New Fundamental Particle Discovered?

The folks at Fermilab are excited over the possibility that a new fundamental particle has been discovered.

Apparently, results from a high-speed collision experiment in Tevatron have yielded a result seeming to indicate that a hitherto unknown particle was created in the collision. If it exists, this particle wouldn’t be the much-sought-after Higgs boson or any other particle predicted by the Standard Model, but something entirely new – which may even imply the existence of a new fundamental force! If so, it will be the biggest news in physics since... quantum chromodynamics or something.

Fermilabs Data Peak Causes Excitement

Nobody’s sure yet, but the chances of this not being a new particle are one in 1,375. Pretty much a certainty by racetrack standards, but science holds to a higher standard: for reporting a new subatomic particle, the chance of being wrong has to be one in a million or less.

So the world of physics is now waiting with bated breath to discover whether or not high-school textbooks will have to be rewritten. It really is as fundamental as that.

reply to post by Astyanax


This is crazy...what the hell are we made of oO

Very cool, thanks for posting this.

From the release:

A few models proposed and developed in recent years postulate the existence of new fundamental interactions beyond those known today, which would create an excess similar to the one seen in the CDF data. That’s why everybody at CDF is excited about this result...The alternative explanation for this excess would be that we need to reconsider the theory that is used to predict the background spectrum, which is based on standard particle physics processes. That possibility, albeit less glamorous, would still have important implications. Those calculations use theoretical tools that are generally regarded as reliable and well understood, and form the basis of many other predictions in particle physics. Questioning these tools would require us to challenge our understanding of the fundamental forces of nature, the foundation of particle physics.

Just adding another link. This story is now up on CNN.

Is it a new particle, or just a fluke?

Originally posted by dude69
reply to post by Astyanax

 

This is crazy...what the hell are we made of oO

edit on 8-4-2011 by dude69 because: (no reason given)

Jello, some vodka, a sprg if mint and just a dash of badassedness....

Nice find OP - S n F!

For every question we seek an answer to, we find 15 more questions...

The world is just......AWESOME