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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

#161

Post by ordu »

cyberax wrote: post #64
ordu wrote: post #49

Hmm... The Reality changed itself when guys in Siberia changed the sensor? Some years ago I was playing with the idea that the Reality might invent new laws when people look for them, and doesn't bother with laws when no one observes them. It would be in the style of Copenhagen interpretation, though even with regard to it, the idea seems too weird to be true. But now we have an experimental evidence. In any case it…

> Some years ago I was playing with the idea that the Reality might invent new laws when people look for them, and doesn't bother with laws when no one observes them There are several books from Greg Egan with this idea in mind: Permutation City and Distress. The latter one is exactly about this idea.

Wow, thank you. I'd love to learn what others are capable to come up with starting with these premises.

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

#162

Post by mr_toad »

i_no_can_eat wrote: post #139
CuriouslyC wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Higgs and black holes are quite different. We've basically observed Higgs according to how we've defined them, while we've only observed phenomena consistent with black holes as we hypothesize them. Singularities are the result of theories based on (ironically named) real numbers, it's entirely possible that what we call black holes are really dark stars formed from exotic matter that can only exist in hyper-extr…

The difference is that we have theorerically sound formation scenarious for black holes under very broad conditions, and we have absolutely no model for a formation scenario of such an exotic dark star.

Observations keep poking holes in those hypotheses (I’m not sure they even count as theories). We keep finding black holes with anomalous masses, or black holes that formed too early.

Part of the problem is that we have very little observational data. But another big problem is that our best ideas, based on general relativity are known to be incompatible with quantum mechanics.

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

#163

Post by mr_toad »

podocarp wrote: post #103
exmadscientist wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in 1925 most theoretical physicists decided that we [are done] No. Just... no. Even advancing that fifty years to 1975, the Standard Model reigns not because people want it to reign, but because no one can knock it off its throne. There is no better idea that can explain more than the Standard Model can. It's not a conspiracy. (I did used to joke with my students that progress in physics stopped around 1975, which…

From my understanding of the parent I think he's not saying that nothing is trying to replace the standard model etc. But instead nobody is trying to explain the standard model (or whatever). For example, wavefunction collapse. You can see the wikipedia page for all its interpretations. There's no such page for Newtonian dynamics (even though gravity is also spooky action at a distance) and classical EM (you're telli…

> Quantum experiments you're always looking at some medium that detects or measures or whatever the original interaction. So you're only interrogating the detector, not the original particles or interaction.

Exactly, waveform collapse is a philosophical question, it’s not an actual problem for the theory.

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

#164

Post by panda-giddiness »

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…

Precision results are usually blinded, so it's not as if scientists can just rejigger the calculation if it's giving an implausible result; once the result has been unblinded, the calculation is finished. The physicists working on these experiments are therefore extremely motivated to quantify all potentially non-negligible sources of systemic error beforehand.

That said, the issue in this case is almost certainly systemic, not new physics. But I don't think you should consider the misfortune of the data-driven calculation typical; rather, it's notable specifically because of the discrepancies. Most calculations do not have such large disagreements. The lattice results, in contrast to those from the data-driven approach, all line up very nicely.

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

#166

Post by jeremyjh »

jambalaya8 wrote: post #146
jeremyjh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many observations that fit the theory at this point, that we know there is a supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy just as well as we knew the earth orbited the sun before the voyager flight.

Still remembering how many people bought into m-branes and p-branes.

Black holes are simply a consequence of GR, which has made more successful predictions than just about any physical theory. Did M-branes make any successful predictions?

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

#167

Post by jeremyjh »

jambalaya8 wrote: post #145
jeremyjh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many observations that fit the theory at this point, that we know there is a supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy just as well as we knew the earth orbited the sun before the voyager flight.

Well, not really. We can hypothesize there is certainly something _very_weird_ going on in the center, and we kinda know weird things happen at super-densities, and we can conjecture based on our understandings of things like gravity and celestial collapses, but any new black holes or even ones we know of that might have occured won't be in our timeframe, and we can never actually witness one even if it were (short o…

[dead]

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

#168

Post by kps »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #159
podocarp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Hence I feel heliocentrism is simply an observable fact. It isn't. You can easily define a coordinate system for the universe in which the earth is the center. Heliocentrism just makes some approximate computations easier because the sun is so heavy. Thus in heliocentrism, the orbits of the planets are approximately ellipses (near-circles) around the sun, while in a geocentric model, the orbits have more complicate…

>both the sun and the planet move around a common center which is near to the sun.

Within the sun, with one exception.

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

#169

Post by pmontra »

qsera wrote: post #136
jibal wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one celebrates the mistakes ... what an absurd strawman (qsera's). Rather we celebrate the scientific method that finds and corrects mistakes, as you say.

Your "scientific method" can only correct the "mistakes" as long as economics allows it. A wrong belief held "scientifically" will go on and on if there is sufficient economic incentives to make it go on....And it is the "true believers" of science that provides such economic incentives..! So much for celebration! Sure this "Muon mystery" that no one cares about financially could be corrected without much effort. May…

I don't understand this argument. Even ancient Greek philosophers could do their time's science because their economy allowed them to have time to think and food to eat and didn't have to go working in the fields. And they passed on their fair share of wrong beliefs that have been debunked only in the last few centuries.

It's in the nature of being humans. Or God created the universe and one is God and knows exactly how everything works. No wrong beliefs but please teach us.

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

#170

Post by exmadscientist »

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…

> the people solving the problems have conflicting interests as they are paid hourly

LOL. No, no they are not. There's a lot of reasons I'm out of that game, and this is one of them. $1400 a month (2010 dollars), unlimited working hours, unlimited international travel. Sound fun? No?

> bonuses

I think I got a $5 Starbucks gift card once. I guess you could count the free leftover pizza as a "bonus"?

To address the heart of your argument, Science is not structured like software engineering, and if you're thinking it is, you're making a lot of mistakes. Scientists often do well as software engineers, should they change careers [waves hand!]; economics aside, software engineers very rarely make good scientists. The mentality is simply different.

As regards complexity management and dishonesty; yes, straight-up dishonesty does occur sometimes. We are all human, after all. But science is done in the physical world, and unlike software or mathematics, the physical world does not admit unlimited complexity. So things must be divided up in a manageable way right from the very beginning. On a big experiment, if your little "box" of responsibility does not work, you can and will be replaced. I have seen it done. Even to or by me. (If involved, I have historically been the one doing the replacing; but I've been on the other end, too.) And you will be cross-checked by independent people, if it is critical: I have seen this too. You had better get it right.

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