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Thanks to BBC for making it readable for a layman
link to the article: https://www.bbc.com/news/56643677
link to the article: https://www.bbc.com/news/56643677
Media aside what is it?phinds said:And "the media" will continue to misunderstand and/or sensationalize science.
Borek said:"It has the potential to turn physics on its head."
Sigh, how I hate media. No, the everydays physics will not change at all. We will extend our description and understanding of minute details. Birds will still fly, cars will still drive, TVs will be still using the same old physics to transmit the same old dang.
phinds said:And "the media" will continue to misunderstand and/or sensationalize science.
Absolutely no argument there. The issue is that people THINK they are reading actual science and then they come here and we have to disabuse them of their "knowledge". This thread is a very minor example of that.etotheipi said:... at the end of the day if you want to make the average person excited about science then popular expositions play an important role
I'll bet they did. Funding is not based on media reports and yes scientists do try to jazz up things in funding applications but they do not put out misleading stories because it makes them look foolish. For that kind of thing the media has Kaku and others.david2 said:How else to get funds from legislators? You have to make it spicy. I bet the media did not come to this conclusion by themselves.
A fifth fundamental force would be pretty significant, if true.Borek said:"It has the potential to turn physics on its head."
Sigh, how I hate media. No, the everydays physics will not change at all.
Alternative theory
Indeed, if a group of theorists going by the name of the Budapest-Marseille-Wuppertal Collaboration is correct, there may be no disparity between experiment and theory at all. In a new study in Nature, it shows how lattice-QCD simulations can boost the contribution of known virtual hadrons so that the predicted value of the muon’s anomalous moment gets much closer to the experimental ones. Collaboration member Zoltan Fodor of Pennsylvania State University in the US says that the disparity between the group’s calculation and the newly combined experimental result stands at just 1.6σ.
I so wish that was entirely truephinds said:I'll bet they did. Funding is not based on media reports and yes scientists do try to jazz up things in funding applications but they do not put out misleading stories because it makes them look foolish.
There is a risk that it undermines the public perception of established science. If fundamental physics can be "turned on its head", then why not the science of climate change, epidemiology, vaccinations and even the geological evidence against creationism?etotheipi said:So I say, sensationalise all you want (within reason ). It's just a bit of fun!
Maybe, but consider: some citizens will benefit more from science news than others.PeroK said:The politically astute thing to do ...
DaveC426913 said:A fifth fundamental force would be pretty significant, if true.
I don't know. But if it's a force of nature, it's probably in some way related to Chuck Norris.pinball1970 said:So...what is it?
Something?
A hint of something?
or nothing?
Interesting. A deviation from expectations in the Standard Model is rather exciting, I think.collinsmark said:Here's Dianna Cowern's (from Physics Girl) attempt to explain it in lay-people's terms:
This does make sense. I often have read articles that have illegitimately caused loss of faith in a theory.PeroK said:There is a risk that it undermines the public perception of established science. If fundamental physics can be "turned on its head", then why not the science of climate change, epidemiology, vaccinations and even the geological evidence against creationism?
The politically astute thing to do would be to play down the impact of new discoveries to established theories (which is often the technical reality in any case), and emphasise that this is something new that extends our knowledge - in this case, something to add to the standard model, rather than something that renders it obsolete.
I would alter that to say "...a quickness to acknowledge obsolescence".Jarvis323 said:...a quickness to acknowledge mistakes.
If both theoretical prediction and measurements are robust then every deviation is revolutionary and will change fundamental physics a lot. We had a single clear deviation from the SM in the last decades - neutrino masses.epenguin said:I had been meaning to ask here just what is there about this experiment that a disagreement between its results and a theoretical calculation is necessarily some totally fundamental change of physics. (Also I'd always heard the Standard Model described as a useful thing to be going on with, even a bit ramshackle, is that right? not something perfect that it would be shocking to modify).
Suppose that there really is a 4.2 sigma discrepancy and the BMW calculation is wrong.DaveC426913 said:A fifth fundamental force would be pretty significant, if true.
In their defense, Einsteins' relativity and then quantum mechanics both "turned physics on its head" - even for (especially for) the layperson. It overturned how we see our universe.
Ya but the other one is still 1.6 sigma off right? Still new physics until it isn't.mfb said:There are two theory predictions, one agrees with the experiment. It's very likely that the other prediction is just incorrect. We already know that at least one of them must be off, and it's probably not the one that agrees with experiment.
nolxiii said:Ya but the other one is still 1.6 sigma off right? Still new physics until it isn't.
1.3 sigma including a more recent hadronic light by light scattering calculation, but it doesn't matter.nolxiii said:Ya but the other one is still 1.6 sigma off right?
You can never reach infinite precision with measurements or theory. There is always some uncertainty, and we don't expect the values to match exactly. Being compatible within the uncertainties is the best (or worst?) outcome, and 1.3- 1.6 sigma is certainly within what we expect from statistical fluctuations.nolxiii said:Still new physics until it isn't.
Shorter Rovelli. Don't freak, it is probably just a fluke.epenguin said:Rovelli today Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-discovery-physicists-headline-announcements?
Pardon if this comes across as lazy but don't we know the mass of those quarks with certainty that we can use different numbers for different approaches?ohwilleke said:To give a more "real" example, one of the big differences between the prediction that says there is a 4.2 sigma distinction between experiment and prediction, and the one that says that there is only a 1.6 sigma distinction, is that the second prediction treats up and down quarks as having different masses, while the first one uses only the average mass of the up and down quarks. This slight tweak in the assumed masses of two Standard Model quarks makes a quite significant impact on the predicted discrepancy between theory and experiment, even though both the up quark and down quark masses are tiny (about 2.5% and 5% respectively, of the muon mass).
Tom.G said:A rather more technical take on the experiment itself is this 12 minute, fast moving video:
collinsmark said:New Sixty Symbols video. Professors Ed Copeland and Tony Padilla discuss latest results in particle physics from Fermilab and the Large Hadron Collider.
The approaches aren't completely different. Almost all of the difference comes from HVP and there are about five main differences between the two approaches. Using a 1+1+1+1 Lattice approach rather than a 2+1+1 Lattice approach is one of the significant differences.mfb said:But that's not what lead to the deviating theory predictions here. They used completely different approaches.
The new force of nature that scientists may have discovered is called "the fifth force". It is believed to be a fundamental force that is different from the four known forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force.
Scientists have been studying the behavior of subatomic particles called "muons" and have observed deviations from the predicted behavior based on the known forces of nature. These deviations could potentially be explained by the existence of a new force.
If this new force of nature is confirmed, it could greatly expand our understanding of the universe and how it works. It could also potentially lead to new technologies and advancements in fields such as physics and engineering.
It is difficult to say exactly how long it will take for scientists to confirm the existence of this new force. Further research and experiments will need to be conducted before any conclusions can be made. It could take several years or even decades before a consensus is reached.
At this point, it is too early to tell if this new force of nature could have any negative effects. However, scientists will carefully study and analyze the potential implications of this discovery before any further action is taken.