
Have scientists discovered a fifth force of nature? - praveenscience
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/23/have-scientists-discovered-fifth-force-nature/
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knzhou
Duplicate of this post. [0]

I have the same comment as over there:

> It's important to keep in mind that there are _always_ plenty of outstanding
> experimental anomalies in physics. At the moment, this is one of ~40 roughly
> equally credible hints towards new physics, and it's more likely than not
> that all of those hints will fade away over time. That isn't anybody's fault
> either: it has always been like this, and it happens because experiments are
> difficult and subtle.

0:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21616084](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21616084)

~~~
k__
Why do they fade away? Because the experiments have been misinterpreted?

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analog31
I'm a physicist and I've experienced this on the small scale of my own humble
work developing measurement equipment. When you observe a surprising effect,
you try to make it go away. First, you check to see if it's reproducible under
a variety of conditions. Then you search for sources of bias and error that
you might have overlooked. You remove things that you think should be
extraneous to the purported effect.

At some point, you're satisfied enough, and you publish. Then the rest of the
community goes to work trying to do the same thing, with more care, possibly
more money, and more minds working on it.

~~~
SiVal
Decades ago, when doing physics and programming together, I discovered the
parallel between my experiment revealing an anomaly unexplainable by the
current scientific theories and my code revealing a bug in the current version
of the compiler. The most likely eventual outcome was not fame and glory but
more likely, "Oh! Oops. Never mind...."

~~~
roywiggins
It's never a compiler bug, but when it implies new physics, it is more
probably a compiler bug

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icodestuff
This article makes the same mistake as the CNN one. It’s “protophobic, meaning
‘interacts with neutrons instead of protons’", not ‘"photophobic, meaning
‘afraid of light’".

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mileycyrusXOXO
Thank you, that makes much more sense.

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crazygringo
Only article I can find that actually seems to have information:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dark-matter-
parti...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dark-matter-particle-
hungary-atomki-nuclear-research-force-nature-a9210741.html)

With link to not-yet-peer-reviewed paper:

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10459](https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10459)

~~~
neonate
[http://archive.is/YfVzW](http://archive.is/YfVzW)

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ryeights
"No." \--Law of Headlines

~~~
lalaland1125
Someone should write an article: "When a headline is a question, is the answer
no?"

~~~
JackFr
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

Any headline that ends in a question mark can confidently be answered no.

~~~
warent
Reread parent's comment, the joke is that making a headline asking if that's
true would be instantly answered no, making the law false by being true. It's
a paradox. Sort of like Pinocchio saying "My nose will grow now!"

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paulpauper
>The discovery is seen as taking us one step closer to the Holy Grail of
physics: "unified field theory". This is a single theoretical framework which
succinctly explains all the forces of nature.

how would this help. if anything it would make it harder, especially if there
other forces, by calling into doubt preexisting assumptions about how physics
works

~~~
jwq
If we were trying to figure out the logic behind a series of numbers and only
were given the first four, and had no luck, wouldn’t we want to know the
fifth?

~~~
paulpauper
yes except that fundamental forces are not at all like numerical sequences
generated by a function. gravity and electromagnetism couldn't be more
dissimilar.

~~~
jwq
If such a grand unified theory exists (analogously, if there is a “logical”
function that generates the sequence rather than (pseudo)-random numbers) then
gravity and electromagnetism couldn’t be more similar, right?

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nabla9
Evidence of a ‘Fifth Force’ Faces Scrutiny (2016)
[https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-boson-claim-faces-
scrutin...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-boson-claim-faces-
scrutiny-20160607/)

TL;DR: authors have a long history of discovering new particles at various
masses, but these discoveries disappear on later studies with no explanation.

~~~
tomrod
If the lab has made every attempt to be honest, this may suggest they need to
calibrate their equipment.

~~~
ISL
The credible measurements of new physics that are later ruled out are
generally made at the edge of what is technically possible. Limiting and
estimating all sources of systematic uncertainty is _our job_ , but it is a
difficult one. It is generally possible to make uncertainty estimates that are
so conservative as to be beyond reproach, but to do so also makes progress
almost impossible.

I haven't yet had a chance to dig into this particular anomaly at 17 MeV, so
what follows is speculation: It is a surprising mass range for anything new to
emerge. The coupling constant, or its mechanism, must be so weak that it would
avoid discovery in a century of other nuclear-physics and particle-physics
experiments that have access to that energy scale. I am surprised that there
hasn't yet been a devastating constraint on this thing from the electron-
positron collider world.

~~~
tomrod
I don't disagree at all! Tripping over rare findings are, in of themselves,
rare events -- so much so that healthy skepticism is definitely warranted.

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lokimedes
Can someone point to the article in PRL, I couldn’t get more than moonshine
from the linked news article.

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mellosouls
Until it's replicated authoritatively, no they haven't.

An in depth discussion from last time at The Reference Frame (guest blogger
for those who don't like Lubos himself):

[https://motls.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-delirium-over-
berylli...](https://motls.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-delirium-over-
beryllium.html?m=1)

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polynomial
Honestly, this makes the news media's handling of the BICEP2 announcement look
like hard hitting investigative journalism.

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vpribish
yeah, right - the telegraph is going to break this news to world.

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deepnet
Mods please change the linked telegraph article it is awful.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dark-matter-
parti...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dark-matter-particle-
hungary-atomki-nuclear-research-force-nature-a9210741.html)

is better

or the Arxiv

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10459](https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10459)

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mmaunder
What is more likely: the discovery of a 5th force, or a lab error? But hey, by
all means make lemonade.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/j6dIG](http://archive.is/j6dIG)

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caconym_
I don't know, have they?

