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Eratosthenes [soylentnews.org] writes:

SciTechDaily [scitechdaily.com]:

What do touch screens, radiation therapy and shrink wrap have in common? They were all made possible by particle physics research. Discoveries of how the universe works at the smallest scale often lead to huge advances in technology we use every day.

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, along with collaborators from 46 other institutions and seven countries, are conducting an experiment to put our current understanding of the universe to the test. The first result points to the existence of undiscovered particles or forces. This new physics could help explain long-standing scientific mysteries, and the new insight adds to a storehouse of information that scientists can tap into when modeling our universe and developing new technologies.

The experiment, Muon g-2 (pronounced Muon g minus 2), follows one that began in the ​‘90s at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, in which scientists measured a magnetic property of a fundamental particle called the muon.

The Brookhaven experiment yielded a result that differed from the value predicted by the Standard Model, scientists’ best description of the makeup and behavior of the universe yet. The new experiment is a recreation of Brookhaven’s, built to challenge or affirm the discrepancy with higher precision.

The Standard Model very precisely predicts the muon’s g-factor — a value that tells scientists how this particle behaves in a magnetic field. This g-factor is known to be close to the value two, and the experiments measure their deviation from two, hence the name Muon g-2.

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