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

sciencemag.org

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

#91

Post by astrophysician »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #47
astrophysician wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you expand on that? I was under the impression that many thought of it as a waste (Sabine Hossenfelder comes to mind, for example).

Yea, some people are disappointed; some of the more interesting and exciting moments in physics are when we find out we're wrong, but not always. E.g. I will never forget the time and place I heard about the preliminary detection of primordial B-modes by BICEP (which turned out to be dust contamination) -- that was a predicted detection from canonical inflation models, as the Higgs was a standard prediction from the standard model (also a pretty exciting moment).

Not seeing something when we "expect" to not see anything (from the perspective of certain models) might be more boring, but it's definitely not a "waste" (again speaking purely from a physicist's standpoint).

We know the standard model is incomplete, but where and how are not well known. Not seeing evidence for new physics rules out certain models, and places upper/lower limits on others. It's progress either way.

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

#92

Post by treyh »

PeterisP wrote: post #36
treyh wrote: post #34

With 19 free parameters in the standard model, can't they fit any experimental result by adjusting a "constant"?

Sure they can fit any experimental result that way, they can probably fit any 19 experimental results that way, but in general if you would freely adjust a constant to fit one experiment then it would stop fitting other experiments.

My understanding is that with the lagrangian approach then the free parameters are not all interacting with each other because they are part of different terms. This means a change to a free parameter doesn't necessarily break experiments.

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

#93

Post by jessermeyer »

dogma1138 wrote: post #63
davidivadavid wrote: post #37

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?

Gravity isn’t a force in general relativity. However other forces such as the strong nuclear and the electroweak are forces in theories such as the standard model. Grand Unification theories often are trying to turn gravity into a force this is where mediating particles such as the graviton come into play but these aren’t very successful yet. It may be that gravity isn’t a force at all and is just an emergent phenome…

> Gravity isn’t a force in general relativity.

More importantly, GR has nothing to say about forces at all.

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

#94

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

treyh wrote: post #34

With 19 free parameters in the standard model, can't they fit any experimental result by adjusting a "constant"?

“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.” - John von Neumann

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

#95

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

hinkley wrote: post #82
chriswarbo wrote: post #65

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.

Imagine a 2d sheet that is weiged by steel balls. It'll be curved because of weights. Now, put a sand on it and it'll start rolling according to sheet's curvature. That's attraction between bodies for you.

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

#96

Post by schmorptron »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #60
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that be amazing if the universe developed more and more characteristics as you look for them? Or even, that it's pushed to create something when you do? Infinite playground.

Godel kind of proved that about Mathematics.

That sounds wild, do you have a link where I can read more about this, or is wikipedia fine to learn about it?

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

#97

Post by BrandoElFollito »

mooneater wrote: post #90
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is something I have in mind for some time. I have a great job, but it takes all my "professional" time, the rest if for my family and hobbies.

I am still 10-12 years away from official retirement and until then I doubt to have the time. Taken into account the seniority of my position, I am quite confident that I could teach afterwards at a good school, something I would do even for free.

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

#98

Post by keanebean86 »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #59
aworkerbee wrote: post #53

Can anyone recommend any pop-sci books? I haven't taken a science class since high school, and that is barely remembered. Mostly interested in getting philosophically up to date with the state of matter(?), it's different types, how these objects interact.

The only update that I got since was high school was that electrons aren't on concrete orbitals around the nucleus, but that there is a probability distribution saying that they are likely somewhere around the area where the concrete "orbital" concept is usually drawn. That and quantum shenanigans, but that comes down to "we can't transport information faster than light."

Just mention pilot wave theory and someone on this site might reply with a very detailed explanation of quantum mechanics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_wave_theory

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

#99

Post by podiki »

Arjuna144 wrote: post #81

hahah all this for some what? 10^(-6) or 10^(-5) discrepancy?! What about this age old 10^120 discrepancy that eveyone seems to be just fine about... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant_problem

People aren't "just fine" about dark energy. It is an entire field of study in physics/astronomy. A problem there is that we are quite stuck; some future experiments might tell us something (if it has changed over time for instance), but theoretically there aren't any stand out answers or ones that can see experimental confirmation soon.

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

theptip wrote: post #21
gizmo686 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall, FTL neutrinos were the result of experimental error, not chance; and so are outside the scope of what sigma screen for.

In scope for the context of this thread though; your GP claimed that 4 sigmas means “it’ll probably pan out as being real”, your parent provided a 6-sigma counter example.

[deleted]
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