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Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

#121

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

glenstein wrote: post #40
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point being made is about the general reaction to weird results. The original supposition was that it would be implausible for scientists at large to have an adverse reaction to results that defied their current worldview. Given that we have seen this play out, there is in fact nothing implausible about it at all. The specifics (proton-scale supercomputers sabotaging scientific experiments by altering the outcome…

>Given that we have seen this play out We saw two examples, definitely unfortunate for what they were but well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large. I don't think there's a single by and large way that people react to scientific revolutions, negative or otherwise. Feels like it depends on a combination of how it impacts most powerful stakeholders, things about culture, and…

> well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large

if I remember correctly, the plot point wasn't a "civilization level reaction" to bad particle physics experiment results, but rather a very narrow reaction by less than 1/10,000,000th of civilization.

which makes sense: the vast majority of the members of "civilization" could not even accurately define "particle physics", much less understand the field, much less comprehend experimental results, much less understand the correctness of them, much less experience anguish over their correctness.

Re: Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

#122

Post by exmadscientist »

HappMacDonald wrote: post #116
oersted wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reticent of falling into this endless conversation again, but it's a bit addictive. I believe the point is that the Standard Model is still built on Quantum Field Theory, but looking into what's really going on under quantum mechanics is a bit taboo and very few people are spending time on it. Frankly, I acknowledge that I am an outsider and that surely my perspective is far too naive and simplistic, I'm sure the…

But the real litmus test is and always has been "can a theory predict the results of empirical measurements (such as controlled experiments) more accurately than its competitors". The Danish-interpretation quantum physicists might urge you to shut up and calculate, but what we lack is any model capable of both describing why and how the wave function collapses and simultaneously offering more accurate predictions tha…

Yes, this, exactly.

The moment someone has a theory that's experimentally testable somehow (somehow possible, anyway), there will be plenty of interest. There has never been such a theory to date.

Until that arrives, it's all just hot air.

Re: Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

#123

Post by senderista »

traes wrote: post #29
ben_w wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the boldest chapter one introductions I've ever seen comes to mind: Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. - "States of Matter", David L. Goodstein, https://archive.org/details/statesofmatter0000good_e2n5/page...

A very interesting story that's worth reading up on. "Natural philosophers" of the day refused to accept the idea of a particle too small to directly observe on purely philosophical grounds. They essentially bullied him out of the field for championing the idea of the atom, despite his math yielding numerous correct results. They fruitlessly pursued the idea of energetics instead. (One of the many instances of die ha…

Emmy Noether was a mathematician not a physicist (despite Noether's theorem), and the main obstacle to her obtaining a professorship was pretty obviously sexism (not to mention antisemitism).

Re: Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

#124

Post by oersted »

HappMacDonald wrote: post #116
oersted wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reticent of falling into this endless conversation again, but it's a bit addictive. I believe the point is that the Standard Model is still built on Quantum Field Theory, but looking into what's really going on under quantum mechanics is a bit taboo and very few people are spending time on it. Frankly, I acknowledge that I am an outsider and that surely my perspective is far too naive and simplistic, I'm sure the…

But the real litmus test is and always has been "can a theory predict the results of empirical measurements (such as controlled experiments) more accurately than its competitors". The Danish-interpretation quantum physicists might urge you to shut up and calculate, but what we lack is any model capable of both describing why and how the wave function collapses and simultaneously offering more accurate predictions tha…

Of course, but such a theory doesn't pop out of nowhere. Like in any technical field, new paradigms are always inferior to the incumbent on key metrics, and need room to be nurtured for long periods.

My perception is that there's a cultural issue suppressing the investigation of the causes of quantum mechanics, making it much harder for a better theory to flourish.

It's also really-really hard. If you take my earlier example, the probabilistic theory of the coin-flip is worlds apart in terms of complexity from a real understanding of the forces acting on the coin when it's flipped. It's a massive gap to jump over, you have to come at it from another easier and longer path, like it was done with classical physics.

Re: Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

#125

Post by jongjong »

exmadscientist wrote: post #89
jongjong wrote: post #87

The framing that there is some unknown particle affecting the results is probably an understatement. Probably there are a LOT of unknown 'forces' affecting the results. Look at the size of the machine, the aging components, the number of components involved, the amount of software required, surely all of that is affecting the results. Are humans even capable of building perfectly reliable systems?

You would probably be very surprised about just how much work is put in to characterizing these things. My graduate work was on another experiment (though our postdoc worked on one of the earlier g −2 experiments mentioned here!), but we literally had man-years of work sunk into measuring one thing about the experiment, one number, as accurately as possible and with valid error bars. That was not the only thing about…

Sure, but you can only solve a problem that you are aware of. My concern here is about the unknown unknowns. The task at hand is exceedingly complex and requires extreme precision, with many unknown variables... And the people solving the problems have conflicting interests as they are paid hourly.

Even if there are bonuses, all the bonuses would be given on the basis of solving known problems. There is literally zero monetary incentive to solve unknown problems; only owners care about that stuff. Employees don't care about that. They might point out some whilst not mentioning others.

I've been a software engineer for 15 years and my experience is that unknown unknowns in tech are like a secret piggy bank for engineers to tap into in times of need. They are rarely brought up; only in the event that an engineer feels the need to justify their value to the company/project. The accumulation of secrets gives engineers differentiable value within the project/company and makes them hard to replace... So they tend to keep at least a couple to themselves... They ration it; like retirement planning.

The individual incentive to conceal issues until a time of personal need (when layoffs are looming) outweighs the collective incentive to identify new issues to generate more billable hours of work for the team.

If you're the only person who knows the issue which prevents a multi-million dollar project from coming to fruition, that is valuable information and gives you a lot of leverage in terms of job security... Which is the biggest reward you can get in this line of work.

And it's not malicious; the people who know about those issues probably also solve more issues and contribute more solutions than anyone else. The concealment may be happening subconsciously; they won't admit to themselves that a specific kind of problem exists.

Like when I worked in crypto, all the engineers there believed that the project could scale and also be decentralized... When it couldn't, given the chosen approach. The belief is still there years later; though all the rational engineers left, they were promptly replaced by believers.

Re: Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

#127

Post by xelxebar »

podocarp wrote: post #100
whatsThisBtn4 wrote: post #68

9 years of philosophy and I'm over platonic realism and reading contemporary philosophy of science. The thing is, we are wrong, but this stuff is useful to make predictions. Everyone knows about the copernican revolution. But when it first happened, the old models(earth at the center of the solar system) were more accurate at predicting where the plenets would be. Scientists pragmatically spend their time doing best…

The difference with the Copernican stuff is that you can fly a satellite (e.g. Voyager) to the edge of the solar system, look back, and see the planets orbiting the sun. There is no sane way to put the earth in the center once you do that. If I do a push up the Earth moves beneath me but no reasonable person says I'm pushing the Earth away. Hence I feel heliocentrism is simply an observable fact. It's not a mathemati…

Geocentric coordinates are easily observable; just look at the sunrise and sunset. And if you zoom out even more and look at the galaxy, heliocentric coordinates become unreasonable.

Re: Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

#129

Post by xelxebar »

whatsThisBtn4 wrote: post #68

9 years of philosophy and I'm over platonic realism and reading contemporary philosophy of science. The thing is, we are wrong, but this stuff is useful to make predictions. Everyone knows about the copernican revolution. But when it first happened, the old models(earth at the center of the solar system) were more accurate at predicting where the plenets would be. Scientists pragmatically spend their time doing best…

> The thing is, we are wrong, but this stuff is useful to make predictions.

This statement itself predicades on a Platonic realist metaphysics! Indeed, what is the ideal against which things are judge right and wrong? I think the psychological roots of Enlightenment rationality run deep in the West, making it brutally hard to usurp.

That said, I think we can go a long way in this one case by just throwing out the "wrong" judement and laser focusing on the particulars of utility that science provides. One zoomed-out facet sees it as a collaborative effort as squeezing out repeatable processes, a la Popper et al.

Re: Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don't Add Up

#130

Post by teamonkey »

jongjong wrote: post #125
exmadscientist wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would probably be very surprised about just how much work is put in to characterizing these things. My graduate work was on another experiment (though our postdoc worked on one of the earlier g −2 experiments mentioned here!), but we literally had man-years of work sunk into measuring one thing about the experiment, one number, as accurately as possible and with valid error bars. That was not the only thing about…

Sure, but you can only solve a problem that you are aware of. My concern here is about the unknown unknowns. The task at hand is exceedingly complex and requires extreme precision, with many unknown variables... And the people solving the problems have conflicting interests as they are paid hourly. Even if there are bonuses, all the bonuses would be given on the basis of solving known problems. There is literally zer…

Bluntly, I think this just highlights why software engineering is not a serious engineering discipline. There are some exceptions, like safety-critical systems, but on the whole, software is not designed and developed with a rigor comparable to physical sciences.
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