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The LHC “nightmare scenario” has come true
- themgt 10y agoI am more and more on board with the Lee Smolin "singular universe" concept. To me it's very analogous to the Darwinian revolution in biology. Physicists are still pre-Darwin, unable to understand why the universe looks so "un-natural". It's the watchmaker analogy for physical laws and constants, and the answer is the laws look so well-tuned because the laws and particles themselves "evolved" and tuned themselves into the stable universe we see.
- theprotocol 10y agoAre laws not simply constantly applicable rules, existing outside of spacetime? How would such a thing evolve?
- brigweofnewub 10y agoin The Singular Universe Smolin argues that we should drop the assumption of unchanging laws outside of time and instead assume that Time is primary and the laws evolve as a function of the state of the Universe
- brigweofnewub 10y ago(i.e. that the laws of physics are inside the universe)
- theprotocol 10y agoInteresting, I'll have to read more about this. Thanks for the response.
- MOARDONGZPLZ 10y agoNothing can really be ruled out at this point, and there are all kinds of theories. Most seem to agree at this point that the Level I Multiverse is a thing because it's existence directly flows from the concept of an infinite inflationary universe. That's a theory which would lead to us existing here because we're in a universe where the physical laws worked out in such a way that we could be here. I've never heard of the concept that the laws "evolved" to what they are now, I'll certainly read up on it.
- justinpombrio 10y agoEvolution depends on a means of variation (in biology, random mutation), and on a measure of fitness (in biology, number of children). What would the means of variation and the measure of fitness be for laws of physics?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 10y agoI think more accurately, a measure of fitness includes a fitness filter (in biology, death). This raises another question - what would be the fitness filter for the universe?
- adrianN 10y agoEntities capable of asking this question?
- TeMPOraL 10y agoDoes lack of such entities kill a universe? If not, then we're just reducing the problem to anthropic principle here.
- ivoras 10y agoIt's very likely that there's no higher purpose in any universe's existence - a/the universe could just be a set of random "rules and laws" which happen to not die out as soon as they are randomly created. Of course verifying this probably requires that we inspect most of our universe directly...
- tinco 10y agoInstability. Just like in biology, death is not a true optimization, it is greedy for local maximums. How many bacteria have evolved specifically to thrive on you, even though within a couple decades surely you'll be no more, leading them to extinction? So would universes come in existance with varying degrees of stability. No one has to say 'this is a stable universe'. We can say 'this universe has been stable for quite a long while'. Long enough to spawn us and the very interesting universe around us. Just like in biology, merely the fact that we could be here, is the reason we're here. Of course, that's assuming that for some reason big bangs with varying values for universal constants are a constant occurrence. Unfortunately, this is not likely to be something we're ever going to be able to measure/observe. Though there are/have been (theoretical) experiments to see if universal constants really are constant. If they're not, that would be a nice indicator that the universe really is unstable enough to create stability.
- bmh_ca 10y agoSurvival of the fittest universe.
- ansible 10y agoI'm more inclined to go with the anthropic principle, where we're observing this universe with these particular physical constants because the other universes (with slightly different constants) are a largely undifferentiated soup of basic particles.
- cauterized 10y agoWhy can't it be both?
- ansible 10y agoAside from the high temperature of the early universe, we haven't seen evidence that the physical laws are changing over time, much less 'adapting' in some way. What's the pressure for them to change? What's the reward for them to stay stable now?
- ivoras 10y agoOn the other hand, we haven't directly observed the universe for a long enough time (billions of years) to say it's not changing, so we simply don't know. We don't even know if the universe is homogeneous. For example, all we know about distant stars is complete conjecture and approximation based on testing various ideas to see which one fits. We simply don't know if "gravity" is exactly the same for all of them. Small variations of G would still light them up.
- ansible 10y agoWe've been looking back in time billions of years, because we look at objects billions of light-years away. If there's anything amiss about how gravity or whatever isn't working like it used to, that's news to me. I haven't heard of even a hint or something like that.
- cauterized 10y agoI was more asking why the two hypotheses have to be mutually exclusive.
- api 10y agoEvolved how? According to what selection criterion? There has to be an environment or you just get a random walk across state space. Evolution is a learning process that transfers information from the environment into the evolving system as such information pertains to an implied goal function. Selection need not be wholly external. It can be emergent from within the system, as it is with life viewed collectively as it manifests ecology and coevolution. But in the end there is still the basic criterion of mortality and reproductive fitness that serves as a top level goal function to orient the entire system. There is the environment and the implied goal of genetic survival. What might the top level goal function be for an evolving universe? And where would it come from? How can "all that there is" possess an environment? Of course in an eternal universe model with changing physical laws you could have a random walk across state space, but this amounts to saying the digits of pi contain Shakespeare. They do but it doesn't tell us any more than infinite multiverse theories. In fact we might call this an infinite multiverse theory linearized across time instead of parallelized across dimensions.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago> But in the end there is still the basic criterion of mortality and reproductive fitness that serves as a top level goal function to orient the entire system. Reproductive fitness is necessary to apply the concept of evolution, but mortality isn't.
- api 10y agoThat is true if you have infinite capacity, such as a hypothetical biology in an infinite environment with infinite resources. Is he proposing infinite universes? In that case I'm not sure I see the difference between this and multiverse theories.
- thaumasiotes 10y agoNo, it's always true. If you don't have infinite capacity, then you will have mortality, but that's a separate issue.
- blueprint 10y agoSince you seem like a sensible person, I'll tell you what I have to deliver. This world exists according to a singular, fundamental principle which is that a thing that comes into existence once makes results on the basis of what is inside of itself from the past, and makes itself exist continuously by repeating its activities endlessly. A thing's very activities become the cause through which it makes itself come into being in the future. So, seeing the world from this principle, we can find two or three laws: The law of cause and effect, and the law of existing by changing through activities (repetition). Rather than coming up with theory and finding evidence, we can take any sample from the entire world and verify this theory as their method of operation. (If you're wondering about the question of infinitely regressing this statement to the origin of the world, I can say that the same explanation applies. The world itself also repeats (ends and begins again) periodically and also displays the entire process of evolution according to the law of cause and effect.) When people really understand this principle and see things in the world on the principle, they come to realize the fundamental problem in physics is gravity. People don't really understand what general relativity means. It's sort of like how most people don't know that Schrödinger was joking when he talked about not knowing if the cat would be alive or dead. That's why physics has gone on a massive detour over the last 100 years. Unless physicists solve the problem of gravity, humanity won't be able to recognize the cause of and survive through the collapse of the Earth's ecosystem. Things are more serious than people realize - even after all these years. It sounds fantastical to people who haven't confirmed, but what I point out here is undeniable after confirmation of facts. So, from one perspective, it's as if physicists don't have the willpower or courage to admit the reality of the situation today, which is what fundamentally prevents them from pursuing the way to confirm about gravity - it would result in them confronting today's reality. Realistically, it's a hard burden for anyone to bear. That's one of the reasons why a person who says what I say here is rarely welcomed.
- blueprint 10y agoDownvotes prove my point. ;) People who told the truth to awaken humanity were always treated terribly. Anyone who is able to claim differently has never studied the most fundamental and important aspects of human history and can be confirmed to be a person who isn't actually able to understand the very truth.
- tomp 10y agoI always thought that the LHC "nightmare scenario" referred to accidential creation of a black hole... Well, looks like different people have different ideas of what a "catastrophe" means :)
- ansible 10y agoYah, that's what I thought when I saw the title. It was quite an interesting article. There is so much distaste for the standard model out there (from me too, I suppose). There's got to be a better explanation... but maybe there isn't.
- superswordfish 10y agoClickbait is clickbait.
- archgoon 10y agoThis isn't clickbait. Do you see any ads on this page? This is an accurate characterization of the worst outcome (that doesn't involve space aliens) that scientists were worried about when the LHC launched.
- Johnny555 10y agoI do - that "Support my writing" box in the corner with a Paypal link.
- meeper16 10y agoThe more we know the more we know how much we do not know... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIlWDljtlN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIlWDljtlN4
- noobermin 10y agoAbout 3 years ago, I had the chance to continue in particle physics for my Ph.D. specifically working for a CMS group. However, I felt SUSY had no real evidence then, and looking specifically at the "ground breaking" search that the group was undertaking, amongst others, and the pitiful results they had, I betted against SUSY and switched groups. It looks like my bet was right. I miss the math in HEP but I feel somewhat justified. I'm not sure what this means for HEP going forward. May be scientists can move the goalposts but will funders be as sympathetic?
- orbifold 10y agoActually some creative destruction might be good for physics as a whole. High energy physics amounts to glorified bean counting. Particle phenomenologists are expected to produce ~6 papers a year, what you write about is mostly fashion driven and what is fashionable is determined by a few thought leaders.
- sudhirj 10y agoIf it had created a black hole, I doubt we'd read about it. Wouldn't it oscillate about the earths centre, and swallow it within a few seconds?
- erdevs 10y agoSome commenters on the article discussed condensed matter physics as a potentially more viable path of inquiry for understanding underlying physics theory than high energy particle collision experiments. I'm no expert here and don't understand the dichotomy, such as it were, here. Also, how are condensed matter physics contributing to fundamental theories of the universe today? I've heard a lot more of condensed matter physics in specific areas (eg superconductivity), but not often heard it discussed in relation to fundamental physics. But I'm pretty uninformed here, overall. Does anyone with more expertise here have a quick breakdown of what these commenters mean?
- ealloc 10y agoProbably it is referring to the overlap in mathematics between condensed matter and particle physics. Both fields can be seen as explorations of the mathematical framework known as Quantum Field Theory (with somewhat different interpretation) - many discoveries of QFT in one field also turn out to apply in the other, such as the renormalization group. For example, the Higgs mechanism was first discovered by a condensed matter physicist (Phil Anderson).
- guitarbill 10y agoI think the experiments in the different field highlight this. Particle physics experiments keep getting bigger and more expensive (LHC, Kamiokande, etc). For condensed matter, you can give an undergrad liquid helium for experiments with superconductors, which will show QFT phenomena like quasi-particles. Even looking at symmetry breaking in condensed matter doesn't require (comparatively) huge experimental setups. I don't think it's a stretch to say that if more people are actively experimenting and thinking about problems in a field, the more likely new results are going to be found. (That's not to say particle physics experiments aren't useful.)
- pessimist 10y agoCondensed matter physics has provided important math and physical ideas for particle physics. The basic mathematical framework of particle physics - Quantum Field Theory - is also useful to describe many condensed matter phases. Two extremely important ideas that developed first in condensed matter are symmetry breaking (invented to explain ferromagnetism and other phase transitions - ideas were borrowed for example in the Higgs) and renormalization. They are of fundamental importance in particle physics as well. Of course this was way back in the 50s and 60s. I am aware of a couple of collaborations between condensed matter and particle/string theorists these days: 1. String theorists have discovered that their mathematical techniques are useful in solving certain Quantum Field Theories which are important in condensed matter. Google Ads/CMT, or strange metals. 2. String theorists believe that in quantum gravity entanglement and gravity are closely linked. They have used ideas from condensed matter studies of entanglement called tensor networks (MERA) to build toy-models of gravity.
- GavinMcG 10y agoAll these comments about click bait vs. not and how the nightmare scenario isn't what the commenter expected, yet no one mentions what it actually is! The answer: confirming the Higgs boson, but no other new physics that would narrow things beyond what we've been exploring for the past fifty years.
- onion2k 10y agoIt's the LHC failing to discover anything that we hadn't predicted decades ago. There's no new physics, so nothing to base new theories on, and, rather importantly if you're a physicist, nowhere clues about where to look next.
- cheez 10y agoIs this the same as saying there are no unexplained observations?
- vanattab 10y agoNo not at all. In fact we know we a missing the piece of the puzzle that explains how quantum physics and gravity interact but we don't know where to look. We can try building a bigger accelerator but it would be very expensive.
- fsloth 10y agoIt's like if Columbus had sailed, found the Azores and then found an endless ocean (metaphorically speaking) instead of new continents.
- tootie 10y agoIt's the old Structure of Scientific Revolution. Standard Model is the current paradigm and we can't break through it until we actually find something that doesn't fit. Everything discovered by LHC fits, therefore we can't get to the next paradigm.
- mcguire 10y ago
- lucb1e 10y agoTitle: LHC nightmare First paragraph: "I finished highschool in ..." Second paragraph: "Little did I realize" Third paragraph: "Since I entered physics" Fourth paragraph: "During my professional career" Fifth paragraph: "When I look at" Sixth paragraph: "For the last ten years you’ve been told that the LHC must see some new physics besides the Higgs because otherwise nature isn’t “natural” - [...]. I’ve been laughed at when I explained that I don’t buy into naturalness" Seventh paragraph: "The idea of naturalness" Eighth paragraph: "we’ve entered what has become known as the “nightmare scenario” for the LHC: The Higgs and nothing else." Ah, the article starts in the eighth paragraph. Summary: read paragraphs 8 and the last, 9.
- noobermin 10y agoSome of us enjoy reading and writing like this. Writing especially in non-expository formats is more than just communicating the thesis of an article. Background and personal touch are often entertaining. Take your comment for example. Your comment's thesis is the last sentence "Summary: read paragraphs 8 and the last, 9", but delaying that to the end yields a different effect for the reader than if you began with the thesis and then supplied examples.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- erdevs 10y ago> Take your comment for example.. This is not analogous. If parent had begun the comment with a personal history of experience in reading verbose articles with clickbait-y headlines that then meander to the actual meat of the bait, then it'd be similar. The parent comment is instead succinctly presenting evidence /observations which build to a conclusion. Not the same thing.
- kzhahou 10y agoExcept lucb1e's critique was actually entertaining, because I stopped reading the post myself because it was just so much fluff. All that high school college la-di-da stuff.
- nercht12 10y agoProfessor Matt Strassler has had excellent coverage of the events at LHC, including detailed explanations. For anyone interested in reading: https://profmattstrassler.com/ https://profmattstrassler.com/
- lostgame 10y agoWow. Really have to agree with the click bait thing here. Also, this article takes forever to get to the point - I was able to skip most of the content until like 75% the way through the thing.
- lostgame 10y agoWhy is this down voted? Wanna understand how people could disagree on this point, especially when it's the most common comment on this page
- yoha 10y agoMy best guess: the article is 726 words; That's pretty short by HN's standards.
- mcguire 10y agoThe modern education system is failing pretty hard if a 700-word article about an existential crisis in theoretical physics (or at least a physicist) is considered "too long" and taking "forever to get to the point".
- goldfeld 10y agoIt's not so hard to think about fitness and reproduction on a metaverse. When a Universe succeeds in creating one black hole, its singularity creates a new universe inheriting physical laws from parent but maybe distortions can happen in space giving rise to mutated memetic material. String theory research shows how distortion happens in six-dimensional circular Calabi-Yau shapes that might augment our three-dimensional extended space dimensions. Universes explode, grow and die, but the laws of those universes able to generate black holes live on in their offpring. Presumably the capacity of a universe's laws to cluster matter lead both to black holes and to enough planets that life is more likely, so that our existence correlates with good universe fitness. Other universes might do pretty badly with getting stuff to stick together.
- nabla9 10y agoMy favorite non-serious pet theory is that we live in simulation created by intelligent beings. It's supposed to be cool and mathematically beautiful only little below atom level and up. When we dig into deeper energy levels we start do detect artifacts that make no sense because they are implementation details revealed where model breaks down. We would be virtual scientist detecting features in physics simulation software that builds the world he is living in.
- pron 10y agoSo, basically, you're a creationist or a believer in intelligent design or whatever they're called these days... :)
- nabla9 10y ago"Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God." - The two chief teachings of the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent
- pron 10y agoYou'd be surprised how many religions share the belief in the first clause, and as to the second -- how would you know? They built the simulation, they can do what they like.
- joeyspn 10y agoAlso my fav. The nightmare scenario would be when particle physicist discover that we are living in a computer simulation built by AIs, and they realise that instead of building the LHC they should have studied quantum computing architectures and the docker repo on GitHub. The most entertaining "simulation theory" (among Elon Musk's, Nick Bostrom's, etc) is Stephen Wolfram's one, who argues that "we could be the videogame (WoW of the future) of a teenager AI"... https://youtu.be/giuVfY-I-p4?t=17m16s https://youtu.be/giuVfY-I-p4?t=17m16s
- akiselev 10y ago
- almog 10y agoSince I'm now reading The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence, I was expecting to something completely different from this article.
- robg 10y agoThe physics is insufficient. We're asking the wrong question because there isn't one grand theory. In a multiverse we'll just see our place as we always have, the right set of answers to be asking the questions.
- dexwiz 10y agoIt's strange that physicist are so unwilling to explore radically different theories. Our understanding of particle physics is less than a century old. The theory of phlogiston, which was unequivocally wrong, last longer. Naturalness probably spawns from mathematical constants, most of which are around 1. [1] This also assumes the dimensional analysis is correct, or that certain values are not derived. Also, have all of the easy physic experiments been done? Seems like physics is only being explored at high energies in expensive set-ups. Some of the biggest discoveries of 100 years ago were done with relatively cheap set-ups, see the Gold Foil Experiment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_constants_and_functions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_constants_and_fun...
- epistasis 10y agoI'm not sure that they're unwilling at all. String theory, etc, is radically different and perhaps so radically different that its not even pursuing. If you have any ideas for easy, novel physics experiments, please dive in. But after 100 years of lots and lots and lots of people playing around, most of what people can imagine has been done. If there's going to be something new, it's going to be radically different, most likely, with entirely new areas of physics, not some refinement of existing theory. If "physics" were a newly discovered continent, there's a good chance that we've discovered most of what's on the surface. There's still exploration, I think. I'm not a physicist by any means, but it seems that things like condensed matter physics are plowing ahead in new areas, away from the "surface of the continent," if you will allow me to continue the metaphor. But if you're starting with the physics that you learn as an undergrad taking engineering and what you get from newspapers, those branches seem pretty well capped off for the foreseeable future. Better to go to new areas that still have millions of discoveries waiting, like biology or other complex systems.
- selimthegrim 10y agoDynamical systems (and by extension classical mechanics) is far from a completely understood field - especially nonlinear dynamics.
- yk 10y ago
- markbnj 10y agoI don't know about everyone else, but when I read 'The LHC "nightmare scenario" has come true' I expected a black hole, or reality being sucked down a pinpoint wormhole. Maybe those are the same thing.
- sopooneo 10y ago"It has left them without guidance, lost in a thicket of rapidly multiplying models" I can't help but think if JavaScript fatigue.
- tim333 10y agoThe "nightmare" seems to be that the LHC only confirms the standard model without giving clues on how to extend physics further. I've got a hunch that a future breakthrough may come from AI, that combining general relativity and quantum mechanics is a bit much for unaided human brains and deep mind style computer systems may do better at spin-2 stuff in odd numbers of dimensions than us lot.
- soberhoff 10y agoSuppose that you set a computer to work and it learns a fantastically accurate model that no human is able to understand. Do you then declare victory and move on?
- tim333 10y agoI'm guessing it would be easier to understand the stuff than come up with it. If it did come up with a model that predicted something like particle weights we could then try to figure what it did.
- mjevans 10y agoI think that depends on if it's garbage (noise) or an actual understanding (signal). 'AI' solutions don't always solve the problem you're trying to train them on, sometimes they solve the problem of giving you the expected answer from the samples you give them.
- dghughes 10y agoI was expecting a large scale coolant leak of helium flooding the work areas, a quench.
- timinman 10y agoThe OP made a side-comment about 'idea of naturalness' being a philosophical tenet. That's a problem because science claims to be philosophically neutral, which is impossible. Science looks for a system which can exist without supernatural intervention, but the creation of time/space/matter doesn't fit within those constraints. Admittedly that is a philosophical or even theological take, but at least it's honest.
- rch 10y agoI think you're misreading the article. Science is about theory and observation, with no presumption that the latter must fit the former. As much as a physicist might hope to uncover a universal law that is simple enough for children to memorize yet subtle enough to warrant a lifetime of learning to fully understand, nature is perfectly content with fundamental parameters that settle into working values completely at random.
- timinman 10y agoFair enough. He was specifically speaking to 'naturalness' as technical designation in physics. I am getting a little more general. The scientific method seeks to be entirely empirical - which makes sense for understanding what we can observe. But what happens when what you are trying to understand is not observable? You fool yourself if you think you are being empirical when you are not. (His comment about moving the yardsticks applies here). Any endeavor to understand the universe, especially origins, ends up involving philosophical presuppositions. Science aspires to avoid that, but can it?
- oliwaw 10y ago>Science looks for a system which can exist without supernatural intervention, but the creation of time/space/matter doesn't fit within those constraints. So our universe must fundamentally be a supernatural creation? That's an extraordinary claim, what is your evidence? We currently have insufficient data and incomplete theories to fully describe the origins of the universe, sure. But how is this different from someone 500 years ago saying: "Science looks for a system which can exist without supernatural intervention, but the creation of the Earth and humanity doesn't fit within those constraints."
- datadata 10y agoArrival of sophons confirmed.
- hacker42 10y agoI've never understood the desire for beauty in a theory of everything. Reality clearly isn't beautiful through and through, but at its corners it is awfully complex and arbitrary. If anything, reality is much like the outcomes of an evolutionary process, a mere hack of various mechanisms that happen to give rise to the relatively stable patterns we experience. Of course, fundamental research needs the optimism that we can compress all of that in ever smaller formulae, but I think there is no unambiguous evidence that we should actually expect that to be possible. The most striking piece of counter evidence is actually the kind of reality we experience in the first place. Imagine a universe in which its inhabitants would be able to figure out its fundamental principles. These inhabitants would likely immediately conquer all available space and use it to maximize the reward signals that evolution has equipped them with and thus transform everything into something completely different from the world we are experiencing. A universe with a reality like ours and that is fully understandable at the same time is thus (together with various other assumptions) a logical impossibility.
- rayalez 10y agoJust because you can understand the thing doesn't mean that you can completely control it. Just because we know about the speed of light doesn't mean that we can travel faster than it, just because we know math doesn't mean that we can make 1 plus 1 equal 3. Knowing fundamental principles wouldn't make us all powerful. Very interesting argument though.
- mtrycz 10y agoI was about to say something similar, just checking out if someone had already said it. I just don't dig the obsession with "aesthetics". It just doesn't compute. I understand the need for simplicity, but there's JUST NO PLACE for aesthetics in science. We need simple verifiable experiments and results, no "my model is more beautiful than yours" stupidity. One important thing: scientists need to recognize where science ends and passion/preference begins. Scientism is the greatest foe of science. Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist.
- wyager 10y ago
- spullara 10y agoI reached this level of disillusionment 2 years into my theoretical particle physics Ph.D. program and dropped out to do software engineering... when this guy was graduating from High School in 1995. To me it has been obvious for a very long time that the standard model is pretty damn close which means we are in a pretty shitty energy regime for discovering anything new. I agree that astronomical observations are really the only way forward.
- manarth 10y agoOnly 3 years between conclusive evidence for the Higgs Boson - a Nobel Prize-winning discovery, and the culmination of a 40 year search - and the nightmare scenario that all they've discovered is the Higgs Boson. Oh well, perhaps they'll build an Even Larger Hadron Collider?
- Jweb_Guru 10y agoThe point is that it would have been more interesting either not to find it (because there were theoretical limits on how massive it could be) or to find it along with something new, that we couldn't predict. This really was the worst-case scenario.
- akiselev 10y agoTL;DR: All the hype and rumours about a new discovery at the LHC [1][2][3][4] that looked like a particle outside of the standard model was for naught. As the LHC detectors gathered and processed more data, the "diphoton bumps" turned from interesting anomalies to statistically insignificant noise [5]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893164 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11250931 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11250931 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9420043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9420043 [4] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/potential-new-particle-shows-up-at-the-lhc-thrilling-and-confounding-physicists1/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/potential-new-part... [5] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hope-for-new-particle-fizzles-at-the-lhc1/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hope-for-new-parti...
- beezle 10y agoNo that is not really the TL;DR of her post (which on her site is a condensed version of what she put on Starts with a Bang). Her main point is that the HEP community has been racing down a road for many years and probably missed the "dead end" sign some years back. In particular, she takes issue with what is called 'naturalness' and its often used justification for PBTSM. She concluded with: "I hope that this latest null result will send a clear message that you can’t trust the judgement of scientists whose future funding depends on their continued optimism."
- nice1 10y agoThe author is a well known crackpot - just in case anyone cares.
- guscost 10y agoI can sympathize with people hoping for a more "useful" result in light of what avenues this closes down, but c'mon, any reliable scientific result is a good thing. We don't get to pick what the results are going to be but they are the only way forward. As a curious bystander, it seems like some folks may have gotten a false sense of how difficult these next steps will be, after the recent and astounding success of mechanics and relativity. We could see another "extended" period where new observations are insufficient to support a better theory, and if so we have to be OK with that (but keep looking to make progress if at all possible).
- Double_Cast 10y agohttps://xkcd.com/1489/ https://xkcd.com/1489/
- dboreham 10y agoInteresting personal note for me is that C.N. (Frank) Yang told me over dinner 15 years ago about his "The Party's Over" prediction. Only now do I know what he meant! (And I guess he was right)
- l0b0 10y agoSeveral of the most successful theories of the last century were the result of serendipity (in addition to a lot of hard work): The two examples that spring to mind are Michelson and Morley sharing their negative results with the community; Penzias and Wilson not taking noise for an answer. Is it possible that there are fundamental discoveries hidden in decades of high-energy physics data records, simply waiting for the right interpretation, or are the statistic properties of this data sets so well understood that their analysis is "done"?
- btw1234 10y agoThis isn't a failure. It's just the result of a bunch of experiments. What would be worse is if the scientific community was unable to raise funds for such large experiments due to fear of failure. It's ok, we tried something, now we know to try something else.