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New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

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Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#71

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

If aliens don't like us, then why wouldn't they just destroy us, rather than troll our physicists and mess with the results? Why would they specifically mess with the particle accelarators at this point? Why not with earlier physics?

I troll people I don't like all the time

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#73
post #54

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

It’s a great book, but it suffers from the same old issue. A civilization that is capable of packing a robot into particle by manipulating higher dimensions doesn’t need to take our planet. They could terraform Mars or any other planet they want.

Why not just for fun? Like riding horses even though you have a car.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#74
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can such tetraquarks form semi stable macroscopic structures like atoms? For example, if they aren't completely neutral, a group of them would be able to maybe attract an electron and become a quasiatom of some sort.

The stable-to-strong-decay species they're talking about, bb anti-u anti-d, would have a charge of (-1 -1 -2 -1)/3 = -5/3 times the electron charge. I guess its antiparticle would be positive, so maybe an electron could hang around for a while. I don't know how long that tetraquark is expected to live, though.

The charge would actually be (-2 + 1 - 1 - 1)/3 = -1 of a proton's charge. There isn't any physically viable combination of quarks that would produce a non-integer charge. The article mentions the bb tetraquark can only decay through the weak force, but I'm not sure how long it'd live either.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#75

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

In the books, the Sophons got in the way of the accelerated particle beam but somehow avoided being destroyed themselves. They wouldn't have allowed a new particle to be discovered.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#76

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

You spoiled it for me, I am on 1/4 of the first book :S

Oh blood, I just got this book. Is this a huge spoiler?

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#77
post #54

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

It’s a great book, but it suffers from the same old issue. A civilization that is capable of packing a robot into particle by manipulating higher dimensions doesn’t need to take our planet. They could terraform Mars or any other planet they want.

Spoiler: It took them so long to get to earth that they were concerned about humans becoming a formidable opponent in the meantime. Had human advancement not been halted humans would have much faster access to Mars than they would.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#78

I recently finished The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, which explore the concept of aliens using their super advanced technology to mess with the results of Earth's particle accelerators, thereby stopping humanity's ability to develop technology based on new physics. Is this discovery exciting? Or are we living in The Three-Body Problem?

You spoiled it for me, I am on 1/4 of the first book :S

Same. It's been on my list, but this is more detail than I wanted to see.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#79
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spoiled it for me, I am on 1/4 of the first book :S

Oh blood, I just got this book. Is this a huge spoiler?

Don't worry, I'll just use a sophon to revert your memory.

Re: New exotic matter particle, a tetraquark, discovered at CERN

#80
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a great book, but it suffers from the same old issue. A civilization that is capable of packing a robot into particle by manipulating higher dimensions doesn’t need to take our planet. They could terraform Mars or any other planet they want.

Why not just for fun? Like riding horses even though you have a car.

Or trolling.
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