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Forget the Higgs, Neutrinos May be the Key

posted by martyb on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-you-don't-see-them-and-now-you-don't dept.

AnonTechie writes with a story on Ars Technica: Forget the Higgs, neutrinos may be the key to breaking the Standard Model.

Some physicists are surprised that two relatively recent discoveries in their field have captured so much widespread attention: cosmic inflation, the ballooning expansion of the baby universe, and the Higgs boson, which endows other particles with mass. These are heady and interesting concepts, but, in one sense, what's new about them is downright boring. These discoveries suggest that so far, our prevailing theories governing large and small the Big Bang and the Standard Model of subatomic particles and forces are accurate, good to go.

But both cosmic inflation and the Higgs boson fall short of unifying these phenomena and explaining the deepest cosmic questions. "The Standard Model, as it stands, has no good explanation for why the Universe has anything in it at all," says Mark Messier, physics professor at Indiana University and spokesman for an under-construction particle detector.

 
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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @07:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 02 2014, @07:17AM (#38779)

    "The Standard Model, as it stands, has no good explanation for why the Universe has anything in it at all,"

    Maybe we'll figure out some shallow "why" but will it ever be possible to have a Physics model/theory that will provide a full explanation for the "real" _why_ the Universe has anything in it at all? That the Universe itself exists in the first place?

    To me it would be like creatures in a computer game trying to use the game's own physics to have an explanation on why the game and stuff in it exists.

    We'd only have a chance if there were "Game Designer(s)" AND they told us or dropped us some hints. Otherwise there may be no real why at all.

    Takes faith to be sure of either scenario.

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  • (Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Friday May 02 2014, @07:29AM

    by AnonTechie (2275) on Friday May 02 2014, @07:29AM (#38784) Journal

    Reminds me of the The Last Question by Isaac Asimov - 1956 http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html [multivax.com] and The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov - 1980 http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/ [thrivenotes.com]

    --
    Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."