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Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

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Re: Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

#82

Physics noob question: is there any physical framework that does away with the concept of "force"? I know a bit about how it is reconceptualized as space-time deformation in the context of general relativity, but that's about it. It just seems like one of those inherently anthropocentric concepts that (potentially) holds us back from exploring something different?

Lagrangian mechanics is equivalent to Newtonian mechanics, but doesn't involve force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_mechanics The idea of replacing a 'gravitational force' with spacetime curvature gave us General Relativity; extending this same idea to electromagnetism gives us Kaluza-Klein theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaluza%E2%80%93Klein_theory The current state of the art is Quantum Field Theory…

I still need someone to ELI5 to me how space curvature model explains the attraction between two bodies that have a delta-v of 0.

Re: Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

#83
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lagrangian mechanics is equivalent to Newtonian mechanics, but doesn't involve force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_mechanics The idea of replacing a 'gravitational force' with spacetime curvature gave us General Relativity; extending this same idea to electromagnetism gives us Kaluza-Klein theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaluza%E2%80%93Klein_theory The current state of the art is Quantum Field Theory…

I still need someone to ELI5 to me how space curvature model explains the attraction between two bodies that have a delta-v of 0.

They don't. You're only thinking in three (spatial) dimensions. Time is more fundamental than you think.

Re: Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

#85

Honestly feel sorry for particle physicists... Their entire gig is spending billions on fancy equipment, and hoping that observe something unexpected. If they see exactly what they expected to see, all that effort was basically wasted. Also, a lot of "discoveries" turn out to be equipment miscalibration - remember those particles which supposedly moved faster than light a few years back? Always struck me as an odd wa…

Remember, you can't solve the halting problem. This is progress. Sometimes science takes two steps back and one step forward. Sometimes that one step is bigger than you realized. And it wasn't backwards, it was projecting into a different spacial dimension. Or something. The point is, this is probably good news, honestly.

Could you explain what you mean by halting problem in this context?

Re: Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

#86
post #40

Nature seems to have this interesting property of always increasing in perceived complexity.

Sometimes I think about this half-baked theory where physical laws don't exist until they are discovered. Once you catch physics with it's pants down it now must maintain those constraints or have it's bluff called.

Re: Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

#87
post #38

There was a nice explanation of the finding in comic format from APS & PhD Comics: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v14/47

This sound like the hypothesized „subtle-matter“ as proposed by Dr. Klaus Volkamer [1]?

- still looking for a better link than the Book… I’ll update this later

[1] https://amzn.to/3mvvsWW

Re: Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

#88
post #40

Nature seems to have this interesting property of always increasing in perceived complexity.

I wonder where's the limit to what our minds can comprehend. It's fascinating we went this far, since brain didn't evolve to study physics.

Re: Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

#89
post #33

What is everyones favorite book on quantum mechanics (I would love understand more of the 3 generations of matter)?

Sakurai, but it won't help you understand the 3 generations of matter because we don't understand why there are 3 generations at all. If you just want to learn particle physics, you can do worse than just reading the review sections of the PDG (pdg.lbl.gov) And it's probably not a great beginner's text, even though it's really good.

I would not start Sakurai without at least doing some of an undergrad book first, to get the basic concepts.

Re: Particle mystery: physicists confirm the muon is more magnetic than predicted

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a physicists standpoint, not seeing something unexpected is not a waste at all.

From a physicist's standpoint, always being right is disheartening. I think that every physicist hopes to see something that does not match and then a fantastic work begins. I did not see anything like this during my studies, PhD and short career and moved to industry. I terribly miss the teaching, though.

Is there a way you can continue to teach in some capacity?
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