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What are the consequences for this breakage? The article says current models do not easily fit the asymmetry but does not state what parts of our understanding

What are the consequences for this breakage? The article says current models do not easily fit the asymmetry but does not state what parts of our understanding will break if those models are wrong.

fpoling 2y ago
Strong interactions are notoriously difficult to calculate from the first principles. So typically it is not done, but rather theoreticians try to guess the result and use the experimental data to partially fill the calculation gaps. So I expect in this cases the guesses were wrong and the Standard Model will manage to explain that as well.
- facile3232 2y ago
  > Strong interactions are notoriously difficult to calculate from the first principles. ??? Where does empiricism come in? Surely you need some kind of data to feed even raw assumptions. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting how "first principles" is employed here.
  - spartanatreyu 2y ago
    The data comes in two ways: 1. Hey these particles are interacting with each other (e.g. they attract each other, they repel each other, they combine or split apart into each other, etc...) 2. I have measured something about this interaction (e.g. how fast, how far, how likely, etc...) to within a certain degree of accuracy Put them together and we have a sparse noisy list of forces, and a list of constants. Then we come up with theories to explain and reduce the data to their simplest components. Those theories occasionally spit out that there should be an interaction we haven't seen between some particles yet or a more accurate picture of an interaction we have already seen and we can run some experiments to see if the theory holds true in practice. We can then check how well those theories work by their predictions. - Gravity is just varying amounts of positive attraction over unlimited range (i.e. just a positive integer). - Electromagnetism is varying amounts of positive or negative attraction over unlimited range. (i.e. just an integer) The problem with strong interactions is that they get messy really fast. The energies and interactions involved are crazy. - We have the quarks (which are the fundamental matter particles that the strong force interacts on) - We have the gluons (which are part of the strong force itself) - And the strong interactions: which are actually 3 different amounts of positive or negative attractions that must all balance out (i.e. a whole bunch of numbers), but they get stronger as they get further away to the point that new particles can be created to reduce the range between any two particles, oh and the gluons can also interact with each other complicating matters further.
  - fpoling 2y ago
    The first principles here refer to the basic equations of the Standard Model. There were a lot of alternative theories in sixties and seventies but eventually they were disproven experimentally and only SM survived. But the problem with SM is that when one deals with strong interactions, nobody so far came with good ways to calculate things. For example, in theory the mass of proton can be derived. But in practice it is not. So one uses that as an extra parameter and tries to use that to constrain calculations in other areas.
- staunton 2y ago
  Working like that, it sounds like the standard model can explain literally anything...
  - exe34 2y ago
    the standard model isn't one thing, it's the sum total of human knowledge of particle physics. it's an equation with a gazillion terms - this is an adjustment to one of those terms. and yes, you can add terms for any new physics you discover, so technically you're right, but it's not a gotcha.
    - yummypaint 2y ago
      This makes it sound more ad hoc than it is, it's not some polynomial where people just tack on terms. In its current agreed upon form it's just SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1). This gauge symmetry defines the lagrangian, which has 19 parameters to be determined by experiment. It's true that this isn't the whole story (dark matter etc), but these symmetries are physically motivated and their predictive power is pretty amazing (the QED part is CORRECT as far as any experiment has been able to check so far).
      - exe34 2y ago
        thank you! one day I'll understand this stuff - I skipped the qft elective at uni, but I'm trying to learn more now.
        eru 2y ago
        'The standard model' also doesn't include gravity. And we do have pretty good theories about gravity. So it's definitely not the 'sum total of human knowledge'.
        exe34 2y ago
        Does particle physics include gravity now?
nine_k 2y ago
In particular, it's interesting if that may have help explain the prevalence of matter over antimatter around us.
tsimionescu 2y ago
If the models are really wrong in a fundamental way and this can't be fixed by some tweaks in the free parameters (and this is a BIG if), then it's hard to predict what the consequences might be: the model is wrong, in a way that hasn't been extensively studied. How different a correct model might be is hard to predict.

What are the consequences for this breakage? The article says current models do not easily fit the asymmetry but does not state what parts of our understanding will break if those models are wrong.

fpoling 2y ago

Strong interactions are notoriously difficult to calculate from the first principles. So typically it is not done, but rather theoreticians try to guess the result and use the experimental data to partially fill the calculation gaps. So I expect in this cases the guesses were wrong and the Standard Model will manage to explain that as well.

facile3232 2y ago
> Strong interactions are notoriously difficult to calculate from the first principles. ??? Where does empiricism come in? Surely you need some kind of data to feed even raw assumptions. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting how "first principles" is employed here.
- spartanatreyu 2y ago
  The data comes in two ways: 1. Hey these particles are interacting with each other (e.g. they attract each other, they repel each other, they combine or split apart into each other, etc...) 2. I have measured something about this interaction (e.g. how fast, how far, how likely, etc...) to within a certain degree of accuracy Put them together and we have a sparse noisy list of forces, and a list of constants. Then we come up with theories to explain and reduce the data to their simplest components. Those theories occasionally spit out that there should be an interaction we haven't seen between some particles yet or a more accurate picture of an interaction we have already seen and we can run some experiments to see if the theory holds true in practice. We can then check how well those theories work by their predictions. - Gravity is just varying amounts of positive attraction over unlimited range (i.e. just a positive integer). - Electromagnetism is varying amounts of positive or negative attraction over unlimited range. (i.e. just an integer) The problem with strong interactions is that they get messy really fast. The energies and interactions involved are crazy. - We have the quarks (which are the fundamental matter particles that the strong force interacts on) - We have the gluons (which are part of the strong force itself) - And the strong interactions: which are actually 3 different amounts of positive or negative attractions that must all balance out (i.e. a whole bunch of numbers), but they get stronger as they get further away to the point that new particles can be created to reduce the range between any two particles, oh and the gluons can also interact with each other complicating matters further.
- fpoling 2y ago
  The first principles here refer to the basic equations of the Standard Model. There were a lot of alternative theories in sixties and seventies but eventually they were disproven experimentally and only SM survived. But the problem with SM is that when one deals with strong interactions, nobody so far came with good ways to calculate things. For example, in theory the mass of proton can be derived. But in practice it is not. So one uses that as an extra parameter and tries to use that to constrain calculations in other areas.
staunton 2y ago
Working like that, it sounds like the standard model can explain literally anything...
- exe34 2y ago
  the standard model isn't one thing, it's the sum total of human knowledge of particle physics. it's an equation with a gazillion terms - this is an adjustment to one of those terms. and yes, you can add terms for any new physics you discover, so technically you're right, but it's not a gotcha.
  - yummypaint 2y ago
    This makes it sound more ad hoc than it is, it's not some polynomial where people just tack on terms. In its current agreed upon form it's just SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1). This gauge symmetry defines the lagrangian, which has 19 parameters to be determined by experiment. It's true that this isn't the whole story (dark matter etc), but these symmetries are physically motivated and their predictive power is pretty amazing (the QED part is CORRECT as far as any experiment has been able to check so far).
    - exe34 2y ago
      thank you! one day I'll understand this stuff - I skipped the qft elective at uni, but I'm trying to learn more now.
      - eru 2y ago
        'The standard model' also doesn't include gravity. And we do have pretty good theories about gravity. So it's definitely not the 'sum total of human knowledge'.
        exe34 2y ago
        Does particle physics include gravity now?

nine_k 2y ago

In particular, it's interesting if that may have help explain the prevalence of matter over antimatter around us.

tsimionescu 2y ago

If the models are really wrong in a fundamental way and this can't be fixed by some tweaks in the free parameters (and this is a BIG if), then it's hard to predict what the consequences might be: the model is wrong, in a way that hasn't been extensively studied. How different a correct model might be is hard to predict.