Something is wrong in the state of QED - history of physics • Hacker News Board

Post by spekcular » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

eln1 wrote: post #10

spekcular wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an outdated, pre-1970s view of renomralization. Thanks to work of Wilson (1982 Nobel prize) and others on the renormalization group, we have a much better understanding. One good article that explains this shift (in the context of a debate in the philosophy of physics) is here: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/8890/ .

Thanks, I will read, but generally beside e.g. the gravity problem, with increased accuracy there appear inaccuracies all over the standard model, so maybe it is worth revisiting QED? Are you saying the g-factor inaccuracies are not a problem? https://phys.org/news/2022-05-standard-particle-physics-brok...

The discrepancy in the article you linked is completely unrelated to how well we conceptually understand renormalization (which is broadly applicable to many quantum field theories, not just the standard model). It could be the case that the standard model is wrong, but my claim would still stand.

Post by spekcular » Thu, May 19, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #16

oefrha wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who’s worked for the CMS experiment of LHC, I can assure you QED is fucking well tested in reality and isn’t “based on a single experimental value”, so the paper is indeed nonsense. It isn’t the answer to everything because the electromagnetic force isn’t the only fundamental interaction and we don’t have a theory of everything. But QED explains one of the fundamental interactions far better than the paper…

Thanks for your answer. I think the linked article agrees with you that QED is well tested. Their point (IMO) is that there is one free parameter in QED that was not highlighted as such. There is nothing wrong in free parameters, we know very little of the universe. As far I know there are free parameters in the standard model, but it is clearly stated as such so there is no problem. https://physics.stackexchange.com…

The electron's magnetic moment is not a free parameter that must be determined experimentally. It can be computed from other parameters, as done for example here: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0406325.

Something is wrong in the state of QED - history of physics

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