new particle at nearly 4 sigma

[Eratosthenes (Peter)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

Within the Standard Model there were particles predicted to exist many years before they were discovered. As far as the Standard Model is concerned, we have discovered the fundamental particles that make up the universe. Well most of them anyway, we still don't know what Dark Matter is and depending on its actual properties, there is a chance that we may NEVER detect them.

So if we discover a new particle that hasn't been predicted by the Standard Model, we need to revisit our fundamental understanding of the universe.

...the Baryonic component of the "one" Universe that we are sort-of partially aware of. (A component that barely makes up ~5% of the total "stuff")

Do String Theorists accept the reductionism of the Standard Model? How many fundamental sub-atomic scale entities do they believe?

[Talby (Brad)]

Peter did you mean ,the fermionic component ,or are you anti electron- sorry positron

[Eratosthenes (Peter)]

Originally Posted by Talby

Peter did you mean ,the fermionic component ,or are you anti electron- sorry positron

I am anti electron

I am very suspicious of atomic entities that aren't composed of quarks

[Shiraz (Ray)]

looks like it didn't persist to 5 sigma - according to an un-named source that is...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...s-physics.html

[Eratosthenes (Peter)]

Originally Posted by alpal

Hi Ray,
a professor of physics said to all of us in the lecture theatre one day that he wondered
if these new particles were really relevant.
He said that maybe we are like children with building blocks
making new structures -
& it is us who have created these particles & they don't exist
in nature & never existed before?
In other words these new particles are meaningless?

cheers
Allan

....interesting comments by your Physics Professor.
In a reductionist world new particles seem to spew out from bigger and bigger particle accelerators - ie as the collision energy increases.
A little bit like the super elements scientists create in the Laboratory environment which are so unstable that they effectively vanish the moment they are created, but appear long enough to be detected.

Very fat nuclei crammed with protons and neutrons. A Russian team created a super element with 117 protons (atomic number). The theory suggests that there is a region or island of stability for super elements.

But is this discovery meaningful (as your good professor asks)? The largest naturally occurring element that has a stable isotope is U92. There are a few heavier elements such as Pu which are synthetic by-products of human endevours such as nuclear weapons explosions and nuclear power plant coriums.

Science is a very strange religion sometimes. There are rheologists that make the claim that solids are really liquids that have high yield stress values and are flowing slowly.

very odd days indeed for the priests of Science and their temple congregations

[Shiraz (Ray)]

nope, it was not real after all:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36976777

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Eratosthenes

....interesting comments by your Physics Professor.
In a reductionist world new particles seem to spew out from bigger and bigger particle accelerators - ie as the collision energy increases.
A little bit like the super elements scientists create in the Laboratory environment which are so unstable that they effectively vanish the moment they are created, but appear long enough to be detected.

Very fat nuclei crammed with protons and neutrons. A Russian team created a super element with 117 protons (atomic number). The theory suggests that there is a region or island of stability for super elements.

But is this discovery meaningful (as your good professor asks)? The largest naturally occurring element that has a stable isotope is U92. There are a few heavier elements such as Pu which are synthetic by-products of human endevours such as nuclear weapons explosions and nuclear power plant coriums.

Science is a very strange religion sometimes. There are rheologists that make the claim that solids are really liquids that have high yield stress values and are flowing slowly.

very odd days indeed for the priests of Science and their temple congregations

Yes - it was an interesting comment -

we make new particles & then say we've discovered them.

it's not very satisfying to me.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by alpal

Yes - it was an interesting comment -

we make new particles & then say we've discovered them.

it's not very satisfying to me.

Don't forget though - anything we can do with our puny machines on Earth (and yes, that includes the LHC!), nature can do many times over with the vastly higher energies available than we can muster here on Earth! If we can collide particles and make just one "new" particle every few years, that same particle is being created by the trillion every second somewhere "out there".

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by julianh72

Don't forget though - anything we can do with our puny machines on Earth (and yes, that includes the LHC!), nature can do many times over with the vastly higher energies available than we can muster here on Earth! If we can collide particles and make just one "new" particle every few years, that same particle is being created by the trillion every second somewhere "out there".

i wouldn't be so sure of that, the hottest (outside of the big bang) and coldest places in the universe were made in labs. sure gamma ray bursts do create particles with more energy than we can create on earth, but we do generate some of the most extreme environments

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Somnium

i wouldn't be so sure of that, the hottest (outside of the big bang) and coldest places in the universe were made in labs. sure gamma ray bursts do create particles with more energy than we can create on earth, but we do generate some of the most extreme environments

That's always confused me.
They say that even more energetic particles than are made at CERN
enter our atmosphere all the time.
Since these high energy particles have lifespans measured in nano
or femtoseconds - where are they being created?
It couldn't be very far away yet I also hear they made in quasars & such like beasts which
are half way across the universe - a very long way away.

Can anyone explain it?

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by alpal

That's always confused me.
They say that even more energetic particles than are made at CERN
enter our atmosphere all the time.
Since these high energy particles have lifespans measured in nano
or femtoseconds - where are they being created?
It couldn't be very far away yet I also hear they made in quasars & such like beasts which
are half way across the universe - a very long way away.

Can anyone explain it?

space is really empty and nothing slows the particles down, it doesnt matter that it is far away

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Somnium

space is really empty and nothing slows the particles down, it doesnt matter that it is far away

But they can't cross half the universe in a nano second -
they would have long since decayed.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

maybe this could be useful https://www.theguardian.com/science/...ut-cosmic-rays

[bojan]

Originally Posted by alpal

That's always confused me.
They say that even more energetic particles than are made at CERN
enter our atmosphere all the time.
Since these high energy particles have lifespans measured in nano
or femtoseconds - where are they being created?
It couldn't be very far away yet I also hear they made in quasars & such like beasts which
are half way across the universe - a very long way away.

Can anyone explain it?

If their energy is sufficiently high (speed is close enough to c) they may have time to reach us from further away (because of time dilatation).
However, most short lived particles that reach the ground-based detectors are created in the upper layers of atmosphere by colisions of gamma rays with atoms/molecules.

[Atmos (Colin)]

The particles that are decaying in our atmosphere aren't traveling all the way from the supernovae or whatever, they're actually created within our atmosphere. They're typically called a particle shower which is where a highly energised particle hits our atmosphere and then scatters secondary particles (like muons) down towards the Earth.

[Eratosthenes (Peter)]

Originally Posted by alpal

Yes - it was an interesting comment -

we make new particles & then say we've discovered them.

it's not very satisfying to me.

I don't have an issue generally with the results generated from high energy particle physics conducted in massive accelerators. The question for me is where does this reductionist quest for particles end? Each particle is associated or coupled with a field - a localised collapse of the field/wave equation that produces a discrete "blimp" in the field - a "so called" particle.

As a general rule Particle Physicists don't know what they are doing if you probe them deeply enough - they have abandoned their philosophical responsibilities as thinkers and become CRCPs (Conservative Reductionist Cartesian Priests) - also known as CCCPs (Corporatised Circus Clown Puppets). They should apologise in writing, resign and join another profession such as the Vatican Priesthood, Cartography or become newsreaders on state owned TV.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by Eratosthenes

The question for me is where does this reductionist quest for particles end?

well, it won't come to any conclusion for a while. http://www.nature.com/news/china-pla...llider-1.15603

maybe when we understand a little bit about dark stuff.... that might be a good time to rethink the future uses of the colliders?

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Atmos

The particles that are decaying in our atmosphere aren't traveling all the way from the supernovae or whatever, they're actually created within our atmosphere. They're typically called a particle shower which is where a highly energised particle hits our atmosphere and then scatters secondary particles (like muons) down towards the Earth.

I am talking about collisions of much greater energy than at CERN:

http://www.livescience.com/53669-can...xtinction.html
Can a supercollider end life on Earth? No. Of course not.

But it's not really a silly question for people who haven't thought carefully about it. After all, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator, is explicitly an instrument of exploration, one that is designed to push back the frontiers of ignorance. It's not so unreasonable to ask how you know something isn't dangerous if you've never done it before. So how is it I can say with such utter confidence that the LHC is completely safe?
Well, the short answer is that cosmic rays from space constantly pummel the Earth with energies that dwarf those of the LHC. Given that the Earth is still here, there can be no danger, or so the reasoning goes.
And that could well be the final story, but the tale is much richer than that short (but very accurate) answer would lead you to believe. So let's dig a bit deeper into what makes some suspect a danger, and then explore a fairly detailed description of the point and counterpoint involved in delivering a solid and satisfying answer to the question.

[alpal]

Originally Posted by bojan

If their energy is sufficiently high (speed is close enough to c) they may have time to reach us from further away (because of time dilatation).
However, most short lived particles that reach the ground-based detectors are created in the upper layers of atmosphere by colisions of gamma rays with atoms/molecules.

The link here may explain it:

http://www.livescience.com/53669-can...xtinction.html

Remember that cosmic rays are mostly protons.

Protons are stable & so don't decay like the particles at CERN.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Originally Posted by alpal

The link here may explain it:

http://www.livescience.com/53669-can...xtinction.html

Protons are stable & so don't decay like the particles at CERN.

Energetic protons are the active components in the LHC and they are also the most common high energy cosmic ray components - collisions in the LHC are the same as those in the the atmosphere. But cosmic ray protons can have way greater energy than anything that CERN produces. It is protons that come in from far off energetic events, not the temporary high energy particles that result when there is a collision in the atmosphere (or in the LHC for that matter).

So all of the temporary particles produced in LHC will also be produced in the atmosphere - plus even higher energy ones that cannot be produced in the LHC (if there are any of course).

The difference is that the collision results can be reliably observed in the LHC, but far less so in the uncontrolled atmospheric environment.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...ut-cosmic-rays