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CERN experiment discovers five new particles

stfc.ac.uk

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Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#101

Post by whyever »

lngnmn wrote: post #90
whyever wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These tables are editorialized by the Particle Data Group, they summarize and distill the empirical evidence of thousands of high-energy physics experiments. Not every experiment is replicated, but some are, hence the different ratings of how sure the editors are the particles exist. From their website: "In the 2014 Review, the listings include 3,283 new measurements from 899 papers, in addition to 32,000 measurement…

> probability, statistics, accelerators and detectors Surely, there could not be any error here. Nothing socially constructed. Isn't it already borders nonsense that in the universe which is sustained by a couple of fundamental conservation laws there supposed to be hundreds of elementary (presumably fundamental) particles which emerge and disintegrate in time, which is not even an intrinsic property of "more real" t…

> Surely, there could not be any error here. Nothing socially constructed.

There could be. Physicists have been trying very hard for the last 40 years to find something the standard model cannot explain, without success. Some experimentalists are actually disappointed about this.

> Isn't it already borders nonsense that in the universe which is sustained by a couple of fundamental conservation laws there supposed to be hundreds of elementary (presumably fundamental) particles which emerge and disintegrate in time, which is not even an intrinsic property of "more real" things like photons.

You are confused. The standard model has 17 elementary particles (+ anti particles). There are a lot of composite particles, like the ones the article talks about. Not sure what you mean about decays, but photons are a special case, because they move at the speed of light. Other elementary particles, like the heavier quarks, can and do decay.

Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#103

Post by macintux »

lngnmn wrote: post #86
krastanov wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that science is done with models and instruments I am confused what answer you expect. Those models and instruments are validated in thousands of different experiments, at different energy and length scales, from astronomical observations to man-made particle accelerators. Each of the experiments and observations testing slightly different part of the theory, all of them mostly in agreement. It is the rare disa…

Why, there are way too many well-documented instances of socially constructed and socially accepted bullshit in the history of mankind. Actually, it is much difficult task to find instances of accurate approximations to the truth. There has been times when Hegelian "logic" has been accepted, published by Oxford University press, peer-reviewed, highly praised and successfully taught to students. I have read parts of E…

Skimming through your comment history it's obvious you have a bone to pick with modern physics. Is there some discrete point in history where you think we started diverging from falsifiable experiments so we can perhaps compare before and after?

Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#104

Post by komali2 »

Sciencehaters wrote: post #100
dang wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please not provoke and feed flamewars on HN? I'm sure there's a good discussion to be had about science funding but this is not the way. On HN, if you have a substantive point to make, please make it thoughtfully, and if you don't then please don't post. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13922258 and marked it off-topic.

Can you stop doing everything you can to make people hate science. Stop being elitist maybe?

Did you for real make a new account to complain about your thread being moved?

Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#105

Post by sqeaky »

lngnmn wrote: post #86
krastanov wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that science is done with models and instruments I am confused what answer you expect. Those models and instruments are validated in thousands of different experiments, at different energy and length scales, from astronomical observations to man-made particle accelerators. Each of the experiments and observations testing slightly different part of the theory, all of them mostly in agreement. It is the rare disa…

Why, there are way too many well-documented instances of socially constructed and socially accepted bullshit in the history of mankind. Actually, it is much difficult task to find instances of accurate approximations to the truth. There has been times when Hegelian "logic" has been accepted, published by Oxford University press, peer-reviewed, highly praised and successfully taught to students. I have read parts of E…

You are barking up the wrong tree.

There is plenty of stuff in science that is imperfect and deeply flawed. Look at all the poorly reproduced studies on various nutrition and health products, for example. The Standard model is not part of that weak set.

The way to oppose social construction is increased rigor and experimentation. The Standard Model has some of the highest rigor and largest amount of experiments backing it.

Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#106

Post by dogecoinbase »

lngnmn wrote: post #86
krastanov wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that science is done with models and instruments I am confused what answer you expect. Those models and instruments are validated in thousands of different experiments, at different energy and length scales, from astronomical observations to man-made particle accelerators. Each of the experiments and observations testing slightly different part of the theory, all of them mostly in agreement. It is the rare disa…

Why, there are way too many well-documented instances of socially constructed and socially accepted bullshit in the history of mankind. Actually, it is much difficult task to find instances of accurate approximations to the truth. There has been times when Hegelian "logic" has been accepted, published by Oxford University press, peer-reviewed, highly praised and successfully taught to students. I have read parts of E…

My question is - what is a single falsifiable experiment...

Can you describe how such an experiment might be constructed?

Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#107

Post by dkural »

danbruc wrote: post #96
wfunction wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard the term "matter field"... Is that a thing?

They are properly called fermionic fields [1] as opposed to bosonic fields. I also want to note that the »super simple overview of Quantum Field Theory & Particle Physics« really is super simple. As far as I can tell - I am not a physicist - none of the statements is actually correct. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermionic_field

Matter fields are indeed a real thing. a Google Books search will reveal hundreds of books etc. They're also called fermionic field.

Here's the full range of elementary particles, all 19 of them, in the Standard Model:

Fermions:

- Leptons (6) (electrons, neutrinos etc.)

- Quarks (6) (protons and neutrons are made of this)

Bosons:

- Gauge Bosons (aka Force Carriers) (4)

- Higgs Boson (gives mass to stuff) (1)

What classical physics called force fields (i.e. Maxwell's equations), now we call them gauge bosons.

Electromagnetism : Photon

Strong Force: Gluon

Weak Force: W&Z boson

Gravity: No one knows!

One extra boson that gives everything mass - the higgs.

Force fields are quantized (see re: Photoelectric effect & Einstein's paper in 1905, winning a nobel).

Matter fields aka fermionic fields are also quantized, which makes these fields behave as if they are composed of discrete states -- giving raise to the particles & discrete states.

Indeed, in the Wikipedia article you link to, the first sentence reads: "fermionic field is a quantum field whose quanta are fermions".

ie: matter/fermionic fields are quantum fields, whose quanta are fermions, i.e. electrons, protons.

So, actually, all my statements are correct. Do you care to give a concrete example as to which one is not correct?

Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#108

Post by iamconfused »

nonbel wrote: post #10
binarymax wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a prediction is just an assumption (theory), and it can become a house of cards when basing future science on that assumption. Observation is proof, so future science can use that proof without worry.

Can you clarify? In my mind "prediction" != "assumption" != "theory" and "observation" != "proof" Basically I seem to disagree with everything you wrote.

This is my understanding.

You start with a hypothesis with no assumption of truth. Using that hypothesis you make a prediction and then use observation to test your prediction. During your observation you may find proof that your prediction was correct, which in turn provides support for your hypothesis. Once sufficient evidence is found for a hypothesis, it becomes a theory.

Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#109

Post by tbrownaw »

wfunction wrote: post #94
dkural wrote: post #69

Just to give a bit more context: * These are not elementary particles. * It was predicted for a long time that these composite particles should exist. So it is not "new" in the sense that it was unexpected, but we finally have the resolution (energy, luminosity etc.) to detect these with statistical significance. * These belong to the same class as protons and neutrons - these are hadrons made with multiple quarks. H…

I've never heard the term "matter field"... Is that a thing?

I assume you've heard of particle/wave duality, or how really tiny things are never exactly in only one place.

There are a set of wave equations that describe how this works.

There are also two kinds of things. Some things can go thru eachother, like photons. Other things bounce off eachother, like neutrons (and other things considered matter).

The equations for the kind of things that bounce off eachother would be a matter field.

Re: CERN experiment discovers five new particles

#110

Post by iamconfused »

herpdorplarp wrote: post #42
nonbel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify? In my mind "prediction" != "assumption" != "theory" and "observation" != "proof" Basically I seem to disagree with everything you wrote.

By assuming validity of a theory you can make predictions. Observations provide evidence in support of this.

A theory comes later. You start off with a hypothesis. You don't make any assumptions of validity.
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