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Can anybody explain why we know there's exciting stuff at 15 orders of magnitude more power than what we currently have? I'm off today and I'd love to fall into

Can anybody explain why we know there's exciting stuff at 15 orders of magnitude more power than what we currently have? I'm off today and I'd love to fall into a high-energy particle physics wikipedia wormhole.

kristianp 8y ago
A comment in the 2nd article implies that Loop quantum gravity is being referred to there: "Quantum gravitation occurs at a scale of 10^{14} to 10^{16}TeV and the 10 TeV work we can do is 13 or more orders of magnitude too low."
spiritcat 8y ago
My understanding is that, since we have no idea what's happening down there, whatever it is would be new and exciting. (feel free to correct)
walrus1066 8y ago
That's the energy scale where the force of gravity becomes strong enough to influence subatomic particle interactions. Currently, our model of nature at subatomic scales (the 'Standard Model') does not include gravity. This is fine for LHC energy scale, because gravity is so weak compared to the other three forces (electromagnetism, strong & weak nuclear force), that it can be ignored. The mass of quarks, electrons etc is tiny, you can make precise predictions on stuff like 'particle X will decay into particles Y & Z at this likelihood', without accommodating gravity. But at the planck energy scale, gravity is too strong to be ignored, and the Standard Model breaks down, it can't make predictions. So this is why the planck scale is where you're 100% guaranteed to see 'new physics'. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units EDIT: think the reason gravity becomes stronger at higher energies, is because the _relativistic mass_ of particles increases with their velocity. So if you bang two electrons a&b together at nearly the speed of light, the effective mass of electron a from the frame of reference of electron b will be orders of magnitude greater than the 'rest mass of electron a'. Because strength of gravitational interaction is proportional to mass of particles involved, electron b will feel stronger gravitational pull of electron a (and vice versa). So if the electrons are traveling at planck scale speeds, the strength of gravitational interaction becomes comparable to the electromagnetic interaction between them. Then all standard model predictions of how the electrons interact goes out of the window, because SM cannot model gravity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity

kristianp 8y ago

A comment in the 2nd article implies that Loop quantum gravity is being referred to there: "Quantum gravitation occurs at a scale of 10^{14} to 10^{16}TeV and the 10 TeV work we can do is 13 or more orders of magnitude too low."

spiritcat 8y ago

My understanding is that, since we have no idea what's happening down there, whatever it is would be new and exciting. (feel free to correct)

walrus1066 8y ago

That's the energy scale where the force of gravity becomes strong enough to influence subatomic particle interactions. Currently, our model of nature at subatomic scales (the 'Standard Model') does not include gravity. This is fine for LHC energy scale, because gravity is so weak compared to the other three forces (electromagnetism, strong & weak nuclear force), that it can be ignored. The mass of quarks, electrons etc is tiny, you can make precise predictions on stuff like 'particle X will decay into particles Y & Z at this likelihood', without accommodating gravity. But at the planck energy scale, gravity is too strong to be ignored, and the Standard Model breaks down, it can't make predictions. So this is why the planck scale is where you're 100% guaranteed to see 'new physics'. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units EDIT: think the reason gravity becomes stronger at higher energies, is because the _relativistic mass_ of particles increases with their velocity. So if you bang two electrons a&b together at nearly the speed of light, the effective mass of electron a from the frame of reference of electron b will be orders of magnitude greater than the 'rest mass of electron a'. Because strength of gravitational interaction is proportional to mass of particles involved, electron b will feel stronger gravitational pull of electron a (and vice versa). So if the electrons are traveling at planck scale speeds, the strength of gravitational interaction becomes comparable to the electromagnetic interaction between them. Then all standard model predictions of how the electrons interact goes out of the window, because SM cannot model gravity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity