The Pioneer Anomaly & Other Breaking Physics News

David Harris, editor-in-chief at Symmetrymagazine.org (a joint publication of Fermilab and SLAC), sends us to his blog covering the American Physical Society meeting now going on in St. Louis. Among the breaking physics news relating to topics we have discussed in the past: results that explain about 1/3 of the Pioneer anomaly by differential heat flow in the spacecraft; an analysis of the Fermilab Tevatron's chances of spotting the Higgs "God particle"; and a hint that an Italian team has replicated their results from the year 2000 pointing to a detection of dark matter.

Sloppy editing

[Harmonious Botch]

We have three separate subjects crammed together in one article. So some of the briliant, insightful comments by my fellow shashdotters may get buried. How about three separate articles?
Or is this a new trend? Are we going to see twenty subjects crammed into the one daily article tommorow?

You must be new here.

[Valdrax]

So some of the briliant, insightful comments by my fellow shashdotters may get buried.

When's the last time you've read the comments section on any science article on Slashdot, particularly over discoveries in physics?

Insightful comments are *always* buried under senseless meme-tossing and political (or other off-topic) ranting.

Re:You must be new here.

[McGiraf]

self fulfilling prophecy

Enough of the "God Particle" please

[smolloy]

Who first used the name "The God Particle" for the Higgs? It certainly wasn't a high energy physicist!

The Higgs field is supposedly responsible for mass generation -- and that's it. Nothing else. Maybe something about "spontaneous symmetry breaking...mumble... big bang.. mumble... inflationary expansion... mumble", but hardly anything "God-like".

This nickname comes across as something dumb invented by the popular press in a half-assed attempt to communicate to regular folk how exciting the LHC is to us physicists.

Maybe /. could lead the charge to kill this nickname?

Re:Enough of the "God Particle" please

[kfort]

Mass generation is as God-like as it gets.

Re:Dark Matter...

[jmorris42]

> Is it so hard to see that they're just dealing with the (luminiferous) (a)ether?!?

Oh course. History doesn't repeat exactly but it does tend to rhyme. Is it any wonder that science falls prey to the same human failings since it IS just another human activity?

Re:You must be new here.

[PopeRatzo]

When's the last time you've read the comments section on any science article on Slashdot, particularly over discoveries in physics?

Quite regularly thank you.

I happen to believe Slashdot, even with minuscule expense of a subscription, is an excellent bargain.

Except for the time I waste on whiners like you, Valdrax. As pointed out by McGiraf, do you really think you're going to improve the senseless meme-tossing by doing your own senseless meme-tossing?

Re:Enough of the "God Particle" please

[turgid]

Unfortunately, "regular folk" who are interested in celebrity affairs, plasitc surgery and drug abuse ,pay for physics experiments.

It's impossible to convince them how important such experiments are, so we need to patronise them.

Pioneer Anomaly

[calidoscope]

I was a bit put off by the tone of TFA with respect to the Pioneer anomaly. While it is unlikely that the anomaly will disprove our models of gravity, it is an excellent example of a gap in our understanding of physics.

Re:On the Pioneer anomaly

[Anonymous Coward]

data were collected...