Indeed I have always referred to it as the LHC nightmare scenario: we find the Higgs and absolutely nothing else which leaves a lot of unanswered questions and no certainty that we will be able to build a machine to find the answers.

    1. Re:Not really a Good Result by rand.srand() · · Score: 1

      So not seeing anything is far from a failure...but that does not make it a good result. Indeed I have always referred to it as the LHC nightmare scenario: we find the Higgs and absolutely nothing else which leaves a lot of unanswered questions and no certainty that we will be able to build a machine to find the answers.

      The next machine will be (would have been?) so expensive there's good reason to doubt anyone would pay for it regardless of what the LHC found that would grab headlines. I get what you are saying... results justify the spending... but diminishing returns are inevitable when scaling up the same experiment. We're going to have a hard time funding science that applies to daily life in the near-term globally... pure theoretical science doesn't need major discoveries, it needs new believers.

    2. Re:Not really a Good Result by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

      Dark Matter is old physics, well over a century.

    3. Re:Not really a Good Result by swillden · · Score: 2

      We're going to have a hard time funding science that applies to daily life in the near-term globally.

      You seem to be assuming that high-energy particle physics research can't apply to daily life in the near-term globally, but you cannot support that assumption. You can't know what useful technologies may come out of the new physics discovered until the new physics has been discovered.

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    4. Re:Not really a Good Result by swillden · · Score: 1

      Clearly, you should publish a paper proving that this theory neatly wraps up all of the unexplained observations that motivate dark matter theories and gain yourself a prestigious tenured post at a top academic institution.

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    5. Re:Not really a Good Result by strikethree · · Score: 1

      Clearly, you should publish a paper proving that this theory neatly wraps up all of the unexplained observations that motivate dark matter theories and gain yourself a prestigious tenured post at a top academic institution.

      I have been working on writing a paper discussing this topic for more than a year now. Is it wrong to discuss ideas before publishing?

      Why would I want a prestigious tenured post at a top academic institution? I do not require money or fame; furthermore, I already have a nice, well paying job.

      Thank you for attacking me Sean (Shawn?). Your denigration is very useful and open minded.

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    6. Re:Not really a Good Result by swillden · · Score: 1

      Clearly, you should publish a paper proving that this theory neatly wraps up all of the unexplained observations that motivate dark matter theories and gain yourself a prestigious tenured post at a top academic institution.

      I have been working on writing a paper discussing this topic for more than a year now. Is it wrong to discuss ideas before publishing?

      Certainly not. But you have to expect that people will treat your claim of having solved a century-old problem with skepticism.

      Thank you for attacking me Sean (Shawn?). Your denigration is very useful and open minded.

      What attack? I don't see any attack in anything I wrote. A bit of sarcasm expressing totally reasonable skepticism, certainly, but no attack.

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    7. Re:Not really a Good Result by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

      I think the burden of proof would be on the person claiming that high-energy particle physics does indeed apply to daily life. The null hypothesis would be to assume that any given scientific discovery doesn't have near-term, global, daily life applications. Several people can successfully live their life assuming a flat earth at the center of the universe. Most can get away with assuming a spherical earth with constant gravity and no quantum effects. One famous American didn't even have to know how tides work and still became very successful. Even general relativity didn't have ubiquitous impact on people's daily life until GPS became widespread. (whether that's near-term is up for debate)

    8. Re:Not really a Good Result by swillden · · Score: 2

      I think the burden of proof would be on the person claiming that high-energy particle physics does indeed apply to daily life.

      The exact same argument applies to this position: You can't know what the effect is until you know what the results are. Claims in either direction do not, and cannot, have any validity.

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    9. Re:Not really a Good Result by lgw · · Score: 1

      Particle physics is becoming more distant from daily life as time passes. Not to say there haven't been some cool knock-off technologies from the work to create the LHC in the first place, but it's increasingly unlikely as energies increase that we'll discover something productizable.

      There are other reasons to fund science, of course, but the LHC wasn't exactly cheap. I think the best hope for a higher-energy collider in the future is if the cost of building it decreases due to automation/robotics. And that doesn't seem so far-fetched in the decades to come.

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    10. Re:Not really a Good Result by swillden · · Score: 1

      Particle physics is becoming more distant from daily life as time passes.

      You're making the same erroneous assumption as the GP, that you can predict the utility of as-yet-undiscovered science.

      it's increasingly unlikely as energies increase that we'll discover something productizable

      Not if the product requires LHC-like energies to create, but there's no reason to believe that's necessarily the case.

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    11. Re:Not really a Good Result by rand.srand() · · Score: 1

      You seem to be assuming that high-energy particle physics research can't apply to daily life in the near-term globally, but you cannot support that assumption. You can't know what useful technologies may come out of the new physics discovered until the new physics has been discovered.

      My post is about the politics of getting a future collider approved. The opponents and competing priorities of that project don't have to prove it's philosophically impossible for that project to produce useful results. It's not implausible, and neigh, it's impossible for you to show that future promising cutting edge science won't be up against very highly irrational views of science, including funding for projects that try to prove that great-flood arks were feasible with pre-industrial technology, or that carbon dioxide is beneficial to the environment.

      Which is why I say we need more believers of fundamental science. You aren't going to convince them with arguments like "you can't prove we won't change the world!"

    12. Re:Not really a Good Result by swillden · · Score: 1

      Which is why I say we need more believers of fundamental science. You aren't going to convince them with arguments like "you can't prove we won't change the world!"

      We're in agreement there. I misunderstood your previous post to be saying that LHC isn't going to produce anything that affects daily life, which we can't know. But I absolutely agree that trying to convince people to fund even larger projects with the argument that they might produce something practical is unlikely to be successful.

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    13. Re:Not really a Good Result by lgw · · Score: 1

      You're making the same erroneous assumption as the GP, that you can predict the utility of as-yet-undiscovered science.

      Flawed argument. If you can't predict it will be valuable, don't fund it all at. Burden of proof is on the person asking for money that there will be some ROI.

      But then, I think you can make some predictions based on the trends from the past 100 years.

      Not if the product requires LHC-like energies to create, but there's no reason to believe that's necessarily the case.

      The farther away you have to go from the conditions we face in order to find unanswered questions, the less useful those answers are likely to be.

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    14. Re:Not really a Good Result by Altrag · · Score: 1

      you can predict the utility of as-yet-undiscovered science.

      To an extent, you can. I mean there's always the risk that your prediction is wrong (and you'd never even know it,) but you can make some probabilistic arguments given the enormous energy and cost the LHC requires. I mean confirming the Higgs does exactly what? Makes Peter Higgs the happiest dude on the planet for sure, and makes a lot of scientists everywhere pretty pleased that their work seems to not be complete bunk..

      But in terms of real-world applicability? We're going to need a heck of a lot better batteries before 125 GeV systems are common place even in large installations such as military projects. So even if we could find a use for a Higgs, a "practical" use is a hell of a long way off.

      Similar for space research. What good does it do us to find a potentially habitable planet 100,000 light years away? Unless FTL travel is discovered and becomes practical itself, putting people on a ship and firing them off on a journey of probably more like a million years or more (since we don't exactly move at light speed) will arrive with a population wholly unsuited to living on Earth never mind something "Earth-like" since a million years is plenty of time for evolution to make us into something completely different (and we'd have evolved towards living on a space ship rather than living on a planet.)

      Now I'm a big fan of science. I can't wait to see what happens when the LHC ramps up to full and the James Webb telescope starts returning images and the such, but I am under little delusion that we'll find anything practical from either endeavor -- the cost, energy and (in terms of space) time scales are just way too far beyond daily life at this point. That's not to say its impossible (maybe the LHC will produce a controllable mini black hole!) But its highly highly unlikely.

    15. Re:Not really a Good Result by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Greater understanding of quantum physics means greater understanding of chemistry and material science. Observing potentially habitable planets in other systems gives us more understanding of planets in general, which we may find handy sometime.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    16. Re:Not really a Good Result by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Dark matter does not exist. Galactic rotation curves are the way they are because there is less mass near the edge of the galaxy, which means time is flowing faster near the galactic rim.

      Have you verified your gravitational theory against other observations? I'm not all that into General Relativity, but I do know that there's some things a new theory of gravity has to explain. In what way is your gravitational theory different from MOND and other attempts to change the theory to accommodate galactic rotation curves?

      Also, you does your theory explain the Bullet Cluster, gravitational lensing along tendrils of dark matter as predicted, and the composition of the Universe based on the amount of baryonic matter formed?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    17. Re:Not really a Good Result by Altrag · · Score: 1

      Yep, as I said its still possible that something will come out of it. Just highly unlikely.

      Of course as others have mentioned, the spinoffs are often incentive enough to consider the ridiculous scientific experiments. Countless things have been derived from and developed based on technology invented for the space and nuclear programs back around the middle of last century even though none of us are running around with personal reactors or living on the moon.

      Similarly, development of the LHC produced a lot of research into high capacity computing and data distribution. That's certainly a potential benefit to the future given that data consumption doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. I'm sure development of the JWST, not to mention many of the other space projects both NASA and commercial, have continual development in things like material sciences.

      But the actual goal of both projects.. That part is much harder to fathom being useful in any sort of near future. Exoplanets (short of actually finding alien life) are interesting but ultimately meaningless to us. Yay we might come up with some ideas about what happened here on Earth 4 billion years ago. Not especially relevant to anything that exists on the planet today beyond pure curiosity.

      LHC results turning into practical applications are a little more plausible, but require development of technology that can provide us with Higgs-scale energies at a small fraction of the cost and size requirements of the LHC itself. Certainly closer than a million year journey through the stars, but probably not something we'll see in our lifetimes and probably not for a couple hundred years at best (barring a massive fluke discovery that can jump our energy production a few orders of magnitude in a short time frame.)

    18. Re:Not really a Good Result by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      If you can't predict it will be valuable, don't fund it all at. Burden of proof is on the person asking for money that there will be some ROI.

      That's not really how fundamental science works. It usually takes 50+ years to become useful but knowing exactly which bits will be the useful ones or how they will become useful is completely impossible to predict. However in order to be useful at all you do have to discover something so generally we make funding decisions based on how likely an experiment is to make a discovery which will advance our knowledge.

    19. Re:Not really a Good Result by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      I mean confirming the Higgs does exactly what?

      It confirms the presence of a new, fundamental field in nature which is all around us. The last time that happened it was the EM field and that discovery has lead to a huge number of applications. You are absolutely right that manipulating the higgs field at the moment requires a huge amount of effort but in the mid-19th century manipulating EM fields was not so easy either (although still a lot easier than the higgs).

    20. Re:Not really a Good Result by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      Yes but the idea that it cannot be cold, atomic matter is something a lot newer.

    21. Re:Not really a Good Result by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      The next machine doesn't necessarily have to be bigger.

      It will if you want to exceed LHC energies. A muon collider would be a very interesting machine though. At one point I know they were worrying about such high neutrino intensities that it would pose a radiation hazard...which is a problem because neutrinos interact so rarely that they pass through the earth so it would be impossible to shield such a source.

    22. Re:Not really a Good Result by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Knowing more about how planets work could be useful in countering global warming or other such issues.

      Knowing about the Higgs means we know a little more about quantum physics, which means we'll be able to do materials science and chemistry a little better, which means someone might develop an exotic new material or chemical reaction, and that could become important. It's quite a few steps from knowing about high-energy particle physics to a better video display or whatever, but it's a plausible course of events.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    23. Re: Not really a Good Result by getuid() · · Score: 1

      > usefullnes

      Wrong gauge to measure fundament research by. It's about knowledge, in and of itself.

      Any "useful" application with or without a "ROI" is a welcome distraction, a cherry on top, but nowhere near the core of argument pro research.

  12. Re:Boring... by meerling · · Score: 1

    Darn you Paradox, foiled again! :D

  13. Except they didn't fail it, you did. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just because you came up with a reply does not mean they failed to invalidate your analogy. That you failed to produce a valid counter means they succeeded and YOU failed, and your analogy is invalidated.

    If we're in a simulated universe then 76 isn't a number.

    Why? IT'S AN ANALOGY!!!!

    Therefore you accept that since 76 IS a number we cannot be in a simulated universe?

    No?

    That is what the analogy is there to illustrate. Just because I claim some aspect of an analogy does not mean it's valid nonetheless.

  14. Re:Smell-o-vision by SCVonSteroids · · Score: 1

    That sure is a lot of plurality.

    --
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  15. So... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    There's 73 posts and no mention of Professor Farnsworth's Smell-O-Scope?

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  16. Re:Three Quarks for Muster Mark! by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Cool story bro

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  17. Re:Yawn .... wha?! by Maritz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Come on, CERN... come up with one good thing.

    Obviously you don't consider discovering the Higgs particle a "good thing."

    That makes whatever you consider a "good thing" stupidly unrealistic. I daresay CERN would be unconcerned about your criticism. The cheek.

    --
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  18. Re:BS by Maritz · · Score: 2

    You sound smart. Did infowars tell you that?

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  19. Re:I think humans should hold off on particle phys by Maritz · · Score: 2

    Luckily nobody is interested in your dull, uninformed opinion. Thanks anyway though.

    --
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  20. Re:Fuck off by Maritz · · Score: 2

    demolishes the standard model yet it never pans out. Ever.

    Go ahead a link a scientist saying the LHC will 'demolish' the standard model. Thanks.

    --
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  21. Re:Sorry, but with each new particle by Maritz · · Score: 2

    Require billions of dollars of equipment designed by committee and I will call bullshit every time

    lol your threshold for credibility is based on price? Smart. Not got the brain for complexity eh? Don't worry, other people do. Your opinion is, happily for the rest of us, irrelevant.

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  22. Re:What these scientists really need: by budgenator · · Score: 1

    You want fries with that?

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  23. Re:Boring... by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

    I'll be a hero to every black person in the USA

    In the most likely scenario, nobody in the past would take you seriously and you would not change anything; you might even not survive for too long (quite hard times). But even if you were able to perform such a miraculous change and be appraised and remembered for it, nobody in the future would really care: the alternative-future black people wouldn't be able to feel any relief by knowing about someone who stopped what never happened and with what they could ever feel any close connection (like nowadays white people or black people in other countries).

    If you would let slavery go for some years and then fully abolished it, you might become a hero (or, at least, lots of people would know about you). Ironic, don't you think? If you do what is absolutely best (even by promoting it as much as possible), nobody would care; but if you manage the situation adequately (= speculate with its possible outcomes), you might become a hero or even a saint. What seems to indicate that most of those who are regarded as heroes/saints might not have (voluntarily or coincidentally) performed the best possible actions under the given conditions.

    DISCLAIMER: I think that time-travelling is completely and absolutely impossible. On the other hand, I do think that some theory, experiment or person claiming otherwise might appear at some point.

    --
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  24. Re:Boring... by tsqr · · Score: 1

    Wake me up when these scrubs invent a way to time travel. So I can go back in time and prevent slavery from ever being a thing in the USA. I'll be a hero to every black person in the USA.

    Inventing time travel would be the easiest part of this project.

  25. Never trust an atom by wjcofkc · · Score: 1

    They make up everything.

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  26. I patiently await ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... the discovery of a loose cable.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:I patiently await ... by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      Or another fried weasel...

  27. Re:I think humans should hold off on particle phys by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    There's more to fundamental science research than particle accelerators.

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  28. Re:That still utterly fails by sexconker · · Score: 1

    But it's not done that way, even when nobody is watching,

    How would you know? If you know how something is done then you were necessarily observing it in some fashion, however indirect.

  29. Re:That still utterly fails by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    There are things about the Universe that work because, due to uncertainty, we can't perceive them. Specifically, virtual particles transmit forces that we need. We can't detect them, but we know they're there. Not only is the Universe sticking its tongue out at us behind our back, we notice that we're being licked.

    I can't believe in a God that doesn't have a sense of humor.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  30. Re:Yawn .... wha?! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Our entire physics model is built upon cumulative mathematical progressions producing a lot of theoretical concepts that have never been confirmed with repeatable tests in the physical world.

    Our entire physics model is built on experiments and observations. The theoretical concepts produce predictions that we verify. String theory isn't part of generally accepted physics since it doesn't make enough falsifiable predictions.

    One of the potentially catastrophic set backs is the assumption that our current understanding of physics applies to any where in the known universe.

    Which is why physicists (and astrophysicists) test these things as best they can. Physics isn't a bunch of arbitrary assumptions. So far, we don't have reason to believe fundamental physics varies, and the working assumption is that it doesn't.

    What if our "universal gravitational constant" is not constant at all across the universe and all the mathematical models that rely on this value are tainted?

    So far, anyway, we have no evidence that it varies.

    We have even had to introduce and use concepts like "dark matter" to validate some of our observations.

    We've introduced and used much weirder concepts than that. Dark matter solves several different problems. It's pretty well established by now.

    But it has to be something because we need to use this totally theoretical object to make the math work.

    Just like tons of other things in physics. Ever see a neutrino? The math works with some concerns. If there's matter that doesn't interact electromagnetically, at a certain density, it turns out to make the math work. There have been numerous attempts to change the math, and they haven't worked.

    Making the math work is all fine and dandy if all you care about is balancing the equation but what if the math itself is flawed?

    Making the equations balance is pointless when studying physics. Physicists use math to derive consequences of what they believe to be true, and they test those consequences. If the math is flawed, or the beliefs are, then eventually a physicist will derive something that turns out not to be true, and they'll change things. It's happened a lot.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  31. Re: Sorry, but with each new particle by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    I've been around long enough to know that some things are just inherently complex, and you can't make them simpler. My life experience tells me that the drive to simplify everything produces its own brand of chaos.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  32. Re:That still utterly fails by sexconker · · Score: 1

    If you can't detect them, you can't know that they're there.
    You can predict that they're there. But without any observation - direct or indirect - you can't know. Accordingly, by knowing something you are an observer (however indirect) and have thus influenced it.

    This is a pretty fundamental concept.

  33. Fundamental Physics Takes 50+ Years to be Applied by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    Particle physics is becoming more distant from daily life as time passes.

    That's not really true. Fundamental physics' applications are generally typically 50+ years away. Early particle detector technology and understanding is only just now becoming useful in medical physics with hadron therapy as well as detector technology being used in medical physics.

    Go back to the development of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century and it was ~50 years before this was applied to materials and led to the understanding of the transistor and integrated circuits. Even further back and Faraday's law of EM induction from 1831 did not lead to electrical generators and power in homes until the 1880's and Maxwell's equations in 1864 did not lead to regular, useful radio transmissions until the first world war.

    I'll grant it is hard to see how e.g. the higgs boson will lead to a higher quality of life in 50+ years time but likewise I doubt Maxwell foresaw the rise of radio nor did Schrodinger et al foresee the development of modern information technology.

  34. Re:That still utterly fails by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    We can't observe them, but we can see what they do. If the cobbler goes to bed one night, and wakes up and finds new shoes made, it may not be cobbler elves, but something was there making shoes.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  35. Re:That still utterly fails by sexconker · · Score: 1

    That's an indirect observation, and doesn't tell you anything about the cause.
    All you can do is rule other stuff out (and often to only certain degrees of certainty).

    And that's a different thing from the observer/interaction problem.

  36. Re:That still utterly fails by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    That's an indirect observation, and doesn't tell you anything about the cause. All you can do is rule other stuff out (and often to only certain degrees of certainty).

    Science is built on tons of indirect observations, and figuring out causes from effects. This is nothing new. We have a theory that explains things extraordinarily well, and it says that virtual particles do various things that hold the Universe together. Similarly, part of that theory is about the behavior of electrons. Ever see an electron? All such observations have to be indirect. We do such and such, and that detector over there reads so and so.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  37. Re:observe via internet by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    This experiment was done via internet as well. when people viewed it miles away it had the same conclusion. There is a good graph out there and a youtube video... search for it if you like, its really interesting.

    --
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  38. Re:particle accelerators, make them 3d printer by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    We should create our own universe via the particle accelerators. They are perfect for it. use the land inside the circle of the accelerators, create mini worlds via the sub atomic particles released in the accelerator. Sorry just a wild thought :)

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