Comments on: Is it Time to Reexamine the Standard Model of Particle Physics? http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2011/10/12/is-it-time-to-reexamine-the-standard-model-of-particle-physics-by-amir-d-aczel/ Sat, 25 May 2013 21:25:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Igor Fodor http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2011/10/12/is-it-time-to-reexamine-the-standard-model-of-particle-physics-by-amir-d-aczel/#comment-8 Igor Fodor Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:29:18 +0000 http://discoverblogs.sixfeetup.com/crux/?p=38#comment-8 There are phenomena, which fit into the present thought pattern, e.g. six quarks. We searched so long until we found also the sixth top quark. Now we are searching for the Higgs particle. Not to miss anything, just in case, because there are also competing alternative higgsless theories, we are searching simultaneously also for the Kaluza-Klein particles. But it's about more than to find „only“ an elementary particle or not – it's about our worldview. Therefore, on one hand, we spend so much money for the experiments. On the other hand, such a gigantic particle accelerator is a "relict" from the times of the „Big Science“. The Nobel prize winner from 2004, Frank Wilczek predicts that with the particle accelarator LHC will begin a "new golden era“. Sean Carroll thought that it is to be counted with „dramatic changes in our understanding of the architecture of the reality“. But the physicists don't make only predictions, they also make bets. So, for example, British physicist Stephen Hawking made a bet with the American Gordon Kane in 2000, that no Higgs particle will be found. Gordon Kane (a proponent of the supersymmetry) predicted by the way in 1999 that if we are not missing any basic ideas, in roughly next 6 years (from that point in time) supersymmetry particles and a light supersymmetric Higgs particle will be found with the LEP which was the predecessor of the LHC (or Fermilab in the USA) which hasn't happened. Tommaso Dorigo, a particle physicist from Padua Univ. in Italy, made a bet in his Weblog in 2006 for $1000 that no physics "beyond the Standard Model" will be found with the LHC until the end of 2010 (at that time he couldn't foresee that the LHC will be switched off for so long because of the fault with the superconducting magnet). This bet was taken on by his colleague, particle physicist Gordon Watts and the string theorist Jacques Distler. Already Robert Laughlin (Nobel prize 1998) noted, in all areas of science it was recognized that the reductionism prevented further progress. One should not forget that current thinking in the particle physics ist still influenced by reductionism, i.e. despite the evidence that the reductionist paradigm in physics is in difficulties, the particle experiments are described in form of reductionism. In the particle accelerator it came so far that the CERN theorist Alvaro de Rujula once said, the best result for the particle experiments would be if we found no Higgs particles! That would force the physicists to revise some details of the Standard Model. "Then we would learn something revolutionary", he said. Physicists like Greg Landsberg believe anyway that the Standard Model is wrong… People are already curious when the LHC particle accelerator at CERN will produce the primordial matter quark-gluon plasma, from which originated the whole universe. Can scientists find something unexpected after all? The problem is that we don't see something, until we found a suitable paradigm. Peter Higgs was quoted in the German newspaper "taz" from 12th Nov. 2011: „It would mean that I no longer understand things, which until now I believed to have understood“. But perhaps Alvaro de Rujula is right when he said: „…a complete lack of understanding often precedes a scientific revolution”. There are phenomena, which fit into the present thought pattern, e.g. six quarks. We searched so long until we found also the sixth top quark. Now we are searching for the Higgs particle. Not to miss anything, just in case, because there are also competing alternative higgsless theories, we are searching simultaneously also for the Kaluza-Klein particles.
But it’s about more than to find „only“ an elementary particle or not – it’s about our worldview. Therefore, on one hand, we spend so much money for the experiments. On the other hand, such a gigantic particle accelerator is a “relict” from the times of the „Big Science“.
The Nobel prize winner from 2004, Frank Wilczek predicts that with the particle accelarator LHC will begin a “new golden era“. Sean Carroll thought that it is to be counted with „dramatic changes in our understanding of the architecture of the reality“.
But the physicists don’t make only predictions, they also make bets. So, for example, British physicist Stephen Hawking made a bet with the American Gordon Kane in 2000, that no Higgs particle will be found. Gordon Kane (a proponent of the supersymmetry) predicted by the way in 1999 that if we are not missing any basic ideas, in roughly next 6 years (from that point in time) supersymmetry particles and a light supersymmetric Higgs particle will be found with the LEP which was the predecessor of the LHC (or Fermilab in the USA) which hasn’t happened.

Tommaso Dorigo, a particle physicist from Padua Univ. in Italy, made a bet in his Weblog in 2006 for $1000 that no physics “beyond the Standard Model” will be found with the LHC until the end of 2010 (at that time he couldn’t foresee that the LHC will be switched off for so long because of the fault with the superconducting magnet). This bet was taken on by his colleague, particle physicist Gordon Watts and the string theorist Jacques Distler.

Already Robert Laughlin (Nobel prize 1998) noted, in all areas of science it was recognized that the reductionism prevented further progress. One should not forget that current thinking in the particle physics ist still influenced by reductionism, i.e. despite the evidence that the reductionist paradigm in physics is in difficulties, the particle experiments are described in form of reductionism.

In the particle accelerator it came so far that the CERN theorist Alvaro de Rujula once said, the best result for the particle experiments would be if we found no Higgs particles! That would force the physicists to revise some details of the Standard Model. “Then we would learn something revolutionary”, he said. Physicists like Greg Landsberg believe anyway that the Standard Model is wrong…

People are already curious when the LHC particle accelerator at CERN will produce the primordial matter quark-gluon plasma, from which originated the whole universe. Can scientists find something unexpected after all? The problem is that we don’t see something, until we found a suitable paradigm.

Peter Higgs was quoted in the German newspaper “taz” from 12th Nov. 2011: „It would mean that I no longer understand things, which until now I believed to have understood“. But perhaps Alvaro de Rujula is right when he said: „…a complete lack of understanding often precedes a scientific revolution”.

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