right, but it's still out there in the same orbit with the same momentum and positioning
moondog Send a noteboard - 15/06/2010 08:45:43 AM
There are currently six known quarks: up, down, strange, charm, bottom, top. Only the first three were known before the second three were predicted by theory in the early 70s; they were all eventually confirmed by experiment, but the top quark wasn't found until 1995.
That's one example of how powerful the predictions of theory can be; there are many more. Obviously, there are a lot of incorrect theories, too. It may seem like physicists just invent new particles to solve any problems, but no matter what we hypothesize, it all comes down to what the experiments show. So far, we have found many predicted "new" particles in consistent ways (although the list of particles that have been proposed and never found is very large indeed).
The Higgs mechanism has been around since 1964, along with the prediction of at least one new particle to go along with it. It's only now that we have the technology to probe the high energy range at which such a particle could be seen.
Don't get caught up in sensationalized news reporting, which makes everything seem like a brand new invention. (To be fair, this was actually one of the better mass-consumption science articles I've read recently.) Most of the theories for which we'll soon be searching for evidence have been around in some form for decades now, being refined and probed.
That's one example of how powerful the predictions of theory can be; there are many more. Obviously, there are a lot of incorrect theories, too. It may seem like physicists just invent new particles to solve any problems, but no matter what we hypothesize, it all comes down to what the experiments show. So far, we have found many predicted "new" particles in consistent ways (although the list of particles that have been proposed and never found is very large indeed).
The Higgs mechanism has been around since 1964, along with the prediction of at least one new particle to go along with it. It's only now that we have the technology to probe the high energy range at which such a particle could be seen.
Don't get caught up in sensationalized news reporting, which makes everything seem like a brand new invention. (To be fair, this was actually one of the better mass-consumption science articles I've read recently.) Most of the theories for which we'll soon be searching for evidence have been around in some form for decades now, being refined and probed.
oh, i'm well familiar with the theory behind the particles, it just seems like a lot of guesswork and hand waving to me. maybe i should have taken more than a couple semesters of quantum mechanics but i've always been more of an astrophysics kind of person as opposed to particles of course, on the astro side, the discovery of literally 100s of planets when there were only 9 (now before started out like hand waving and guesswork but at least planets don't disappear when you try to measure them
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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman
US experiment hints at 'multiple God particles'
15/06/2010 04:04:14 AM
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I minored in modern physics, which means, I have enough knowledge to be.....
15/06/2010 04:45:35 AM
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this has always bothered me about particle physicists....
15/06/2010 05:32:26 AM
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Yeah, always been my problem, too.
15/06/2010 05:44:30 AM
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Lederman wanted to call it "the goddamn particle," but the publisher wouldn't let him.
15/06/2010 06:26:56 AM
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Well, we've been pretty bad at name stuff
15/06/2010 08:52:09 AM
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"Giant radiating dyke swarms"?!!!
15/06/2010 05:57:11 PM
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It's more than a few right answers.
15/06/2010 06:26:35 AM
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did you go to school in wisconsin? cause you sound just like that guy
15/06/2010 07:07:49 AM
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Yet, when determining the measure for what a planet is, Pluto vanished from the list!
15/06/2010 07:14:28 AM
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right, but it's still out there in the same orbit with the same momentum and positioning
15/06/2010 08:45:43 AM
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It had to lose its status or you'd have to memorize several more planets
15/06/2010 08:57:20 AM
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y'all are screwing up my "uncertainty principle" joke dammit! *NM*
15/06/2010 09:19:11 AM
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I was disappointed they didn't make all the dwarf planets into planet planets.
16/06/2010 01:00:51 PM
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As a physicist, I find this quite interesting.
16/06/2010 09:08:15 PM
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Not quite.
16/06/2010 09:57:18 PM
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Re: Not quite.
16/06/2010 10:22:14 PM
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