Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle • Hacker News Board

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#131

Post by cwmma » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #53

cwmma wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not, they have a pretty good handle on why atoms decay, to the point they can predict some to be radioactive before it's actually observed to be (like Bismuth-209). Also even if something is REALLY REALLY long lasting, you can still check for the halflife by observing enough of it, they've been able to rule out proton halflives under 10^34 years (the universe is on the order of 10^10 years old) but by observ…

> they have a pretty good handle on why atoms decay Oh, they actually don't. Radioactive decay, AFAIK, is still an open physics mystery. We know it happens, we don't know why, what causes it, or if there even is a cause. We can predict factors that make it more likely. > to the point they can predict some to be radioactive before it's actually observed to be (like Bismuth-209). Right, but Xenon 124 wasn't predicted t…

I don't actually think Xenon-124 being radioactive was a surprise. All the publicity related to observing the decay for the first time is phrased around 'hey we observed something that's very rare' not 'hey this thing happened we didn't expect to happen'.

Which seems to point even more towards, scientists have a pretty good handle on which ones are radioactive.

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#132

Post by jesse_dot_id » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #118

jesse_dot_id wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably never. We've only mapped like 29% of the seafloor, actually explored like %5 of it, and we've barely pierced the earth's crust.

I never understood why people cite this as a demonstration for how little we humans understand about our world. The reason we haven't mapped the seafloor is because why would we? It's like arguing we know nothing about biology because we've only sequenced the genome of a fraction of humans or something. It's not that we can't do it, the reason we haven't done it is because there's no good compelling reason to do it.…

I cite it because we're barely scratching the surface of our own world, which is one of a potentially infinite number of worlds that is encapsulated by the word "everything."

Why would we map the seafloor is an insane question that immediately invalidates all other opinions that you may have, unfortunately. The human embodiment of that meme with the pickaxe guy walking away from a diamond strike if only he had swung once more.

It's so hubristic to assume that our generation is the one that will discover the answers to everything.

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#133

Post by physicsdude » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

antonvs wrote: post #90

SaberTail wrote: post #5

I read their preprint[1] and they did a thorough job. They investigated a number of the things I'd suspect if I were looking for mis-reconstructed events or weird backgrounds. So it's certainly interesting! That said, particle physics history is full of 3 sigma particle "discoveries" that disappeared with more data. They're collecting more, so hopefully we'll learn more in a few more years. [1] https://lz.lbl.gov/wp-…

The mainstream TV news report that I saw about this ended with a comment about how we should continue to fund this detector. Made me wonder if the nature of this release involved forces other than purely scientific ones. Apparently funding has already been cut for the successor to the LUX-ZEPLIN detector.

Particle physics is not a particularly large community. There is a hand-countable number of experiments like this, and the folks working on each of them know the folks working on each of the others. The collaborations executing each experiment are comprised of scientists employed by multiple independent institutions, both public and private, typically across national borders. Internally, the collaborations have a democratic structure with individual researchers acting as institutional representatives serving in what is essentially a parliamentary structure to make decisions. The software to determine results is always public within the collaboration and reviewed well in advance of making any truly public disclosure like this.

Culturally, an attempt to intentionally distort or misrepresent data to suggest a result like this would not be tolerated. You can imagine a bad actor writing a single-author paper with fakery, but a collaboration at this level is inherently critical of itself and everyone holds each other accountable.

But mistakes do happen. Exciting results or hints of exciting results can appear due to well-intentioned researchers making convenient mistakes which get glossed over for psychological reasons and then add up to appear as something significant. You can read about "blinding" (which is mentioned in the paper) to get a feel for the techniques researchers employ to not only guard against fabricating results intentionally, but even unintentionally.

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#134

Post by bronlund » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

Another particle! Who would have guessed %]

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#135

Post by lirolero » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:00 PM UTC

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #129

lirolero wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i have zero knowledge of physics > My intuition > I really assume hmmmm

I used these phrases to make sure nobody takes it too serious, as it's only my intuition, as written.

hmmm

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#136

Post by IAmBroom » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #60

matthewdgreen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had the email address of every researcher in my field, I would never send a mass email to them describing my latest goofy idea. I would, however, send my latest goofy idea to a conference with those same reviewers (if I felt it was technically appropriate and correct.)

I mean we use to have newsgroups which basically implemented this. Which of course is the point: it is in fact quite similar to a mailing list, just with some extra protocol surounding it to make it manageable. So the attempted snark about it up thread is stupid.

Still inaccurate.

A paper has a (semi-formal) structure, including TITLE, AUTHORS, and the all-important ABSTRACT.

Email guarantees none of those.

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#137

Post by IAmBroom » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

dd8601fn wrote: post #50

WarmWash wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the FTL neutrinos too, where the scientist where pretty much "hey, something is wrong, can you help us figure it out?" and the general public were the ones screaming "OMG! Physics is dead!" Then when it comes out as measurement error, the public is all "Damn these scientists are all hype machine clowns..."

I’m fine with that. Put it at the feet of pop science blogging. I’m less fine with the time and resources spent on mouse models. They already know you’d get the same utility from a magic 8 ball, but they do it anyway.

Your claim seems to be that testing medicines in animals is useless, because "everyone knows it's not going to work".

Congratulations. You've just reduced all of medical science to the Tuskegee STD experiment.

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#138

Post by IAmBroom » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC

physicsdude wrote: post #133

antonvs wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mainstream TV news report that I saw about this ended with a comment about how we should continue to fund this detector. Made me wonder if the nature of this release involved forces other than purely scientific ones. Apparently funding has already been cut for the successor to the LUX-ZEPLIN detector.

Particle physics is not a particularly large community. There is a hand-countable number of experiments like this, and the folks working on each of them know the folks working on each of the others. The collaborations executing each experiment are comprised of scientists employed by multiple independent institutions, both public and private, typically across national borders. Internally, the collaborations have a dem…

The small pool also lends itself to a lack of unbiased reviewers. If everyone in the community is more-or-less tied to the research, who can best objectively test it, from a blinded POV?

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#139

Post by ajkjk » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #110

ajkjk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that people's findings should be communicated by email? that their email chains are what should go into the permanent record and be cited and printed out and included in journals and such? would you include all the quoted text in the reply-alls, or is that too much?

Have you never seen a 'personal correspondence' reference?

the fact that they are sometimes communicated by email doesn't mean that the best way to communicate them is by email. Personal correspondence references are specifically terrible as references since you can't go read them...

Re: Biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle

#140

Post by kypro » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 7:33 PM UTC

jesse_dot_id wrote: post #132

kypro wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why people cite this as a demonstration for how little we humans understand about our world. The reason we haven't mapped the seafloor is because why would we? It's like arguing we know nothing about biology because we've only sequenced the genome of a fraction of humans or something. It's not that we can't do it, the reason we haven't done it is because there's no good compelling reason to do it.…

I cite it because we're barely scratching the surface of our own world, which is one of a potentially infinite number of worlds that is encapsulated by the word "everything." Why would we map the seafloor is an insane question that immediately invalidates all other opinions that you may have, unfortunately. The human embodiment of that meme with the pickaxe guy walking away from a diamond strike if only he had swung…

> I cite it because we're barely scratching the surface of our own world, which is one of a potentially infinite number of worlds that is encapsulated by the word "everything."

I think maybe I was assuming the parent was referring specifically to physics discoveries while you were assuming that they were asking more broadly about how many years until we've discovered everything discoverable?

Unless you are actually arguing there's likely lots of physics discoveries to be made because humans have only photographed a fraction of trees on the earth, or mapped a fraction of the seafloor, or sequenced only a fraction of the genomes of known species?