I recently wrote about a request from a wise panel of experts to name the single discovery (in high energy physics) that would be the most surprising possibility in the next decade. You, our readers, gave a variety of enlightening and entertaining responses.
In the end, the committee charged with writing the official response (of which I am a member) gave the only answer we could honestly give. After much debate we ended up with the following and quoted Shakespeare:
There have been many possible scenarios of new physics proposed for the TeV energy scale. If we were to base our expectations on a survey of our colleagues, we could make a rank ordering of the “a priori likelihoods.” Supersymmetry would probably be the most expected discovery, followed by large extra dimensions, new strong interactions, … But nature would probably take little note of our questionnaire or the responses!
The most surprising discovery is “none of the above”. Particle physics has been driven in the past by surprises, some of which have become the very foundation of our understanding. Examples are: parity is violated; CP is violated; quarks are real but never seen as free particles; most of the mass in the universe isn’t due to the particles we know; most of the energy budget of the universe is in dark energy, causing the universe’s expansion to accelerate. Nature has reminded us time and again that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
It’s the honest answer. We humans do not know what is out there waiting for us to discover! That’s the really fun part.
October 18th, 2005 at 1:40 am
Well, sure, but would’t it have been more useful to infer that they meant the answer to be something that had been considered and wasn’t completely absurd?
October 18th, 2005 at 1:56 am
Aaron, we already covered the stuff that we expect to discover in the answers to the other 14 questions…(not to mention the 45 page document we wrote for them on the physics of the International Linear Collider). The real point is that what we presently consider to be completely absurd would be the most exciting! And, totally absurb things have been discovered in the past. We should be so lucky for it to happen to us during our lifetime.
October 18th, 2005 at 10:11 am
Planck said that revolutionary ideas in science don’t show up by winning over converts one by one based on scientific merits; instead its more political, and proponents of old ideas eventually die out.
The discoveries have most likely been made, and the answers are out there.
They’ve happend in our lifetime.
They just won’t catch on until all the old thinkers die out.
October 18th, 2005 at 10:17 am
First that would indicate anomalistic indications( and these would be paradigmic breaking revolutions ), not just in physics. But in that philsophy as well.
If we had wanted to phrase Skakespeare properly, it should have to been, To E+ or not to E-, that is the question, and the basis, of what nature has to impart? Non?
By calormetric design, we are looking for that beginning and philosophically the idea of a trigger, had to encourage such a philsphical statement that I would substitute instead of the the one the panel used. It is better then simply saying, “we do not know”:)?
Smolin would have to agree, and all so those working on the S matrix?
October 18th, 2005 at 10:25 am
Sure, take the easy answer.
Actually, I really like this. Having read a lot recently about the intelligent design debate, I think it’s worth repeating many times that the most exciting scientific result is *always* the one that is completely unexpected and counter to our previous experience.
October 18th, 2005 at 12:40 pm
You concluded that extra dimensions are the second most likely discovery at the LHC? What was this committee smoking?
I like holography as much as the next guy, but give me a break. Had today’s phenomenology community been around back when the rho meson was discovered, would it have been dubbed a KK photon?
It’s just absurdly implausible that extra dimensions will be discovered at the LHC. It might be nice, but it’s not the second most likely scenario. Far more likely is that technicolor will be found and incorrectly judged extra dimensions.
October 18th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
But isn’t the Randall-Sundrum scenario dual to a theory of technicolor?
October 18th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
What a punt.
October 18th, 2005 at 3:36 pm
“A new Scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light but rather its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”
Planck
…just helpng out Mobydikc
October 18th, 2005 at 11:34 pm
Ahem… amen…
Just kidding. Because that kindof of “high-five” would be the exact kind of political BS I’m detesting in modern theory.
Though, I would have to think, Planck knows alot more about how knowledge propogates (can anyone here say “memetics”) than any proponet of 20th century physics.
There will be another Bohr/Heisenberg/Einstein/Planck …. but it won’t come from acadamia…. sorry.