What If Missing Particles and Stuff Cannot Be Found?

[wolram]

There are many papers in the arxiv that require some as yet to be found particle, for the said papers to be valid such as.

the axion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axion
the Graviton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton
the Higgs boson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

When i say valid i mean that, if the required particle is proven not to exist the paper is falsified.
This leads me to ask, where will theories lead if the existence of any, all of these particles are found not to exist?

But it is not just" missing particles", huge chunks of the mass of the universe are missing.

Dark energy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy
Dark matter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

So i ask the same question.

Although some theories do not require some of this missing
"stuff", these theories seem to be on the fringe of main stream science,
i am not sure how many if not all are falsifiable, but unless some of this missing ,"stuff" , is found then it seems nearly every paper on this subject is falsified.

 

[wolram]

http://cast.web.cern.ch/CAST/
The CAST experiment to find the AXION

http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/cern/ideas/higgs.html
The search for the HIGGS BOSON.

http://members.surfeu.at/dchakalov/LHC.html
The Large Haddron Collider, search for the HIGGs, And an insight to the
efforts and cost expended in the search.

 

[turbo]

This situation is pretty frustrating. If you work on a model that does not require these things, people who gladly believe in these things will publicly call you a crank and denigrate you. These same people will blithely keep believing in the mysterious entities, and when the best, most expensive telescopes, colliders, underground detectors, etc, in the world fail to detect them, they say "well, we have to wait until the NEXT big telescope/collider/detector comes on line, because entity X will be detected at a higher resolution/energy level/sensitivity than we predicted when we built the last instrument." This kind of behavior is more indicative of blind faith than logical inquiry.

 

[wolram]

By TURBO 1
This situation is pretty frustrating. If you work on a model that does not require these things, people who gladly believe in these things will publicly call you a crank and denigrate you. These same people will blithely keep believing in the mysterious entities, and when the best, most expensive telescopes, colliders, underground detectors, etc, in the world fail to detect them, they say "well, we have to wait until the NEXT big telescope/collider/detector comes on line, because entity X will be detected at a higher resolution/energy level/sensitivity than we predicted when we built the last instrument." This kind of behavior is more indicative of blind faith than logical inquiry.
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I can well imagine this frustration, especially if one has a falsifiable
theory on the back burner.
I am trying to look forward and guess if any of these particles, entities
will ever be "discovered", to date the search for same is akin to climbing
a greasy pole that gets ever taller.
But until the existence or lack of for this stuff is proven the arxives
is just a deposit of unfinished synphonies.

 

[wolram]

If String theory is to be included, then also Missing "entities" are
extra dimensions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

As of 2005, string theory is unverifiable. It is by no means the only theory currently being developed which suffers from this difficulty; any new development can pass through a stage of unverifiability before it becomes conclusively accepted or rejected. As Richard Feynman noted in The Character of Physical Law, the key test of a scientific theory is whether its consequences agree with the measurements we take in experiments. It does not matter who invented the theory, "what his name is", or even how aesthetically appealing the theory may be—"if it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong." (Of course, there are subsidiary issues: something may have gone wrong with the experiment, or perhaps the person computing the consequences of the theory made a mistake. All these possibilities must be checked, which may take a considerable time.) No version of string theory has yet made a prediction which differs from those made by other theories—at least, not in a way that an experiment could check. In this sense, string theory is still in a "larval stage": it possesses many features of mathematical interest, and it may yet become supremely important in our understanding of the Universe, but it requires further developments before it can become verifiable. These developments may be in the theory itself, such as new methods of performing calculations and deriving predictions, or they may be advances in experimental science, which make formerly ungraspable quantities measurable.

 

[wolram]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_radiation
Although it seems that Gravitational radiation is accepted as" real"
AFAIK it has not been detected to date.

 

[wolram]

http://tw.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0504241

a search for WIMP dark matter.

This is one of the prime candidates for DM, There are some results but
not very definitive.

 

[wolram]

I guess this seems a very negative thread, Main stream cosmology theories
auto, seems to be running without an engine or wheels, but that could
change at any time with one discovery, maybe some one out there has
a brighter take on the situation, i would love to hear good news

 

[wolram]

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/9506/9506171.pdf

A small scale structure of space time.
A bibiographical review.
this is dated Jan 96 so it is quite old, maybe some one has a more up to date
overview?

 

[owl3951]

The explosion of physics in the first half of the 20th was primarily based upon simple mechanics, mostly of motion--spin, collision, movement of a particle on the surface of a sphere, speed of light, etc. I, being old-fashioned, tend to get a little nervous about explaining the cosmos when we move far away from the simplest views and approaches. Dark energy and matter seem to become a fudge factor for what we can't yet explain. We lose sight of Occam's razor. I guess the only point of this post is that it reveals my bias towards the fundamentals, and the fact that I believe the "secrets" to be revealed will still come from exploration of basic mechanics.

 

[wolram]

The explosion of physics in the first half of the 20th was primarily based upon simple mechanics, mostly of motion--spin, collision, movement of a particle on the surface of a sphere, speed of light, etc. I, being old-fashioned, tend to get a little nervous about explaining the cosmos when we move far away from the simplest views and approaches. Dark energy and matter seem to become a fudge factor for what we can't yet explain. We lose sight of Occam's razor. I guess the only point of this post is that it reveals my bias towards the fundamentals, and the fact that I believe the "secrets" to be revealed will still come from exploration of basic mechanics.

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I guess the development of new maths opened up new possibilities, but
when all the calculations are done and they predict some thing is missing
and that thing can not be found it must at least suggest the possibility
that some thing is wrong.
It could be that it is to early to sound the alarm bells, but it seems that
there are to many triggers to keep them silent.

 

[wolram]

I have just found this in the reference library courtesy of MARCUS

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0503107
Understanding Our Universe: Current Status and Open Issues
T. Padmanabhan
To appear in "100 Years of Relativity - Space-time Structure: Einstein and Beyond", A.Ashtekar (Editor), World Scientific (Singapore, 2005); 30 pages; 4 figures

"Last couple of decades have been the golden age for cosmology. High quality data confirmed the broad paradigm of standard cosmology but have thrusted upon us a preposterous composition for the universe which defies any simple explanation, thereby posing probably the greatest challenge theoretical physics has ever faced. Several aspects of these developments are critically reviewed, concentrating on conceptual issues and open questions. [Topics discussed include: Cosmological Paradigm, Growth of structures in the universe, Inflation and generation of initial perturbations, Temperature anisotropies of the CMBR, Dark energy, Cosmological Constant, Deeper issues in cosmology.]"

 

[Starship]

Even if superstring theory is correct, it probably will never be proved in this millenia because we can't reach the energy scales needed. Only in some 10,000 years from now it will become possible.

 

[wolram]

Even if superstring theory is correct, it probably will never be proved in this millenia because we can't reach the energy scales needed. Only in some 10,000 years from now it will become possible.

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Hi Starship

I know very little about ST and how it can be tested,or if it can, other
than the few over views i have read, i do know that these extra dimensions
are being looked for by high energy experiments, but you say in 10,000 yrs
from now, is it so far beyond us?

 

[SpaceTiger]

There's also Pop III stars, cosmic strings (different from string theory), B-mode polarization of the CMB, the integrated sachs-wolfe effect, and many more, I'm sure. I'll keep thinking about it while I'm attending the talk that's starting now.

 

[wolram]

There's also Pop III stars, cosmic strings (different from string theory), B-mode polarization of the CMB, the integrated sachs-wolfe effect, and many more, I'm sure. I'll keep thinking about it while I'm attending the talk that's starting now.

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I am agog ,"about the talk that is that is starting now," i know about cosmic
strings, and there falsification, but what is this talk about?

 

[SpaceTiger]

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I am agog ,"about the talk that is that is starting now," i know about cosmic
strings, and there falsification, but what is this talk about?

I just meant I didn't have time to write a longer post cause I had to attend a talk. I'm a student, you know.

The talk was about period-finding in photometric data.

 

[wolram]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_string

A cosmic string is a hypothetical 1-dimensional topological defect in the fabric of spacetime. Cosmic strings are hypothesized to form when different regions of spacetime undergo phase changes, resulting in domain boundaries between the two regions when they meet. This is somewhat analogous to the boundaries that form between crystal grains in solidifying liquids, or the cracks that form when water freezes into ice.

Cosmic strings, if they exist, would be extremely thin with diameters on the same order as a proton. They would have immense density, however, and so would represent significant gravitational sources. A cosmic string 1.6 kilometers in length would exert more gravity than the Earth. Cosmic strings would form a network of loops in the early universe, and their gravity could have been responsible for the original clumping of matter into galactic superclusters.
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A bit about the cosmic strings, mentioned by Space Tiger.

 

[Chronos]

Theories are great. I love a great theory. However, theories that explain perceived anomalies, while ignoring all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are likely to be wrong. Especially the ones that suggest modern scientists are too idiotic, or brainwashed, to tell the difference.

I am still awaiting an example of a high redshift entity superimposed "directly in front" of a lower redshift object. A single example will suffice.

 

[wolram]

T Padmanabhan

"Last couple of decades have been the golden age for cosmology. High quality data confirmed the broad paradigm of standard cosmology but have thrusted upon us a preposterous composition for the universe which defies any simple explanation
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By CHRONOS
I am still awaiting an example of a high redshift entity superimposed "directly in front" of a lower redshift object. A single example will suffice.

I guess it is possible that the composition of the universe is not "preposterous,
may be it is the, "broad pardigram of standard cosmology", that is preposterous.

But i am certainly not qualified to make a judgment."

 

[wolram]

Originally Posted by SpaceTiger
There's also Pop III stars


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_III_stars

Population III stars
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Population III stars are a hypothetical population of extremely massive stars that are believed to have been formed in the early universe. They have not been observed directly, but are thought to be components of faint blue galaxies. Their existence is necessary to account for the fact that heavy elements, which could not have been created in the Big Bang, are observed in quasar spectra as well as the existence of faint blue galaxies. It is believed that these stars triggered a period of reionization.

Current theory is divided on whether the first stars were very massive or not. One theory, which seems to be borne out by computer models of stellar evolution, is that with no heavy elements from the Big Bang, it was easy to form stars much more massive than the ones visible today. Typical masses for population III stars are believed to be about several hundred solar masses, which is much larger than current stars. This also conveniently explains why there have been no low-mass stars with zero metalicity observed. Modifications to this theory have shown that stars this massive may not in fact be able to form, and will have roughly 100 solar masses instead. Confirmation of these theories awaits the advent of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

The greatest mass of star which may form today is about 110 solar masses. Any attempt to form a star greater than this results in the resulting protostar blowing itself apart during the initial ignition of nuclear reactions. Without enough carbon, oxygen and nitrogen in the core, however, the CNO cycle could not begin and the star would not go nuclear with such enthusiasm. Direct fusion through the proton-proton chain, however, does not proceed quickly enough to produce the copious amounts of energy such a star would need to support its immense bulk. The end result would be the star collapsing into a black hole without ever actually shining properly. These stars, if through new physics we do not yet know much about, were able to form properly then their lifespan would be extremely short, less than one million years certainly. As they can no longer form today, observing one would require us to look to the very edges of the observable universe. Seeing this distance while still being able to resolve a star could prove difficult even for the James Webb Space Teles

cope.

 

[wolram]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Planckian_problem

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In black hole physics and inflationary cosmology, the trans-Planckian problem refers to the appearance of quantities beyond the Planck scale, which raise doubts on the physical validity of some results in these two areas, since one expects the physical laws to suffer radical modifications beyond the Planck scale.

In black hole physics, the original derivation of Hawking radiation involved field modes whose frequencies near the black hole horizon have arbitrarily high frequencies -- in particular, higher than the inverse Planck time, although these do not appear in the final results. A number of different alternative derivations have been proposed in order to overcome this problem.

The trans-Planckian problem can be conveniently considered in the framework of sonic black holes, condensed matter systems which can be described in a similar way as real black holes. In these systems, the analogue of the Planck scale is the interatomic scale, where the continuum description loses its validity. One can study whether in these systems the analogous process to Hawking radiation still occurs despite the short-scale cutoff represented by the interatomic distance.

The trans-Planckian problem also appears in inflationary cosmology. The cosmological scales that we nowadays observe correspond to length scales smaller than the Planck length at the onset of inflation.

 

[turbo]

Theories are great. I love a great theory. However, theories that explain perceived anomalies, while ignoring all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are likely to be wrong. Especially the ones that suggest modern scientists are too idiotic, or brainwashed, to tell the difference.

I am still awaiting an example of a high redshift entity superimposed "directly in front" of a lower redshift object. A single example will suffice.

Here you go.

http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?id=oai:arXiv.org:astro-ph/0409215

You rejected this example out-of-hand earlier, saying that it wasn't directly superimposed over the nucleus of the galaxy. Of course, that would make it almost impossible to detect, and if we did detect it, you would fall back on the "lensing" argument. I can forsee no observation that will cause you to seriously consider the possibility that some objects can have intrinsic redshifts. You have too much invested in calling Arp and the Burbidges names and ridiculing their work.

Go to these SLAC lectures and listen to the Rocky Kolb lectures. Not every physicist is convinced that the standard model is viable.

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/C0307282/lecture_program.html

Observational astronomers (and Arp is one of the best) and experimentalists like Kolb seem to be willing to ask "why?" when observation doesn't match theory, while cosmologists seem content to tweak the theory to match observation, adding complications all the way. This is not the way science is supposed to work.

 

[wolram]

turbo-1

People reading this thread may not know your point, may be a few words
would help.

 

[wolram]

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0501/0501090.pdf

I do not want this thread to turn into a redshift debate, but i thought
the works of H ARP and his alternate views should come under the
title, missing stuff.

 

[ohwilleke]

The implicit question wolram raises flows from a folk theorem of the history of science. In essence the folk theorem says that if you've got a huge mess of stuff that is unexplained phenemena under existing theories that you may be on the verge of having an insight that makes sense of most of them.

Analogous times in the history of science were the period in QM research when we had a "particle zoo" before QCD and the standard model showed that a few components could be assembled to make up the observed particles, the period of confusion over results in the first few years of teh 1900s before special relativity and general relativity were devised, and Ptylometic astronomy, which tried to explain planetary orbits around the Earth before Kepler and Galieo came along, and ultimately, before Newton put the icing on the cake explaining it all with a simple, elegant theory of F=GM/R^2 from which Kepler's laws could be derived.

 

[turbo]

turbo-1

People reading this thread may not know your point, may be a few words
would help.

I don't want to hijack your thread, wolram. You've done a good job pointing out "missing things" that are required to keep the standard model afloat, and I'd like to see some informed responses to these problems.

If I explained why I think that polarization of the vacuum fields (ZPE) can resolve questions critical to the reconciliation of GR with quantum theory and allow a quantum dynamical model of gravitation to be formulated, I would draw a heck of a lot more heat than light to this thread and your efforts would have been in vain.

 

[wolram]

The implicit question wolram raises flows from a folk theorem of the history of science. In essence the folk theorem says that if you've got a huge mess of stuff that is unexplained phenemena under existing theories that you may be on the verge of having an insight that makes sense of most of them.

Analogous times in the history of science were the period in QM research when we had a "particle zoo" before QCD and the standard model showed that a few components could be assembled to make up the observed particles, the period of confusion over results in the first few years of teh 1900s before special relativity and general relativity were devised, and Ptylometic astronomy, which tried to explain planetary orbits around the Earth before Kepler and Galieo came along, and ultimately, before Newton put the icing on the cake explaining it all with a simple, elegant theory of F=GM/R^2 from which Kepler's laws could be derived.

I say throw all of them out and let's have a fresh start, we have been led
into a maze of ambiguity that leeds to insanity, any road one takes in this
science leads to a never ending paradox, if we blindly follow this science
we will be lost for ever.

 

[wolram]

I don't want to hijack your thread, wolram. You've done a good job pointing out "missing things" that are required to keep the standard model afloat, and I'd like to see some informed responses to these problems.

If I explained why I think that polarization of the vacuum fields (ZPE) can resolve questions critical to the reconciliation of GR with quantum theory and allow a quantum dynamical model of gravitation to be formulated, I would draw a heck of a lot more heat than light to this thread and your efforts would have been in vain.

Just keep to your principles Turbo-1 , what i think is immaterial to the scientific
community, but at least i have the freedom to think.

 

[Chronos]

Here is the latest entry on the search for the unseen:
Dark Matter Dynamics and Indirect Detection
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0504422

Here is another interesting recent entry:
Possible Effects of Dark Energy on the Detection of Dark Matter Particles
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0503120

 

[wolram]

Thanks for the links CHRONOS


Here are some of the particles that are hypothosised.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutralino

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In particle physics, the neutralino is a hypothetical particle and part of the doubling of the menagerie of particles predicted by supersymmetric theories.

Since the superpartners of the Z boson (zino), the photon (photino) and the neutral higgs (higgsino) have the same quantum numbers, they mix to form a particle called simply the neutralino. Virtually undetectable, it participates only in weak and gravitational interactions. Of the weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs) under consideration, the neutralino, as the lightest electrically neutral supersymmetric particle (at 30-5000 proton masses), is the leading candidate for cold dark matter.

Particles in Physics - Elementary particles

Fermions : Quarks | Leptons
Gauge bosons : Photon | W+, W- and Z0 bosons | Gluons
Not yet observed:
Higgs boson | Graviton
Supersymmetric Partners : Neutralinos | Charginos | Gravitino | Gluinos | Squarks | Sleptons

 

[wolram]

The cosmological constant problem



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant

A major outstanding problem is that most quantum field theories predict a huge cosmological constant from the energy of the quantum vacuum. This would need to be canceled almost, but not exactly, by an equally large term of the opposite sign. Some supersymmetric theories require a cosmological constant that is exactly zero, which does not help. This is the cosmological constant problem, the worst problem of fine-tuning in physics: there is no known natural way to derive the infinitesimal cosmological constant observed in cosmology from particle physics. Some physicists, such as Steven Weinberg, think the delicate balance of quantum vacuum energy is best explained by the anthropic principle.

 

[wolram]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

* Weak anthropic principle (WAP): "The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable but they take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life can evolve and by the requirements that the Universe be old enough for it to have already done so."
* Strong anthropic principle (SAP): "The Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history."
* Final anthropic principle (FAP): "Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out."
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If you resort to this way of thinking you have given up on science.

 

[wolram]

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0407/0407213.pdf

Supersymmetry Fails__________

Lee Smolin

Pages 8-9

 

[ohwilleke]

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0407/0407213.pdf

Supersymmetry Fails__________

Lee Smolin

Pages 8-9

On that count, I definitely do agree with Dr. Smolin.