mattheww

The measurement interpretation of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is both a useful way to understand it, and historically, a way to ease experimentalists into accepting and believing it.

Besides the giving us applications that we can literally not imagine today, the "engineering" feats required to do cutting edge science always brings new technologies that benefit the real world. Just think that accelerators that would have been used for cutting-edge particle physics 50 years ago are now commonly used in hospitals to treat cancer.

Measurements of the Higgs boson quantum numbers, on the other hand, provide very useful expansions of our understanding. The parameter space of possible Higgs bosons is so large that its impossible to know where it could be and different regions correspond two very different possible physics. So the measurement of the Higgs' mass, spin, couplings, and even the number of Higgs bosons are actually quantitative improvements to our understanding.

The problem is that if you're not a physicist, it is very difficult to explain to you why this measurement is something more than empirical. Lay people can easily understand that a new particle has been observed, but not so much how that expands our understanding.

I'd also like to point out that most of the people who came up with the ideas that are being tested are still alive. The standard model as we know it didn't really start taking shape until the 1970s.

I do know that knowledgeable people will probably be more open-mouthed around this time tomorrow.

1) Nobody with any actual knowledge about the analysis spoke with anyone who then blogged about it. These people know better. What actually happened was that people in CMS and ATLAS, who don't work on the Higgs analysis, saw the Higgs plots during internal discussions and then told their theorist, blogger friends roughly what they saw.

2) The most familiar exclusion plots are showing the line at which the cross section is excluded at 95% along with the 2-sigma uncertainty on the expected location of this curve. Since the people spreading rumors are not very familiar with the analysis, they do not realize that n-sigma deviations between the observed and expected lines are not the same thing as n-sigma observations. The actual significance of observation will usually be lower.

3) Again because the people spreading rumors are not familiar with the analysis, they are not able to add appropriate caveats about systematic uncertainties, which can substantially reduce significance. Because these rumors started last week, I guarantee the plots on which they were based do not include all systematic effects. And because the bloggers are predominantly theorists, they don't have the experience to add that information themselves either.

So I hope you will take rumors for what they are: rumors.

Furthermore, I doubt anyone at OPERA is in a position to even fulfill your request. The minimum number of separate systems with exclusive sets of code is three, and probably more than ten.

However, physicists do make extensive use of unit tests, so that may be some consolation.

Regarding your "rant": either way, it's still a force. Gravity still causes things to move. How that force is explained is clearly different in different theories. General Relativity suggests (1). Quantum Gravity theories suggest (2). Newton didn't really explain how it was mediated.

You could apply the same rant to QED: Either electrodynamics is caused by the bending of a vector potential by electric charge or it's a force transmitted by photons. The two statements are equivalent. But with gravity, we're not sure if quantum part is true.

From there, you'd have a good basis to study some particle physics. The two introductory texts are either Halzen and Marten or Griffiths (same author, different book). Either of those will give you a pretty solid understanding of particle physics, including QED. You could supplement that by studying some Quantum Field Theory (QFT). At the moment, Peskin and Schroeder is the classic text.

Depending on your interests, you could continue in QFT with P&S. That text probably covers at least 3 terms of graduate QFT. You could also study GR. Carroll is the most popular text at the moment, but I like Schutz and others swear by Wald. If you're interested in experimental stuff, you could learn about detectors using the text by Green.

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042/trivia [2] http://www.glenbrook225.org/north/calendars/Documents/2010_2...

It's immediately suspicious that the authors introduce a new type of "test" for whatever spectra are being measured. When that happens, the authors need to rigorously demonstrate its validity. That is not present in this preprint.

The thing that needs to be demonstrated is that their method generates a reasonable space of outcomes. It's not clear to me that's true for their method.

It uses an extremely suspicious technique to test the significance of their finding. I doubt this paper will pass review without substantial changes.

edit: The one you posted is 2 years old, but tries to explain the same effect with a different cause.

More like, you try finding a sodium-iodide scintillation detector that HAS a manual!

Another great story, thanks for posting.

Beaming power back is certainly one application, but not the one I had in mind. I was thinking these would be used to power things in space. The vast majority of electrical power used by stuff like satellites and space stations comes from solar power. Total mass, electrical power, and fuel are the major constraints in all of these systems. If there was a readily available source of solar arrays in space, then that could effectively remove that constraint, and relax the constraints on mass and fuel (since you don't have to bring the solar panels with you).

Now, why would I want to do that? I'm one of those people that not only dreamed about going into space, but also assumed that the future of humanity was not on Earth, but out there. For that to happen, we need to be able to expand into the solar system, which just isn't going to happen if we need to move all of the materials we need out of Earth's gravity well.

Finally, what have I done? To be honest, it probably isn't going to sound like much. I'm open to suggestions. Obviously, it's going to take a lot of money. Most of what I've done has been focused on being able to make a credible case to get funding. I'm working on my PhD, which builds my credentials. I network with other students in the field because it's going to take more than one person.

In terms of actual pen to paper, I decided to work on the supply chain problem first. I'm working on calculations for what it would take to send a mission to an asteroid and bring the whole thing back as a possible scenario.

Roadblocks (the ones I think are the biggest anyway):

Supply Chain. Probably going to first need a way to or supplier who can mine and process materials from somewhere other than Earth.

Infrastructure. Definitely going to need some sort of factory in space in which this operation can be done.

Knowledge. I don't know anything about manufacturing in space. There's some research in the area, but my guess is that the knowledge base just doesn't exist.

edit: formatting

Plus most classes will mix up the basics with other stuff like forms and different kinds of sparring, so you won't spend the whole time doing repetitive exercises.

The proofs are in 2+1 dimensions, but they're generally believed to hold in 3+1.

http://preposterousuniverse.com/research/#ctcs for a brief summary with references by Carroll.

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