
Growing Anomalies at the Large Hadron Collider Raise Hopes - theafh
https://www.quantamagazine.org/growing-anomalies-at-the-large-hadron-collider-hint-at-new-particles-20200526/
======
siscia
Since we are talking about CERN let me take this opportunity to invite,
whoever is interested, to visit the laboratory.

Beside the stop imposed by COVID, CERN organize guided tour to the laboratory
and when possible the detectors.

If you are around the area of Geneva or you happen to be around, I really
suggest the visits.

The guides are usually people working at CERN so they are quite knowable about
it.

It is necessary to book the visit in advance.

~~~
_Anken
Second! Visiting is very interesting, and the tour guides are real scientists
that actually work there. I was lucky that they were able to fit me in same-
day even though I hadn't booked ahead as strongly recommended.

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mcv
"Growing anomalies at the Large Hadron Collider" sounds like a premise for a
Hollywood horror movie about a strange, shimmering anomaly growing at a
science lab.

~~~
kelnage
Alternatively, see "The Three Body Problem" by Cixin Liu [1] for an
interesting take on what such anomalies could indicate!

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-
Body_Problem_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-
Body_Problem_\(novel\))

~~~
xenophonf
Ugh. That book was _terrible_. Maybe something got lost in translation since
it's so highly acclaimed, but I just couldn't get past the opening chapters.

~~~
atombender
I've been told it's how modern Chinese novels are written. To a Western
reader, it reads like juvenile fiction. The language is childishly simple, and
all of the character's inner live — motivations and emotions and thoughts —
are spelled out rather than inferred, and there's little no depth or ambiguity
anywhere. I liked the historical context, but I found the whole thing to be
very wooden and unimaginative.

I finished the first book, but I couldn't deal with it either. I think it
could have worked _terrifically_ if it had been written in a satirical style
like Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s The Sirens of Titan. Some of the chapters about the
aliens do come across like Vonnegutian comedy, but I'm not sure if this was
intended. Overall, the book takes itself very seriously.

~~~
Paperweight
I doubt their state education system is full of literature teachers who
encourage a lot of looking past the surface narrative of things.

~~~
Ar-Curunir
Lol love the casual racism

~~~
mcv
It doesn't have to be racism. It could be a reflection on the fact that China
has a totalitarian state with strong censorship. Hidden subtexts are hard to
censor.

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SiempreViernes
It’s 4.7/fb of data, meaning data taken up to 2016, but with some gaps it
seems. I think the total pp luminosity for the two big ones is around 15/fb,
wonder why LHCb has so little in this analysis?

Bummer that the significance is only about 0.3 bigger than the last analysis,
but at least it’s not a 750 peak yet.

~~~
Roritharr
What's an fb?

~~~
semi-extrinsic
OK, attempt at ELI5:

The people are crashing lots of bunches of pebbles into each other, in two
streams that meet.

Some of the people are interested in observing what happens when the small
blue pebble hits a big gray pebble and the big one cracks. They know the
"probability" (cross-section) of this process is around 100 fb.

Other people care about what happens when little tiny green pebbles collide
three at a time. They know the "probability" of this is 11 fb - not so likely
since three things need to line up.

The people operating the streams of pebbles keep track of how many _inverse
fb_ they produce. Let's say in 2019 they produced 0.7 _inverse fb_.

Then the people who care about blue/gray collisions know they can expect to
find around 70 events in all the data from 2019, while the green/green/green
people know they can expect about 7-8 events.

When the people who collide streams of pebbles are going to build yet another
Even Bigger Pebble Crashing Machine, they estimate in advance what the
"luminosity" will be - how many _inverse fb_ they will produce per year. Then
the people looking for events know, "aha, with the new great crasher I can
science even more!"

~~~
jstanley
I appreciate the attempt, but this gives no information about what an fb
actually is.

The word people need is "femtobarn".

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I see your point; FWIW when I posted this there were three other comments
saying "femtobarn" or "inverse femtobarn" with no further explanation.

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scottwuzhear
Looks like they got hugged to death:
[https://visit.cern/tours](https://visit.cern/tours)

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btrettel
Not about the article per se:

Why do particle/high-energy and quantum physics get so much media attention
compared against other branches of physics?

HEP and quantum physics are fairly uninteresting _to me_ but I'm wondering
about others.

~~~
danbruc
I my case - and I could well imagine this to be true for many - it is not
really about physics at all. It is more about the philosophical aspect,
wanting to know how the universe works at a fundamental level, what exists,
what is space, what is time, what does this mean for free will and
consciousness. In everyday life relativity, quantum mechanics, and particle
physics are as useless as being able to calculate stresses in a beam or
understanding turbulence or knowing about metamaterials. From time to time I
may actually need some classical mechanics or electrodynamics to understand
how something works or to solve a specific problem, but unless it is part of
your hobby or job non-fundamental physics beyond some basic knowledge is just
as irrelevant as fundamental physics in most peoples life. Fundamental physics
and cosmology on the other hand fills in a certain sense the same spot that
religion does for other people.

~~~
btrettel
Thanks for your comment. I don't seem to appreciate the philosophical aspects
as much as others.

~~~
esperent
I feel the same way about databases.

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foobarbecue
Probably just weasels. [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/04/29/476154494...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/04/29/476154494/weasel-shuts-down-world-s-most-powerful-particle-
collider)

~~~
hinkley
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips
over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come." \- Matt
Groening

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sanxiyn
The previous similar happening is documented at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/750_GeV_diphoton_excess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/750_GeV_diphoton_excess).

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imvetri
super cool

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lebuffon
I have found it dis-heartening that higher energy levels at the LHC have not
opened new doors into reality. This simulation in which we find ourselves
seems designed to obfuscate. :)

This small aberration may give some clues... maybe... some day

~~~
logicchains
>I have found it dis-heartening that higher energy levels at the LHC have not
opened new doors into reality.

I think the last thing we need is LHC opening new doors into reality. The only
thing that could be more dangerous than such research into teleportation is
research into teleportation that's conducted on Mars.

~~~
hinkley
Don't forget the LHC April Fool's joke where the remote cameras show a black
hole eating CERN.

There's also a great documentary about interdimensional portals, called Hell
Boy, that everyone should watch.

