

New Particle Discovered at CERN - DiabloD3
http://www.mediadesk.uzh.ch/articles/2012/uzh-forschende-entdecken-neues-teilchen-am-cern_en.html

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muhfuhkuh
I know that the world is essentially flat and that we shouldn't be so
jingoistic anymore, but does it trouble anyone besides me that CERN is under
the Swiss Alps near Geneva instead of under the scorching sun in the New
Mexico desert? Shouldn't the "greatest Superpower in World History" be the one
crashing atoms together like NASCAR autos and seeing all the mess that comes
out of it? Now that I think about it, maybe if we market it that way...

I fear that the only advocate we have left for a strong scientific America is
Neil deGrasse Tyson.

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smosher
The work at CERN is for Science, not Religion (or misplaced Patriotism if you
prefer.)

~~~
Create
The work at CERN is differentiated when it is performed by westerners or by
people from the eastern side:

"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices
in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value
of Y)" [where Y>X]

source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report

ISBN: 9290831693 <http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264>

Western discrimination/patriotism is firmly in place.

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redthrowaway
>The baryon known as Xi_b^*

A word on your PR, physics.

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jgrahamc
Except that that isn't what it's called. That's the TeX way of describing it.
Funny that their entire press release assumes you are looking through a TeX or
LaTeX lens :-)

It should actually look like this:

<http://equationater.com/84e00ccd9705dca5bc0917a33e162502.png>

If you look at the full list of baryons on Wikipedia you'll see that it's one
of many in this format: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baryons> This is
a Xi.

 _The particle Xi_b^_ comprises one “up”, one “strange” and one “bottom” quark
(usb)*

So, it's an up strange bottom (usb) baryon.

~~~
adavies42
two questions--

how does that differ from \Xi_b^0, which also seems to be a usb baryon?

is there a standard way to pronounce those symbols (e.g. "xi star sub-b")?

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starwed
I believe the difference is in the overall angular momentum. (You can think
that the quarks are somehow arranged differently inside the particle.)

You can look at the particle data group's entries[1,2] for \Xi_b^0, which has
J=1/2 and for \Xi_b^*, which has J=3/2.

[1][http://pdglive.lbl.gov/Rsummary.brl?nodein=S060&exp=Y...](http://pdglive.lbl.gov/Rsummary.brl?nodein=S060&exp=Y&sub=Yr&return=BXXX045)

[2][http://pdglive.lbl.gov/Rsummary.brl?nodein=S062&sub=&...](http://pdglive.lbl.gov/Rsummary.brl?nodein=S062&sub=&return=SumB)

-edit-

Also, found a line on wikipedia discussing the notation of baryons that
confirms this:

>Baryons in total angular momentum J = 3⁄2 configuration that have the same
symbols as their J = 1⁄2 counterparts are denoted by an asterisk.

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gilgameshi
Not really a new particle as much as a resonance mode. No big deal...

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alperakgun
i m curious, if the notion of particle will fade away and there will be a
quasi-continuous resonance modes of waves....

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hcarvalhoalves
Alright, my area is _not_ physics, but one thing annoys me: does it still make
sense to have _particles_ as an abstraction? I mean, in the same sense that in
math, at some point, you give up caring about discrete values and work with
continuities instead.

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Create
In physics, a discovery claim needs five-sigma level of certainty in the
measurement of mass in this case. I fail to see the mass of the particle
named. Am I missing something from the PR? (Edward Bernays)

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stox
I am still waiting for them to discover the Bozon, the carrier of the Bozo
force.

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mhewett
The Bozon is difficult to find because political parties are hoarding them.

