Live data from Hacker News

Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

backreaction.blogspot.com

11–20 of 282 posts

Re: Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

#11
post #4
post #2

> but to borrow a German idiom, don’t eat the headlines as hot as they’re cooked. I'm German and I have never heard this before, but I like it.

I think it's reffering to "Nichts wird so heiß gegessen wie es gekocht wird", which translates to "Nothing get's eaten as hot as it get's cooked.".

Similarly in Dutch, de soep wordt niet zo heet gegeten als ze wordt opgediend. In this case it's soup that's not eaten as hot as it is served.

Re: Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

#12
Well this is kind of funny and I mostly agree so TLDR:

> "I’m afraid all of this sounds rather negative. Well. There’s a reason I left particle physics. Particle physics has degenerated into a paper production enterprise that is of virtually no relevance for societal progress or for progress in any other discipline of science. The only reason we still hear so much about it is that a lot of funding goes into it and so a lot of people still work on it, most of them don’t like me. But the disciplines where the foundations of physics currently make progress are cosmology and astrophysics, and everything quantum, quantum information, quantum computing, quantum metrology, and so on, which is why that’s what I mostly talk about these days."

The popular science literature is also full of string theory this and god particle that, and it's really not very satisfying or illuminating. If people want to get into this general subject, I'd recommend instead Stephen Hawking's compendium of classic papers on quantum physics, with commentary, "The Dreams That Stuff is Made Of."

Re: Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

#15

Well this is kind of funny and I mostly agree so TLDR: > "I’m afraid all of this sounds rather negative. Well. There’s a reason I left particle physics. Particle physics has degenerated into a paper production enterprise that is of virtually no relevance for societal progress or for progress in any other discipline of science. The only reason we still hear so much about it is that a lot of funding goes into it and so…

There are a lot of other areas of physics, some even involving the use of colliders, that are in better position and value to make discoveries that either advance our understanding and/or have applied/commercial application.

One example is the National Synchrotron Light Source II at Brookhaven. The money spent nationally and globally on these types of facilities are a fraction of what goes to LHC or, not long ago, the Tevatron at Fermilab.

Re: Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

#16

Well this is kind of funny and I mostly agree so TLDR: > "I’m afraid all of this sounds rather negative. Well. There’s a reason I left particle physics. Particle physics has degenerated into a paper production enterprise that is of virtually no relevance for societal progress or for progress in any other discipline of science. The only reason we still hear so much about it is that a lot of funding goes into it and so…

This part also stand out to me. It is unfortunate that a science communicator would express her research preference in such a way. It is true there were no breakthrough in ages in the particle physics (standard model works extremely well), it is true "paper production" has disproportionate influence on funding (applicable to academia in general), personally I'm excited about the recent deployment of Webb space telescope (new instruments are often good for scientific progress), and quantum computing is gobbledygook (theoretically there were some exciting algorithms, in practice I expect at best modest but nonetheless important [cryptography] applications--that we could duplicate in less elegant way in a classical way)

but for people unfamiliar with science it may sound like "defund LHC" (that would be unfortunate)

Re: Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

#17

What implications would this discovery have if the evidence for it was overwhelming? The article talks about super-symmetry, but couldn't it be also possible that we get out of it just some small revisions to the standard model?

My understanding is that the mass relates to particles that the w boson would have to interact with during collisions for it to have the mass that was measure. Our known model doesn't predict this which means there might be particles that we haven't found in our current model. Which is where the super symmetry comes from

Re: Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

#18
post #16

Well this is kind of funny and I mostly agree so TLDR: > "I’m afraid all of this sounds rather negative. Well. There’s a reason I left particle physics. Particle physics has degenerated into a paper production enterprise that is of virtually no relevance for societal progress or for progress in any other discipline of science. The only reason we still hear so much about it is that a lot of funding goes into it and so…

This part also stand out to me. It is unfortunate that a science communicator would express her research preference in such a way. It is true there were no breakthrough in ages in the particle physics (standard model works extremely well), it is true "paper production" has disproportionate influence on funding (applicable to academia in general), personally I'm excited about the recent deployment of Webb space telesc…

> It is unfortunate that a science communicator would express her research preference in such a way.

It is disappointing, and more unfortunately pretty much her personal brand now. There are, as she seems to have discovered, a lot of eyeballs to be had when you bash things that are poorly understood and already looked down upon for it.

She's a fine physicist and her points have merit, but she's smart enough to be perfectly aware that rather than improving the field through discussions with peers what she's doing here is just capitalizing on that distaste people have for their work and doing what she can to undermine them.

Re: Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

#19
post #11
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's reffering to "Nichts wird so heiß gegessen wie es gekocht wird", which translates to "Nothing get's eaten as hot as it get's cooked.".

Similarly in Dutch, de soep wordt niet zo heet gegeten als ze wordt opgediend. In this case it's soup that's not eaten as hot as it is served.

Is soup popular in Dutch cuisine? Honestly asking. Etymologies of aphorisms (especially multiple cultural ones) fascinate me.

Re: Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?

#20

What implications would this discovery have if the evidence for it was overwhelming? The article talks about super-symmetry, but couldn't it be also possible that we get out of it just some small revisions to the standard model?

Historically, that is usually what happens. This wouldn't be the first time the standard model was adjusted to fit observed phenomena, and it probably won't be the last.
Post reply on HN