Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles • Hacker News Board

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#21

Post by mhh__ » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #9

mhh__ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far we're struggling to reverse engineer all the perl it was hacked together with

I know you’re joking around but does the universe seem hacked together to you? I feel like it’s incredibly elegant. All these low level rules are able to create such complex structures with beautiful order to it. It’s so orderly, we can play things backwards billions of years. We can look back to how things were just a fraction of a second after this version of the universe began. It’s astonishing.

Maybe. The fact that a treatment of particle physics based on Symmetry groups works so well is rather odd, but equally why should it be that way? Elegance is subjective, mathematical elegance even more so.

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#22

Post by criddell » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #9

mhh__ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far we're struggling to reverse engineer all the perl it was hacked together with

I know you’re joking around but does the universe seem hacked together to you? I feel like it’s incredibly elegant. All these low level rules are able to create such complex structures with beautiful order to it. It’s so orderly, we can play things backwards billions of years. We can look back to how things were just a fraction of a second after this version of the universe began. It’s astonishing.

But can we explain just what exactly quantum mechanics is?

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#23

Post by peter303 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

The muon was the first non-standard matter particle and second transient particle discovered in 1937. It lead to much new physics in mid-20th century. And continues to suggest new physics.

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#24

Post by lumost » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

DrBazza wrote: post #13

Regardless of whether this is a real result, I always had trouble "trusting" the "Standard Model" when I was at university. There are too many knobs to twiddle, and levers to pull in order to get the results. The mathematics is non-trivial. Just reading the article gives you an idea of how difficult it is to make predictions from the model. Compare it to this comment about General Relativity: "Widely acknowledged as…

Most of the standar model complexity comes from the variety of particles, forces, and aggregations thereof that need to be contended with.

GR likewise becomes a brutal computational mess with these many body problems.

What will be interesting in these new experimental results is whether we’re reaching the limits where determining the correctness of our approximations becomes impractical.

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#25

Post by fasteddie31003 » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

Question for physicists: Are the G-2 results more groundbreaking than discovering the Higgs particle to moving physics forward?

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#26

Post by haxiomic » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

DrBazza wrote: post #13

Regardless of whether this is a real result, I always had trouble "trusting" the "Standard Model" when I was at university. There are too many knobs to twiddle, and levers to pull in order to get the results. The mathematics is non-trivial. Just reading the article gives you an idea of how difficult it is to make predictions from the model. Compare it to this comment about General Relativity: "Widely acknowledged as…

If its turtles all the way down, and physics goes on forever like a fractal, you'll find domains where you can approximate with relatively simple mathematics ("beautiful") and domains that require much more mathematical machinery to describe

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#27

Post by whatshisface » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

libraryofbabel wrote: post #11

There have been a bunch of articles near the top of HN on this result, but I found this one from Quanta magazine to be one of the best non-technical explanations. Particularly interesting was the focus on an alternative theoretical calculation for the muon magnetic moment: the “BMW” approach, which uses a numerical lattice model and produces a number much closer to the Fermilab experiment. For an outsider, one of the…

The class of integrals that QCD solutions belong to is known to be NP-hard. It is not known specifically that QCD itself is NP-hard but it is suspected to be by many.

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#28

Post by sto_hristo » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

mseepgood wrote: post #3

Why does it take physicists so long to find the complete foundation of the universe? I want an answer in my lifetime.

It's theories galore out there that aim to describe everything. Proving them right/wrong via experiments is the hard part.

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#29

Post by Iwan-Zotow » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #15

mseepgood wrote: post #3

Why does it take physicists so long to find the complete foundation of the universe? I want an answer in my lifetime.

120 years ago, we had no model of the atom, no quantum theory, no relativity, and only the first hints of figuring out radioactivity. Yet we were able to split the atom in 1942, create the MOSFET in 1959, and started launching the first GPS satellites in 1978. It's hard to express how much progress we've made in such a small amount of time relative to the rest of history. It's a god damn miracle.

screwed up half of biosphere as well...

Re: Muon G-2 Experiment at Fermilab Finds Hint of New Particles

#30

Post by mseepgood » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #10

mseepgood wrote: post #3

Why does it take physicists so long to find the complete foundation of the universe? I want an answer in my lifetime.

Physicist here: 1. One should be rather specific about what 'the complete foundation' might comprise. The depth of questions one can ask is infinite, but some questions are more important than others. The g-2 experiment is asking a specific question: "Does the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon open a door to discoveries that are inaccessible with modern colliders?" It is tempting to regard fundamental physics as…

> It is tempting to regard fundamental physics as a study of "Why are we here?", but it is really a study of "How are we here?" The difference is subtle but substantial. If "Why?" is what you're seeking, you are more likely to find that answer within, rather than within the study of physics.

I don't want to know why, I just want to know the complete set of rules at the lowest level.