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> Today's ALPHA result is the first observation of a spectral line in an antihydrogen atom, allowing the light spectrum of matter and antimatter to be compared
by _rpd 10y ago
> Today's ALPHA result is the first observation of a spectral line in an antihydrogen atom, allowing the light spectrum of matter and antimatter to be compared for the first time. Within experimental limits, the result shows no difference compared to the equivalent spectral line in hydrogen. This is consistent with the Standard Model of particle physics
- colechristensen 10y ago>consistent with the Standard Model Is generally one of the most disappointing phrases one can read in science news. Hooray for progress and all, but everybody is hoping for exactly the opposite result.
- PavleMiha 10y agoMaybe we're running out of surprising things.
- jandrese 10y agoWe are probably just looking in the wrong places.
- plandis 10y agoLord Kelvin said something similar in 1900 about there being nothing left to discover. Within 30 years quantum mechanics would be discovered/created.
- HarryHirsch 10y agoAt that time everyone knew there was something up with blackbody radiation, classical physics gave no guide why the equipartition theorem should not apply any more at short wavelengths.
- openasocket 10y agoAnd now we know something's up with gravity, because we can't seem to reconcile it with quantum mechanics.
- HarryHirsch 10y agoI know, and the Lord Kelvin quote is too suspicious to be credible, a man like him would never have said such a thing. If we can trust Wikipedia he never did: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Thomson#Misattributed https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Thomson#Misattributed
- IgorPartola 10y agoDidn't Isaac Newton die thinking that he solved all of physics though?
- 0xfaded 10y agoNewton was the first to experiment with light reflectance of glass of various thicknesses. He found the relationship but had no idea how a light corpuscule could know the thickness of the glass when it decided to reflect or not. Newton published his corpuscular theory of light but I certainly don't think he would have claimed to know what was going on.
- _rpd 10y agoOur current theory of gravity doesn't even explain how galaxies form and rotate unless over a quarter of the universe is made of unspecified "dark matter." We are children playing on the shores of undiscovered oceans.
- tudorw 10y agoI'm with you, I'm uncertain we even have the right question...
- eanzenberg 10y ago