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Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

cnet.com

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Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#11

Post by netsharc »

rntn wrote: post #2

A very good piece of journalism explaining the problem for non physicists. For me personally, the discussion by the researchers about their guiding principles for conducting scientific research was a great reminder for all researchers.. As that section concluded : "Science is organized in skepticism."

Very good? It feels patronising to me... "[I]t involves physics that'll explode our minds. Trust me."? "To get a W boson in the first place, you literally have to smash two protons together."?

Feels like it's aimed at 5th graders...

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#12

Post by gus_massa »

lupire wrote: post #8
IAmGraydon wrote: post #4

This article states that the most recent measurement agrees with others over the last decade. That is simply not true. https://non-trivial-solution.blogspot.com/2022/04/do-we-have...

> this finally the sign of new physics, which we all have been hoping for? I don't understand this mindset? Why (aside from creating jobs) is it good to discover that the universe is more complicated than we knew, or that we were wrong? To me, what we want in "new physics" is explanations for unexplained phenomena, or resolutions to know problems/inconsistencies (like quantum vs gravity), or emergent effects that les…

There are a lot of different teams.

Some teams are working trying to resolve the Quantum Gravity problem. I doubt this is useful for them, at least for now.

Other team are working in particle colliders. They get a Nobel price if they discover a new particle or a correction to the "Standard Model".

Hopefully both teams will meet somewhere in the middle. Perhaps a new experiment will give a hint about how to make quantum gravity work. Perhaps a new theory of quantum gravity will predict a result that can be tested in a particle collider. Don't expect this to be soon.

And there are many other teams that are working in one of the N-2 areas of Physics that are unrelated and their research is not affected by a Quantum Gravity theory or modification to the "Standard Model".

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#13

Post by ISL »

lupire wrote: post #9

The fun thing about measurement physics is that you never know if your cool tool is measuring something in the universe, or if you are using something in the Universe to test and find bugs in your tool.

That's why you build another instrument that is demonstrably a factor of two more sensitive -- it either detects the new thing with much higher precision or credibly disproves the old measurement and makes forward progress at the same time.

If you can't do that, then you build another instrument that uses a different technique but reaches similar sensitivity. If the two instruments disagree, this will tend to lead to confusion and general wringing of hands. If at all possible, do the aforementioned higher-sensitivity plan.

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#14

Post by nomel »

lupire wrote: post #8
IAmGraydon wrote: post #4

This article states that the most recent measurement agrees with others over the last decade. That is simply not true. https://non-trivial-solution.blogspot.com/2022/04/do-we-have...

> this finally the sign of new physics, which we all have been hoping for? I don't understand this mindset? Why (aside from creating jobs) is it good to discover that the universe is more complicated than we knew, or that we were wrong? To me, what we want in "new physics" is explanations for unexplained phenomena, or resolutions to know problems/inconsistencies (like quantum vs gravity), or emergent effects that les…

> is explanations for unexplained phenomena, or resolutions to know problems/inconsistencies

simply can't happen without

> is it good to discover that the universe is more complicated than we knew, or that we were wrong

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#15

Post by extrapickles »

brtkdotse wrote: post #6
hprotagonist wrote: post #3

we'd have to change our understanding of how all the particles in the universe work. Well, remember the new paper? We're pretty much entering that worst case scenario. I believe you mean "best case"! There was much hue and cry after the Higgs discovery because the result, at least from the outside, seemed like "welp, we predicted a thing and found it and we don't have any new physics to disagree with; what a letdown!…

> the instrument deformed slowly under its own weight for the last decade and now we're 4 angstroms off This was hilarious and plausible at the same time. Nice work!

The Pioneer spacecraft speed anomaly turned out to be forgetting to account for the small amount of thrust from photons generated by the heat of the spacecraft (~1kph per decade).

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#16

Post by Ferrotin »

extrapickles wrote: post #15
brtkdotse wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the instrument deformed slowly under its own weight for the last decade and now we're 4 angstroms off This was hilarious and plausible at the same time. Nice work!

The Pioneer spacecraft speed anomaly turned out to be forgetting to account for the small amount of thrust from photons generated by the heat of the spacecraft (~1kph per decade).

I thought they were, but with an oversimplified model.

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#17

Post by tux3 »

netsharc wrote: post #11
rntn wrote: post #2

A very good piece of journalism explaining the problem for non physicists. For me personally, the discussion by the researchers about their guiding principles for conducting scientific research was a great reminder for all researchers.. As that section concluded : "Science is organized in skepticism."

Very good? It feels patronising to me... "[I]t involves physics that'll explode our minds. Trust me."? "To get a W boson in the first place, you literally have to smash two protons together."? Feels like it's aimed at 5th graders...

If anything deserves to be patronizing, it is probably high-energy physics. The reader should not expect to truly understand anything, or be able to deduce anything, after reading the pop-sci explanations of particle physics experiments.

Analogies have the problem that you never know where they stop, and so you can't safely reason any further from what you've been told. It is bad if you walk away thinking you know more than you really do.

If you're not reading the math, you're fundamentally in the business of being told simplified stories made up of lies we tell to children. If anything, the article that makes you feel like a 5th grader is honest. As far as I'm concerned, it might still be talking up to me.

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#19

Post by eightysixfour »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #4

This article states that the most recent measurement agrees with others over the last decade. That is simply not true. https://non-trivial-solution.blogspot.com/2022/04/do-we-have...

According to the chart here: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/higher-w-boson-mass-...

It seems to align with measurements from:

* D0 I

* CDF I

* OPAL

* ALEPH

I do not know what refinements happened between D0 1/2, or CDF 1/2.

Re: Scientists are worried about the W Boson: 'Something is amiss'

#20

Post by rob_c »

hprotagonist wrote: post #3

we'd have to change our understanding of how all the particles in the universe work. Well, remember the new paper? We're pretty much entering that worst case scenario. I believe you mean "best case"! There was much hue and cry after the Higgs discovery because the result, at least from the outside, seemed like "welp, we predicted a thing and found it and we don't have any new physics to disagree with; what a letdown!…

A reanalysis of data from a stopped detector wont continue to deform but nice try...
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