New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN • Hacker News Board

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#51

Post by whatshisface » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

MengerSponge wrote: post #30

whatshisface wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "lower energy state" is a funny one, because isn't energy conserved? What's happening is a drop to a more spread out state, where you have several particles making great time flying away from each other instead of one high-energy-density locus in the center. Edit: Just to clarify, the time-variant system exception does not apply in this case. It really is an entropy thing, moreso than an energy thing (which…

Fun fact: in the most general case, energy is not a conserved quantity. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-...

The idea that spacetime itself has energy, which balances out the apparent lack of energy conservation in matter fields, is a far stronger interpretation than the article suggests. Spacetime energy bends spacetime, which is why gravitational waves exist. It's even called the stress-energy tensor.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#52

Post by kingkawn » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

FinanceAnon wrote: post #50

pseudobry wrote: post #42

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

If aliens don't like us, then why wouldn't they just destroy us, rather than troll our physicists and mess with the results? Why would they specifically mess with the particle accelarators at this point? Why not with earlier physics?

Because they're hundreds of years of space travel away so they send sentient protons to sabotage our particle physics so that we can't develop advanced enough technology to stop them by the time they arrive.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#53

Post by joshspankit » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

FinanceAnon wrote: post #50

pseudobry wrote: post #42

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

If aliens don't like us, then why wouldn't they just destroy us, rather than troll our physicists and mess with the results? Why would they specifically mess with the particle accelarators at this point? Why not with earlier physics?

Here’s a possibility: They are in the next universe over, and so far the only thing that passes between is gravity. Fine-grained control over gravity could allow them to mess with things but not destroy us (if they even wished to. I don’t even think Earth would vote to destroy an unknown civilization if the roles were reversed)

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#54

Post by f6v » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

pseudobry wrote: post #42

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

It’s a great book, but it suffers from the same old issue. A civilization that is capable of packing a robot into particle by manipulating higher dimensions doesn’t need to take our planet. They could terraform Mars or any other planet they want.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#55

Post by amelius » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

pseudobry wrote: post #42

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

Or perhaps the laws of physics that we observe are becoming more complicated over time, as a consequence of some deeper law of physics.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#56

Post by maininformer » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

FinanceAnon wrote: post #50

pseudobry wrote: post #42

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

If aliens don't like us, then why wouldn't they just destroy us, rather than troll our physicists and mess with the results? Why would they specifically mess with the particle accelarators at this point? Why not with earlier physics?

maybe we are their toys, or maybe our emotions is their energy source

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#57

Post by sweetheart » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

kingkawn wrote: post #52

FinanceAnon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If aliens don't like us, then why wouldn't they just destroy us, rather than troll our physicists and mess with the results? Why would they specifically mess with the particle accelarators at this point? Why not with earlier physics?

Because they're hundreds of years of space travel away so they send sentient protons to sabotage our particle physics so that we can't develop advanced enough technology to stop them by the time they arrive.

While the entire series is absolutely incredible, I _loved_ the premise of human beings knowing 400 years in advance that aliens are coming. Such a fascinating start to the trilogy.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#58

Post by AdamN » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

FinanceAnon wrote: post #50

pseudobry wrote: post #42

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

If aliens don't like us, then why wouldn't they just destroy us, rather than troll our physicists and mess with the results? Why would they specifically mess with the particle accelarators at this point? Why not with earlier physics?

In the book that's the state of human science when they learn of our existence. Also, they want our planet and it will take them a long time to get to earth - so long in fact that they predict that if our physics is allowed to mature they won't be able to beat us militarily by that time. They need to stop progress asap.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#59

Post by spxtr » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

> The new particle contains two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark. Several tetraquarks have been discovered in recent years (including one with two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks), but this is the first one that contains two charm quarks, without charm antiquarks to balance them.

This is not the first time a tetraquark has been measured, but instead it's the first time a tetraquark with two charm quarks and no charm antiquarks. That's still nice work, but I was initially confused by the headline ("didn't they discover those already?").

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#60

Post by gizmo686 » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

FinanceAnon wrote: post #50

pseudobry wrote: post #42

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

If aliens don't like us, then why wouldn't they just destroy us, rather than troll our physicists and mess with the results? Why would they specifically mess with the particle accelarators at this point? Why not with earlier physics?

Spoilers below:

The Three Body Problem trilogy breaks down if you think about it too hard. The in-universe explanation was that the aliens did want to destroy us, and had an attack fleet heading towards us. However, the attack fleet was relativly slow, and they were concerned that by the time it reached us we would have advanced to the point where we might win in a fight. To prevent this, they sent smaller probes to us at near light speed. In theory, these weren't capable of causing significant damage, but they could cause enough of an effect that they could make the results of particle accelerators useless. Without being able to use particle accelerators, we wouldn't be able to advance our knowledge of fundamental physics, so the aliens were confident that when their attack fleet reached us we would be defenseless.

By itself, what I have written is not particularly absurd, but if you look at the other things those advanced probes ended up being able to do, they could have easily just killed everyone.