7 ms·

The muon was the first WhatTheF particle discovered from cosmic rays. It and its associated quarks and leptons do not appear to participate in any physics neces

The muon was the first WhatTheF particle discovered from cosmic rays. It and its associated quarks and leptons do not appear to participate in any physics necessary for the observable universe functioning. And the muon vexes us again with an observed g2 moment the differs from its theoretical value greater than measurement error. This again suggests there is more unknown physics out there.

lumost 5y ago
I strongly suspect that new high energy physics advances will come from investigating astronomically generated phenomenon. - Gravitational Waves for probing extremely large and small objects - Cosmic Rays for probing high energy particles. - Solar probes to detect particles made from stellar phenomena
- leashless 5y ago
  I think these datasets also point the way to some new physics. https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/shane-harris-interview-uap-ufo-report.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/shane-harris-interview-...
  - leashless 5y ago
    Although to get anything useful out of them would require the radar data, not just the optical data. Much more certain positioning than optical cameras on fast moving platforms.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Oh yes, definitely new physics will come out of studying grainy footage of unidentified objects that are most likely drones or birds and well known optical phenomena that "military experts" can't seem to grasp (parallax).
bigbillheck 5y ago
Depends on what you mean by 'observable'. Proton mass (for example) depends in part on all 3 generations of quarks.
iratewizard 5y ago
They could just be spandrels. Lots of things in nature exist with no real purpose.
antonvs 5y ago
The idea that all particles should "participate in physics necessary for the observable universe functioning" is not a rational position, unless you assume a premise such as "the universe was created for a purpose." Without such a premise, it is completely expected that not every aspect of the universe should have something to do with its functioning. Even in pure mathematics, with no dependence on the physical universe, you have Gödelian unprovable propositions which, as Gregory Chaitin put it, are "true for no reason, they're true by accident." If the universe did not include a physical equivalent to this, it would be quite a surprise which would tell us that something very unusual was up.
- robwwilliams 5y ago
  LOL, what a fun perspective. You just made Einstein groan.
  - antonvs 5y ago
    Are you thinking of Einstein's comment about god not playing dice? Because that's perfectly consistent with what I was saying: he was implicitly assuming a kind of "designed" universe, in which case of course we have a stronger reason to expect that all features of the universe have some purpose. (Although this is still subject to Gödel's caveat, that even intentionally constructed systems end up with features that weren't part of the intention, but rather are unavoidable consequences of the design.) But if you don't make that religious assumption, then the expectation that all features should have a purpose becomes unsupportable. There's simply no reason to expect that, and even the notion of features having a "purpose" is misleading metaphorical language at best. Back to the subject of what Einstein would say, we should also keep in mind what he wrote in a private letter in 1954: > “The word God is for me nothing but the expression of and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change anything about this.” I'm not aware of Einstein having written anything attempting to reconcile this with his previously expressed pantheistic views and the related views implied by the "play dice" comment. That would be tough to reconcile. Another relevant issue here is that Einstein's dice comment was objecting to non-determinism in quantum physics. But in the nearly 70 years since his death, everything that has been discovered still points to inherent non-determinism. There are some theories/interpretations that would eliminate this, like superdeterminism and De Broglie–Bohm theory. But even if such a theory satisfies Einstein's concern, it doesn't affect what I wrote - such theories don't address the justification for features of the universe, they simply model what we observe. tl;dr: what I originally wrote is essentially a tautology that neither you nor Einstein can refute.

lumost 5y ago

I strongly suspect that new high energy physics advances will come from investigating astronomically generated phenomenon. - Gravitational Waves for probing extremely large and small objects - Cosmic Rays for probing high energy particles. - Solar probes to detect particles made from stellar phenomena

leashless 5y ago
I think these datasets also point the way to some new physics. https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/shane-harris-interview-uap-ufo-report.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/shane-harris-interview-...
- leashless 5y ago
  Although to get anything useful out of them would require the radar data, not just the optical data. Much more certain positioning than optical cameras on fast moving platforms.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Oh yes, definitely new physics will come out of studying grainy footage of unidentified objects that are most likely drones or birds and well known optical phenomena that "military experts" can't seem to grasp (parallax).

bigbillheck 5y ago

Depends on what you mean by 'observable'. Proton mass (for example) depends in part on all 3 generations of quarks.

iratewizard 5y ago

They could just be spandrels. Lots of things in nature exist with no real purpose.

antonvs 5y ago

The idea that all particles should "participate in physics necessary for the observable universe functioning" is not a rational position, unless you assume a premise such as "the universe was created for a purpose." Without such a premise, it is completely expected that not every aspect of the universe should have something to do with its functioning. Even in pure mathematics, with no dependence on the physical universe, you have Gödelian unprovable propositions which, as Gregory Chaitin put it, are "true for no reason, they're true by accident." If the universe did not include a physical equivalent to this, it would be quite a surprise which would tell us that something very unusual was up.

robwwilliams 5y ago
LOL, what a fun perspective. You just made Einstein groan.
- antonvs 5y ago
  Are you thinking of Einstein's comment about god not playing dice? Because that's perfectly consistent with what I was saying: he was implicitly assuming a kind of "designed" universe, in which case of course we have a stronger reason to expect that all features of the universe have some purpose. (Although this is still subject to Gödel's caveat, that even intentionally constructed systems end up with features that weren't part of the intention, but rather are unavoidable consequences of the design.) But if you don't make that religious assumption, then the expectation that all features should have a purpose becomes unsupportable. There's simply no reason to expect that, and even the notion of features having a "purpose" is misleading metaphorical language at best. Back to the subject of what Einstein would say, we should also keep in mind what he wrote in a private letter in 1954: > “The word God is for me nothing but the expression of and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change anything about this.” I'm not aware of Einstein having written anything attempting to reconcile this with his previously expressed pantheistic views and the related views implied by the "play dice" comment. That would be tough to reconcile. Another relevant issue here is that Einstein's dice comment was objecting to non-determinism in quantum physics. But in the nearly 70 years since his death, everything that has been discovered still points to inherent non-determinism. There are some theories/interpretations that would eliminate this, like superdeterminism and De Broglie–Bohm theory. But even if such a theory satisfies Einstein's concern, it doesn't affect what I wrote - such theories don't address the justification for features of the universe, they simply model what we observe. tl;dr: what I originally wrote is essentially a tautology that neither you nor Einstein can refute.