3 ms·

Look for minor inconsistencies and start from there.

rom16384 7y ago
There's no need to look for minor inconsistencies when we have huge ones such as the Cosmological constant problem.
gus_massa 7y ago
> Look for minor inconsistencies and start from there. That's exactly what (a lot of) people is doing! Is there a second suggestions? There are some "interesting" experiments. One is the anomalous magnetic dipole moment of the muon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_moment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_mome... Theoretical: 0.000116591804(51) Experimental: 0.00011659209(6) Can you spot the difference? The experimental result is too big, like 3.5 sigmas too big. For most sciences 3.5 sigmas is a lot. In particle physics 3.5 sigmas is interesting, but it may be a fluke. People is trying to solve it. The idea is that the theoretical model is missing a particle or an interaction between the known particles. So, it's a guess game. You must guess how the particle must behave. Some properties like charge are fixed, some properties like mass are a parameter. So you must guess the main properties of the particle and tweak the parameters until you get a theoretical result that is closer to the experimental result. The problem is that the new proposed particle may change the theoretical expected result of other experiments. So you must fix the theoretical result of this experiment without breaking allllllllllllllll the other experiments. And the properties are very constrained. The easier to explain is the charge that must be an integer number. Or in some cases n/3, but you must explain very well why the fractional charges are no found in the wild. Other charges are posible, but people will think you are nuts unless there is a lot of supporting evidence. Other properties are more difficult to explain, like the symmetry of the W+, W- and Z0 particles. If you propose a new particle that interacts with the W+ particle, there are a lot of restrictions because the particle you propose must interact with the W- particle, or you have to propose another particle that interacts with the W- particle in a very similar way. And at the same time, you must also fix a similar problem with the Z0 particle. More details in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_beyond_the_Standard_Model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_beyond_the_Standard_Mo... The main problem is that most of this extensions to the standard model are very technical and boring, and they are not covered by the popularization press.

There's no need to look for minor inconsistencies when we have huge ones such as the Cosmological constant problem.

> Look for minor inconsistencies and start from there. That's exactly what (a lot of) people is doing! Is there a second suggestions? There are some "interesting" experiments. One is the anomalous magnetic dipole moment of the muon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_moment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_mome... Theoretical: 0.000116591804(51) Experimental: 0.00011659209(6) Can you spot the difference? The experimental result is too big, like 3.5 sigmas too big. For most sciences 3.5 sigmas is a lot. In particle physics 3.5 sigmas is interesting, but it may be a fluke. People is trying to solve it. The idea is that the theoretical model is missing a particle or an interaction between the known particles. So, it's a guess game. You must guess how the particle must behave. Some properties like charge are fixed, some properties like mass are a parameter. So you must guess the main properties of the particle and tweak the parameters until you get a theoretical result that is closer to the experimental result. The problem is that the new proposed particle may change the theoretical expected result of other experiments. So you must fix the theoretical result of this experiment without breaking allllllllllllllll the other experiments. And the properties are very constrained. The easier to explain is the charge that must be an integer number. Or in some cases n/3, but you must explain very well why the fractional charges are no found in the wild. Other charges are posible, but people will think you are nuts unless there is a lot of supporting evidence. Other properties are more difficult to explain, like the symmetry of the W+, W- and Z0 particles. If you propose a new particle that interacts with the W+ particle, there are a lot of restrictions because the particle you propose must interact with the W- particle, or you have to propose another particle that interacts with the W- particle in a very similar way. And at the same time, you must also fix a similar problem with the Z0 particle. More details in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_beyond_the_Standard_Model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_beyond_the_Standard_Mo... The main problem is that most of this extensions to the standard model are very technical and boring, and they are not covered by the popularization press.