Strong evidence found for a new force of nature
- Thread starter VeevaVee
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Interesting that there may be a 5th fundamental force but they are a way off being able to claim a discovery yet. I loved the bit that said they have no idea what this force and potentially an undiscovered fundamental particle might do other than make Muon's wobble. No idea why that amused me so much. I think I need to get out more.
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It’s because wobble is almost the same as Wibble; admit it.
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Too forced.
Interesting... In March this year some CERN data was re-examined and pointed stringly to the a lepotquark
https://physicsworld.com/a/has-a-new-particle-called-a-leptoquark-been-spotted-at-cern/
interesting that one of the theoris is this also shows a leptoquark - if two independent experiements have found the same thing perhaps this will give some credence to certain GUT's
It is important to remember that for all we know and all we believe we know about the universal laws of physics, we only know about 4% of the matter in our Universe.
And even that 4% may now not be totally correct.
Our Universe and everything in it is very far from being even partially understood.
And of the four fundamental forces we know about, we actually know very little about gravity.
But this is a fantastic age of scientific research and discovery.
We have only taken the very first small steps on humanities voyage of discovery.
And even that 4% may now not be totally correct.
Our Universe and everything in it is very far from being even partially understood.
And of the four fundamental forces we know about, we actually know very little about gravity.
But this is a fantastic age of scientific research and discovery.
We have only taken the very first small steps on humanities voyage of discovery.
I’m not sure it’s possible to put a percentage on our knowledge of the universe without knowing whether the universe is finite, or how much there is to discover?
That is a fair point. I was referring to the known Universe and should have made that clear.
The gravity questions intrigue me, it almost feels like gravity is only partially acting in dimensions we can conceive or on particles we know about.
There's also been some cool stuff about neutrinos going faster than the speed of light, so there seems to be a theme about forces outside of our knowledge interacting with the known universe.
That is right.
The Standard Model has been highly successful in describing how three of the four forces operate through the force carriers.
But, as yet, nobody has discovered or detected the gravity force carriers. And that is a massive problem.
And there is great debate as to whether gravity is actually a force.
It is easily the weakest of the forces despite being unlimited in distance. And maybe that weakness makes the force carrier, assuming it exists makes it so difficult to detect.
It was always going to be the case that they'd eventually discover the red cafe.
Jokes aside, read this the other day, not going to pretend I understood it but it seemed like big discovery if they can prove it.
Jokes aside, read this the other day, not going to pretend I understood it but it seemed like big discovery if they can prove it.
Neutrinos was found to be a misreading and after upgrades, they were confirmed to move at or slightly less than the speed of light.
I read about an idea that said the known universe was littered with undetectable, doughnut shaped parallel universes that could be interacting with our universe, both injecting and removing forces.
I'm an absolute amateur, but I do like that idea.
Oh, that's a shame
It's massive because there's entirely new physics, which potentially turn all the physics we think we know on its head. I personally despise physics, especially quantum, but I think there is something beautiful about a subject that brings about more unknowns the more you know.
Would it not just add to it? Hasn't most of the work Einstein did been proven to be correct and actually led physics down this path? Like I said, I'm not a physicist or scientist. I'm just surprised if it compelte changes physics given how accurate most physics has proven to be.
Most of it is correct as far as we know, but there's still a discrepancy between quantum mechanics and classical physics. The Standard Model does its best to unify them but it's lacking; it's our best understanding to date and is a constant work in progress. It wouldn't necessarily just slot right in because it may disprove the previous best fit theory.
Right I get you. That model is something I've heard about watching documentaries. So another piece of the puzzle. Wonder what kind of innovations it might lead to in the future I'd it's proven to be correct.
Don't put yourself down. In truth, we are all amateurs when it comes to quantum physics.
You can look at the SM on Wiki. It is actually reasonably understandable.
It shows the 4 Forces and their Force Carriers (the way they interact). Gravity excepted.
Am I the only one who never understood why there is not officially a Higgs force, considering that Higgs boson is the only boson who does not have a corresponding force?
This giving a % over how much we know has always been stupid. How do you know how much you know at a single point without knowing everything?
This is not correct. Quantum mechanics totally replaces classical mechanics. The discrepancy is between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Quantum mechanics is also extended to quantum field theory (QFT). One QFT is the standard model which describes all the known particles and all forces except gravity (which is explained by general relativity). There have been attempts to unify them on string theory, but there is no empirical evidence of string theory describes our universe or not.
i thought I was making a mistake to be honest but I couldn’t remember where
You are not. I have wondered that myself.
If it is the field which gives particles their mass, then it is a fair point.
Does QM totally replace Classic Physics?
Surely QM is the physics of the micro, while Classic Physics still applies to the macro.
You said it yourself. You know everything you know at a single point in time.
Absolutely. Just that you cannot calculate quantum mechanics effects in macro level (cause good luck doing the Schrondinger's equation for gazillions of particles), so you have to use classical mechanics as an approximation. However, with an infinitely powerful quantum computer, you can describe everything (except the gravity) with quantum mechanics *.
By quantum mechanics, I obviously mean also its extensions like quantum field theory.
That should be the Caf's tagline.
This has thrown me a bit. I will readily admit that I am very far from having a great understanding. More a fascination.
But.
As I understood it, they are each applicable to different states. Classical is still correct for the everyday things but breaks down at the very small. And this is where Quantum takes over.
The reason I understand this is because the laws of one don't apply to the other. And that is why science had been striving to come up with a theory which brings them both together.
The problem is there is no hand off so to speak, and because what works in the quantum world falls down in classical the theory becomes disjointed and our understanding is a best possible fit with the information we currently know. In my previous post I was confusing general relativity to be part of classical physics but it’s really what debunked it, at least I think @Revan?
I’ve said previously I’m no physicist, though. My qualifications in the subject extend as far as doing a Compton experiment.
Classical mechanics is just an approximation, and in a fundamental level, it is totally wrong. For example, having a computer with infinite power, and knowing the position and the momentum of each particle in the universe, by using classical mechanics, you can predict everything that is going to happen for eternity. In essence, it is a deterministic theory.
Quantum mechanics says that this is not the case. The universe is ruled by quantum laws, which are probabilistic in nature (Schrodinger's equation is not probabilistic, but the wave-state of particles it is). Predicting when a wave is going to collapse is impossible, though you can make probabilistic predictions for it. So here come two problems: 1) it is impossible to know both the position and the momentum of a particle, in fact, the more precisely you know one, the less precise you are in the other (Heisenberg uncertainty principle); 2) even if that was the case and you know that, and have such a computer, still you won't be able to predict the future. Essentially, the universe is not deterministic.
We are totally sure that QM is either correct or mostly correct (it could be an approximation of something ever deeper), and we know that classical mechanics is wrong. It is not that they contradict each other, more that one is correct and the other isn't. Just that classical mechanics is very simple and is a very good approximation of quantum mechanics when it comes to everyday's life and large objects (by large, I mean everything bigger than molecules), but it is fundamentally wrong. Similar to how Newtonian gravity is wrong, and it is just an approximation of general relativity (which most likely is a good approximation of a yet-to-be-discovered theory of quantum gravity).
The problem in physics is how to unify quantum mechanics and gravity. Quantum mechanics describe all the particles and all the forces except gravity. But gravity is very important especially for large objects, and so far, the best theory of it is Einstein's general relativity. For the most part, as long as you use gravity to study large objects, you are fine (the reason being that quantum effects in large objects are so small that they can be ignored). However, when you go to tiny objects with massive mass (black holes), everything breaks down. You cannot ignore quantum mechanical effects, and suddenly the equations start showing infinities everywhere. This is why people say that quantum mechanics and general relativity do not agree with each other (on the other hand, quantum mechanics is totally fine with special relativity). And considering that everything is quantum, people think that gravity must be quantum too, so general relativity is probably just a very good approximation.
The attempts to unite these two fields, have not succeeded so far. String theory unifies them in a very elegant way, and actually, gravity emerges from it, so you do not need to even add it. Unfortunately, there is no experimental evidence that string theory is anything more than just a correct mathematical theory. It might just describe a hypothetical multiverse, but our universe might not be part of that, so at this stage, it is just math. Quantum loop gravity has also tried to have a theory of quantum gravity, but also there the experimental evidence is small, and unlike string theory, it is not a theory of everything. I think that there are other fields that try to unify QM and GR, but for the most part, strong theory has been the one where almost everyone is working (and everyone else hates it).
I think many physicists consider relativity (both special and general) to be classical theories, simply because they are not quantum. They definitely are closer to classical physics than to quantum mechanics, which totally breaks classical physics and everything you know about it.
@Buster15, considering that everything is made of from tiny particles, every physicist worth something agrees that the universe is quantum. So me and you, the computer we are using, and everything else is quantum systems. In principle, having infinite power (and knowing how to do it, which we don't), we can use quantum mechanics to describe everything except gravity.
Is it
STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN 3:16?
STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN 3:16?
Firstly thank you for taking your time to set this out in a way that even I can begin to understand.
On a wider note, do you think that our Universe is singular. Or do you think that there could be others in different forms who have developed differently with different laws.
Obviously we cannot be sure. But I just find it a bit strange to think that our Universe just happened to turn out the way it has with so many ways it could have evolved differently.
Not a professional physicist to be able to have a good educated opinion on it.
However, strong theory gives a low estimate in the number of universes to be 10 ^ 500 (for comparison, the number of particles in the observable universe is estimated to be 10 ^80). Each of these universes, has its own laws.
Additionally, there is the anthropic principle. The fundamental constants are so nicely finetuned, to have matter, stars, life and so on. Which leaves three possibilities:
a) a God who designed so.
b) an infinite (or a very large) number of universes, each having its own constants. Of course, the observers will be in those that support life (like ours)
c) same as (b) but the universe getting created and destroyed, each time with its own laws.
Simply, if there is a single universe, it is designed. If there are many, who knows, but it explains why the constants are so finetuned.
I guess we will never know.
NB: Many-world 'interpretation' of quantum mechanics also has a very large number of universes, probably infinity.
I don't know if I've got mixed up on the way some how, but what confuses me is other dimensions of time.
So our universe is set in the fabric of space and time. I can see 3 dimensions of space and one dimension of time. Those four dimensions give us our classical physics rules. I can understand the concept of fourth dimensional space with hypercubes, so, yeah, maybe there can be other dimensions of space that we can't see, but we can figure out. But how would other dimensions of time work?
Is that why you could get doughnut shaped parallel universes? Because we can't comprehend the way time, and thus the rules of physics, work in those universes, so they seem like a closed loop to us?
And could those parallel universes be interacting at an angle to ours, giving us weird results?
So our universe is set in the fabric of space and time. I can see 3 dimensions of space and one dimension of time. Those four dimensions give us our classical physics rules. I can understand the concept of fourth dimensional space with hypercubes, so, yeah, maybe there can be other dimensions of space that we can't see, but we can figure out. But how would other dimensions of time work?
Is that why you could get doughnut shaped parallel universes? Because we can't comprehend the way time, and thus the rules of physics, work in those universes, so they seem like a closed loop to us?
And could those parallel universes be interacting at an angle to ours, giving us weird results?