What's the matter with a Particle Zoo?

[LukeD]

If it looks like a Particle Zoo, swims like a Particle Zoo, and quacks like a Particle Zoo, it's a subset of a highly symmetric extension, right?

What's the matter with it just being a Particle Zoo? The Biologists get on just fine talking about family trees and possible extensions without requiring that their zoo be made up of perfectly formed machines. Is there something preventing Physicists from doing this?

 

[Vanadium 50]

I have no idea what you are talking about. Could you perhaps speak more plainly?

 

[Meir Achuz]

If it looks like a Particle Zoo, swims like a Particle Zoo, and quacks like a Particle Zoo, it's a subset of a highly symmetric extension, right?

What's the matter with it just being a Particle Zoo? The Biologists get on just fine talking about family trees and possible extensions without requiring that their zoo be made up of perfectly formed machines. Is there something preventing Physicists from doing this?

You seem to be asking why such a non-symmetric world has to be derived from symmetry groups. In many cases it doesn't, but this would make a lot of theoretical speculation irrelevant.

 

[LukeD]

You seem to be asking why such a non-symmetric world has to be derived from symmetry groups. In many cases it doesn't, but this would make a lot of theoretical speculation irrelevant.

I disagree. If asymmetry is taken as fundamental, then symmetries still need to be studied so that they can be inserted and then broken.

 

[Meir Achuz]

I disagree. If asymmetry is taken as fundamental, then symmetries still need to be studied so that they can be inserted and then broken.

Why?

 

[Dropout]

The particle zoo infers a more simplistic base ruleset, like atoms creating an almost infinite amount of chemical contraptions.

Why are some particles more stable than others?