Large Hadron Collider May Have Detected A New Particle

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Two independent teams of physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider have reported seeing traces of what they believe could be a previously unknown particle.

The rejuvenated Large Hadron Collider might have achieved another breakthrough... provided everything lines up, that is. Two teams of CERN scientists have detected an excess of gamma ray pairs that they suspect might represent the radioactive decay of a previously unknown particle. The data is far from conclusive (there's a 1 in 93 chance that it's nothing), and the researchers don't expect to have enough data until they present at a convention next summer. However, it's rare that two groups notice the same anomaly -- that's frequently a sign that something's up.
 
It's too early to tell, since that will require much more data, but that result could hint at the way gravitons are predicted to decay. Or it could just be insignificant noise.
 
Hurry up with my damn FTL drive. I want to explore the galaxies!!!!
 
Armenius said:
Someone sneezed in the collider?
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The funny part about journalists reporting this stuff so early could be dust or a blown component causing a bad reading. Later to be reported as "oops".
 
Means they want more money after the Higss Boson quest played out
 
Would be cool if they found the particle that kept the atoms from destroying each other during the big bang which gave life to our solar system & everything we know.
 
For whatever strange reason this came to mind immediately:

d9w_EEUs.gif
 
Darunion said:
The funny part about journalists reporting this stuff so early could be dust or a blown component causing a bad reading. Later to be reported as "oops".
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I'm reminded of the incident involving a wild bird flying over one of the electrical distribution substations at the facility and dropping a piece of a baguette into the equipment below as he passed. It caused a quite a bit of panic due to the malfunctions that occurred as a result and caused a shutdown for several months. This was before they had even started colliding the beams.
 
Steve said:
...The data is far from conclusive (there's a 1 in 93 chance that it's nothing)...
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I think it meant to say the opposite.
There is a 1 in 93 chance that it is something.
As written, its almost a certainty.
 
Krenum said:
Would be cool if they found the particle that kept the atoms from destroying each other during the big bang which gave life to our solar system & everything we know.
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If you are thinking on the reasoning the big bang didn't just went up in smoke since symmetry in the universe dictates equal amount of matter and anti matter then test results have already giving us hints off that.
It seem that there is a tiny flaw in the universe's symetry and it creates 1/2.000.000.000 part more matter than anti matter.
So if you think the universe is big. Remember its only 1/2.000.000.000 of what got created during the big bang and then "vaporised" again. Well in one theory.
 
Nenu said:
I think it meant to say the opposite.
There is a 1 in 93 chance that it is something.
As written, its almost a certainty.
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Suspect its some kind of statistical test ie even a verified positive result could be down to random noise that proportion of the time. It doesn't mean the opposite - that there is 92/93 chance of it being real.
 
Darunion said:
The funny part about journalists reporting this stuff so early could be dust or a blown component causing a bad reading. Later to be reported as "oops".
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Not in this case. There were 10 extraneous pairs of particles detected between April and November that were unaccounted for at a very specific energy. It's been detected two different ways, so it's unlikely to just be a complete mistake or failure:

ars said:
Both CMS and ATLAS see a weak bump in the area of 750GeV. If you simply ask "is there a signal at 750GeV?" then CMS says "yes," with a significance of 2.6 sigma; ATLAS, with more data, has a significance of 3.6 sigma. This is interesting, but discovery requires a significance of five sigma.
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2.6 sigma is about 1 in 100 chance it's random (1 in 93 given in the article). 3.6 sigma is less than 1 in 3000 chance it's random. 5 sigma is less than 1 in 3.5 million chance it's random. So while it's exciting, many places are reporting that it may in fact be noise that fades with more measurements. I didn't bother reading Steve's link since I already read better articles earlier. :p
 
I really only care about the ultimate practical applications of such discoveries. For the layman, this is all just unfathomable math.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
I really only care about the ultimate practical applications of such discoveries. For the layman, this is all just unfathomable math.
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There was a point sometime in the past during which the unfathomable math scientists was doing was making possible the ability for you to view this forum thread on your computer.
 
evilsofa said:
There was a point sometime in the past during which the unfathomable math scientists was doing was making possible the ability for you to view this forum thread on your computer.
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I am well aware of that.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
I really only care about the ultimate practical applications of such discoveries. For the layman, this is all just unfathomable math.
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I think it can be exciting for laymen too, at least for those of us who are curious about how nature works. Of course we'll need scientist like Brian Greene, Neil Tyson, or Michio Kaku to translate the math to something laymen can understand.
 
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