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As far as I can tell, the Standard Model does an unreasonably good job about explaining particles and their interactions up to 10 TeV. Given the many, many open

As far as I can tell, the Standard Model does an unreasonably good job about explaining particles and their interactions up to 10 TeV. Given the many, many open questions in other areas below 10 TeV - perhaps we could shift attention elsewhere? Disclaimer: I have a PhD in physics.

nonbel 8y ago
I always wonder about the "bump" from a few years ago when hundreds of possible explanations (presumably all consistent with the standard model) were published before it was decided to be "random noise". >"In the interval between the December 2015 and August 2016 results, the anomaly generated considerable interest in the scientific community, including about 500 theoretical studies." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/750_GeV_diphoton_excess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/750_GeV_diphoton_excess That really makes it seem that the standard model is pretty flexible in what it will allow.
- acqq 8y ago
  > makes it seem that the standard model is pretty flexible It's simply not true that these 500 papers are all "the standard model" and that can be verified by reading the actual papers. E.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.04027 https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.04027 "Strongly interacting dynamics and the search for new physics at the LHC" New physics != the standard model I don't know the origin of that "500 papers" list (it seems somebody simply made a jsfiddle out of who knows which list and smuggled that in Wikipedia) but they can't be interpreted as "all the standard model."
  - nonbel 8y ago
    I'm not clear on what "new physics" means in that paper. It could mean "standard model + this new particle", but I will take your word for it if you say otherwise.
peteradio 8y ago
I would like to see precision measurements done. There is a lot more work to do besides new particle discovery and I think drilling into the details will lead to new phenomenology below 10 TeV.
- jchallis 8y ago
  Hadron colliders make surprisingly bad precision measurement machines. All that crap creates a lot of background, which makes doing the fine work very challenging. Now a lower energy lepton-lepton machine, like the proposed ILC, would be good for just those sort of measurements.
whatshisface 8y ago
>perhaps we could shift attention elsewhere? (Edit: trimmed down argument.) I think if someone wants to study the fundamental constituents of the universe, or if a member of the public wants to learn about them, the other open problems aren't going to satisfy that. >the Standard Model does an unreasonably good job about explaining particles and their interactions up to 10 TeV. It turns out that the cap at 10TeV is not as solid as you would hope. I remember expressing my surprise (to his minor offense) to someone working at one of the pre-LHC colliders that they were looking for the Higgs. Apparently the Higgs can be detected on many lower-energy devices, but it takes a lot of work, an advance theoretical prediction, and a lot of statistics. The next particle could be in the data at the LHC right now.

nonbel 8y ago

I always wonder about the "bump" from a few years ago when hundreds of possible explanations (presumably all consistent with the standard model) were published before it was decided to be "random noise". >"In the interval between the December 2015 and August 2016 results, the anomaly generated considerable interest in the scientific community, including about 500 theoretical studies." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/750_GeV_diphoton_excess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/750_GeV_diphoton_excess That really makes it seem that the standard model is pretty flexible in what it will allow.

acqq 8y ago
> makes it seem that the standard model is pretty flexible It's simply not true that these 500 papers are all "the standard model" and that can be verified by reading the actual papers. E.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.04027 https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.04027 "Strongly interacting dynamics and the search for new physics at the LHC" New physics != the standard model I don't know the origin of that "500 papers" list (it seems somebody simply made a jsfiddle out of who knows which list and smuggled that in Wikipedia) but they can't be interpreted as "all the standard model."
- nonbel 8y ago
  I'm not clear on what "new physics" means in that paper. It could mean "standard model + this new particle", but I will take your word for it if you say otherwise.

peteradio 8y ago

I would like to see precision measurements done. There is a lot more work to do besides new particle discovery and I think drilling into the details will lead to new phenomenology below 10 TeV.

jchallis 8y ago
Hadron colliders make surprisingly bad precision measurement machines. All that crap creates a lot of background, which makes doing the fine work very challenging. Now a lower energy lepton-lepton machine, like the proposed ILC, would be good for just those sort of measurements.

whatshisface 8y ago

>perhaps we could shift attention elsewhere? (Edit: trimmed down argument.) I think if someone wants to study the fundamental constituents of the universe, or if a member of the public wants to learn about them, the other open problems aren't going to satisfy that. >the Standard Model does an unreasonably good job about explaining particles and their interactions up to 10 TeV. It turns out that the cap at 10TeV is not as solid as you would hope. I remember expressing my surprise (to his minor offense) to someone working at one of the pre-LHC colliders that they were looking for the Higgs. Apparently the Higgs can be detected on many lower-energy devices, but it takes a lot of work, an advance theoretical prediction, and a lot of statistics. The next particle could be in the data at the LHC right now.