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

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

#181

Post by joshmn » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 1:37 AM UTC

gaoshan wrote: post #175

IAmGraydon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like nearly everything from the media, it's a lie designed for clicks.

This sort of comment is actually worse than the thing it is attempting to denigrate. "The media" isn't lying to you. "The media" is a smokescreen that lumps a wildly diverse collection of information purveyors under one, inaccurate and overly generalized, umbrella. Some media seeks to find the truth, some seeks only to manipulate you. Some is built from the ground up to push an agenda (political, religious, etc.), so…

This is the kind of echo chamber I am okay with.

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

#182

Post by ThinkBeat » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

"Quarks are the fundamental building blocks from which matter is constructed."

I sometimes wish would include "In our current model", "We now think that", or some other qualifier.

Such absolute statements have been made frequently prior to our current understanding.

I have no special knowledge to lead me to believe that quarks are not the end all of parties.

But I was happy with atom being the fundamental thing, and then electrons, neutrons, protons were the thing as well.

The other day I read about Fractons "quasiparticles or Partial Particles", so now I have to figure those out as well.

I have lost track if the graviton has been found yet. I dont think it has.

From a purely layman's sense of esthetics the current model for particle physics is messy and a little spooky.

I have an odd hobby. I collect old paper encyclopedias from pre 1970 For every language that I speak. It takes up MASSIVE amounts of space.

The oldest I have been able to acquire on a limited budget Is 1880.

It is always fun to track concepts over time.

They all state what the world is like, and how it works as bombastic facts.

Yet over time, most of it gets replaced or at least highly refined and things are removed.

Particle physics is an active field with much still to learn or figure out. Let us keep that in mind.

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

#183

Post by brianpan » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:42 AM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #182

"Quarks are the fundamental building blocks from which matter is constructed." I sometimes wish would include "In our current model", "We now think that", or some other qualifier. Such absolute statements have been made frequently prior to our current understanding. I have no special knowledge to lead me to believe that quarks are not the end all of parties. But I was happy with atom being the fundamental thing, and…

"We now think that" is the qualifier on the entirety of physics. It's redundant.

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

#184

Post by wiseStab » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #172

bawolff wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have no hope of facing those problems if our social cohesion is so fragile that it can't even handle calling an article out as clickbait.

There's a very big difference between calling something clickbait and saying "everything from the media is a lie".

"every news headlines are inaccurate" is a good rule of thumb though.

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

#185

Post by h2odragon » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:27 AM UTC

brianpan wrote: post #183

ThinkBeat wrote: post #182

"Quarks are the fundamental building blocks from which matter is constructed." I sometimes wish would include "In our current model", "We now think that", or some other qualifier. Such absolute statements have been made frequently prior to our current understanding. I have no special knowledge to lead me to believe that quarks are not the end all of parties. But I was happy with atom being the fundamental thing, and…

"We now think that" is the qualifier on the entirety of physics. It's redundant.

I'll certainly give the authors of the papers the benefit of a presumption of humility; it's the people "translating into layman's terms" and "passing on knowledge" that introduce Authority, and other errors, as part of the process.

"Think for yourself, schmuck" is the only dogma worth petting.

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

#186

Post by cgh » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 3:37 AM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #159

f6v wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Human story tellers are very attached to humanity, so the stories tend to anthropomorphize aliens. Most alien stories rehash old religious and hero stories. What do we have to offer aliens? In the category of vague as well as less is more, Arrival/Stories of Your Life and Others are about as compelling as it gets - humanity hasn't yet achieved full potential, going further out on a limb is folly (however entertaining…

This trilogy features long sections from the perspective of the Trisolarans without any humans around and their motivations are central to the plot.

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

#187

Post by atulatul » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:03 AM UTC

I came here to write something else. But after typing I felt it would be sort of bikeshedding. So did not add it. And now I am going to see if any other comments sound like bikeshedding. (including this one probably.) :)

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

#188

Post by arthurcolle » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:06 AM UTC

gaoshan wrote: post #175

IAmGraydon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like nearly everything from the media, it's a lie designed for clicks.

This sort of comment is actually worse than the thing it is attempting to denigrate. "The media" isn't lying to you. "The media" is a smokescreen that lumps a wildly diverse collection of information purveyors under one, inaccurate and overly generalized, umbrella. Some media seeks to find the truth, some seeks only to manipulate you. Some is built from the ground up to push an agenda (political, religious, etc.), so…

It's not worse - he's stating a fact, and your qualms with his descriptor (i.e. "the media") are secondary to the fact that his statement is an accurate description of 1) the problem and 2) the opponent in question, even if you feel like the secondary component is up for debate.

I'll restate my own adjacent thoughts: If you're a journalist and you are working at a company that performs these sorts of linguistic tricks to optimize for clicks... (and constantly for that matter) then you are equally responsible. Everyone has bills to pay, but everyone who participates has to eventually take responsibility for enabling a broken system.

Truthful descriptions of novel current events, even if they derive less clicks than clickbait, cannot become ancillary goals in the field of journalism. With no exceptions!

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

#189

Post by gizmo686 » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:07 AM UTC

ThinkBeat wrote: post #182

"Quarks are the fundamental building blocks from which matter is constructed." I sometimes wish would include "In our current model", "We now think that", or some other qualifier. Such absolute statements have been made frequently prior to our current understanding. I have no special knowledge to lead me to believe that quarks are not the end all of parties. But I was happy with atom being the fundamental thing, and…

> I sometimes wish would include "In our current model", "We now think that", or some other qualifier.

There is actually good reason to think quarks aren't fundemental. Even ignoring the empirical shortcomings of the standard model (specifically the incompatibility with General Relativity), it just doesn't "look" like a fundemental model.

Specifically, it is essentially a periodic table of elementary particles, with 3 "generations" of matter particles. Like the periodic table of the elements, this structure is highly suggestive that there is some deeper underlying structure.

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

#190

Post by geertj » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

gizmo686 wrote: post #189

ThinkBeat wrote: post #182

"Quarks are the fundamental building blocks from which matter is constructed." I sometimes wish would include "In our current model", "We now think that", or some other qualifier. Such absolute statements have been made frequently prior to our current understanding. I have no special knowledge to lead me to believe that quarks are not the end all of parties. But I was happy with atom being the fundamental thing, and…

> I sometimes wish would include "In our current model", "We now think that", or some other qualifier. There is actually good reason to think quarks aren't fundemental. Even ignoring the empirical shortcomings of the standard model (specifically the incompatibility with General Relativity), it just doesn't "look" like a fundemental model. Specifically, it is essentially a periodic table of elementary particles, with…

I agree that we don’t know. But there is also evidence that quarks are fundamental. Based on all our measurement, they are point like particles with no internal structure or size.