Official "Science News" Thread

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by jasong

Have you guys heard about the possible Large Hadron Collider physics discovery? I guess it'll be a few months before there's any official paper, they want to get that special odds number up past 5 before they claim it as an actual discovery. Sorry I can't remember the right word.

I'm only half-joking when I say,"Is my flying car finally going to become a reality?" I honestly have no idea what this fifth force actually does, if it exists.

One of the first hits on a search of "large hadron collider" seems pertinent: New physics at the Large Hadron Collider? Scientists are excited, but it's too soon to be sure

<snip>
The physicists at CERN think they've found a situation that the Standard Model can't explain: where the model predicts a particle called a beauty quark should decay into other particles called muons and electrons at about the same rate, it looks like it actually decays into electrons more often than muons.
<snip>
The reason scientists are cautious about the result is because it's what's called a 3-sigma finding.
<snip>
A 3-sigma result means there is a roughly 1 in 1,000 probability that observations at least as extreme as those gathered would occur, given the Standard Model. That's substantially better than your quest to find fairies and does seem to call the Standard Model into question.

WHY SO CAUTIOUS?

Physicists don't usually crack open the champagne until they have a 5-sigma result.
<snip>

[jasong]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

One of the first hits on a search of "large hadron collider" seems pertinent: New physics at the Large Hadron Collider? Scientists are excited, but it's too soon to be sure

I wasn't intending for people to think I'm a lazy Googler, but thanks for the link. :)

My actual intended question was whether anybody had any opinions about things that could be done with the knowledge. In the article, it said that electrons were more likely than the standard model predicted, so maybe there's energy production potential in the future? Do electrons have a use beyond electricity and sending data? Those two abilities are plenty awesome, but maybe I don't know something.

[rogue]

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[xilman]

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[Till]

Originally Posted by rogue

New Theory Casually Upends Space and Time

Is it me or is that article completely dumb? No reference to any scientfic paper at all if I didn't miss it. (and forget about the "information" delivered by the article itself)

[rogue]

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[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Till

Is it me or is that article completely dumb? No reference to any scientfic paper at all if I didn't miss it. (and forget about the "information" delivered by the article itself)

The lack of a citation is really lame.

The actual paper is in PHYSICS ESSAYS 33, 4 (2020)