Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

All these comments about click bait vs. not and how the nightmare scenario isn't what the commenter expected, yet no one mentions what it actually is!

The answer: confirming the Higgs boson, but no other new physics that would narrow things beyond what we've been exploring for the past fifty years.




It's the LHC failing to discover anything that we hadn't predicted decades ago. There's no new physics, so nothing to base new theories on, and, rather importantly if you're a physicist, nowhere clues about where to look next.


Is this the same as saying there are no unexplained observations?


No not at all. In fact we know we a missing the piece of the puzzle that explains how quantum physics and gravity interact but we don't know where to look. We can try building a bigger accelerator but it would be very expensive.


It's the old Structure of Scientific Revolution. Standard Model is the current paradigm and we can't break through it until we actually find something that doesn't fit. Everything discovered by LHC fits, therefore we can't get to the next paradigm.


Perhaps it is a similar situation as cosmology at the time of Copernicus: his theory was manifestly worse than the existing "standard model", but was cleaner, more "beautiful". Getting his model to work brought about the revolution.


It's like if Columbus had sailed, found the Azores and then found an endless ocean (metaphorically speaking) instead of new continents.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: