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> If the delivery can be made successfully—and it appears we are just a liquid helium supply away from getting it to work—the new facility in Germany should all

> If the delivery can be made successfully—and it appears we are just a liquid helium supply away from getting it to work—the new facility in Germany should allow measurements with a precision of over 100 times better than anything that has been achieved at CERN. Hmm. It sounds good until you realize that's two decimal places. Two decimal places is a pretty marginal gain for a lot of work.

Loughla 1y ago
Two decimal places is a shit ton of precision though. A one inch gap is immense compared to a .01 inch gap.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - krastanov 1y ago
    ugh... Needing more than 4 significant digits is a pretty baseline requirement for precision physics experiments meant to falsify various candidate theories. 2 new significant digits is a vast parameter space that now can be excluded. Needing more than 4 significant digits happens to be crucially important for mundane boring stuff like the GPS navigation in your maps app working.
  - danparsonson 1y ago
    Surely the precision you need for any measurement is entirely situation-dependent?
hubrix 1y ago
2 decimal places is the difference between employment and ownership. 100k vs 10MM. That is the comparison you really want to think about.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  No, 100k and 10,000k each have one decimal place. Two decimal places is the difference between 100k and 104k.
  - ytpete 1y ago
    Wouldn't it be the difference between 100k and 140k? 105k rounded to lose two decimals of precision would still be 100k.
computerfriend 1y ago
Do you write O(n^2) code when there's an O(1) algorithm?
gus_massa 1y ago
Everybody think that the properties of a proton and an antiproton are equal. As far as we know, that is true, but it's better to confirm that experimentally, and we need more precision to detect subtle differences. Two more decimals places would be nice. There are a few properties of other particles with like 8 decimal places calculated theoretically and measured experimentally, and they are useful to validate the current standard model. Actually, we expect some very very tiny asymmetry between matter and antimatter, but no one has measured that. I'm not sure how it would be visible in antiprotons. Perhaps a very tiny difference in the magnetic moment. Perhaps in the 17th digit that we will never measure. [1] In any case it's interesting to confirm that our current models are correct or not. [1] I'm not an expert in this area, but IIRC the problem is something like there is a little chance that the antiproton emits a photon that creates a electron and a positron, then it use the week force to transform into a muon that use the weak force to transform into a tauon that use the weak force to transform into an electron that colides with the original positron that was not doing nothing interesting meanwhile. Nobody is sure if all this transformations introduces a complex phase (a complex number of modulo 1) that cause a difference when you start with a antiproton instead of a proton. So, if there is a difference, it's probably something weird with a lot of intermediate virtual particles that cause a tiny difference in the 17th digit, or perhaps in the 1326th digit.
- gus_massa 1y ago
  Too late to edit: I think the note [1] needs to be fixed. I think it's a cycle of quarks, down -> strange -> bottom -> down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark#Weak_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark#Weak_interaction Anyway, before constructing a giant particle accelerator to measure that, better ask a particle physics expert :) .

Loughla 1y ago

Two decimal places is a shit ton of precision though. A one inch gap is immense compared to a .01 inch gap.

thaumasiotes 1y ago
[flagged]
- krastanov 1y ago
  ugh... Needing more than 4 significant digits is a pretty baseline requirement for precision physics experiments meant to falsify various candidate theories. 2 new significant digits is a vast parameter space that now can be excluded. Needing more than 4 significant digits happens to be crucially important for mundane boring stuff like the GPS navigation in your maps app working.
- danparsonson 1y ago
  Surely the precision you need for any measurement is entirely situation-dependent?

hubrix 1y ago

2 decimal places is the difference between employment and ownership. 100k vs 10MM. That is the comparison you really want to think about.

thaumasiotes 1y ago
No, 100k and 10,000k each have one decimal place. Two decimal places is the difference between 100k and 104k.
- ytpete 1y ago
  Wouldn't it be the difference between 100k and 140k? 105k rounded to lose two decimals of precision would still be 100k.

computerfriend 1y ago

Do you write O(n^2) code when there's an O(1) algorithm?

gus_massa 1y ago

Everybody think that the properties of a proton and an antiproton are equal. As far as we know, that is true, but it's better to confirm that experimentally, and we need more precision to detect subtle differences. Two more decimals places would be nice. There are a few properties of other particles with like 8 decimal places calculated theoretically and measured experimentally, and they are useful to validate the current standard model. Actually, we expect some very very tiny asymmetry between matter and antimatter, but no one has measured that. I'm not sure how it would be visible in antiprotons. Perhaps a very tiny difference in the magnetic moment. Perhaps in the 17th digit that we will never measure. [1] In any case it's interesting to confirm that our current models are correct or not. [1] I'm not an expert in this area, but IIRC the problem is something like there is a little chance that the antiproton emits a photon that creates a electron and a positron, then it use the week force to transform into a muon that use the weak force to transform into a tauon that use the weak force to transform into an electron that colides with the original positron that was not doing nothing interesting meanwhile. Nobody is sure if all this transformations introduces a complex phase (a complex number of modulo 1) that cause a difference when you start with a antiproton instead of a proton. So, if there is a difference, it's probably something weird with a lot of intermediate virtual particles that cause a tiny difference in the 17th digit, or perhaps in the 1326th digit.

gus_massa 1y ago
Too late to edit: I think the note [1] needs to be fixed. I think it's a cycle of quarks, down -> strange -> bottom -> down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark#Weak_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark#Weak_interaction Anyway, before constructing a giant particle accelerator to measure that, better ask a particle physics expert :) .