Exotic Particles Called Pentaquarks May Be Less Weird Than Previously Thought

sciencehabit writes from a report via Science Magazine: Four years ago, when experimenters spotted pentaquarks -- exotic, short-lived particles made of five quarks -- some physicists thought they had glimpsed the strong nuclear force, which binds the atomic nucleus, engaging in a bizarre new trick. New observations have now expanded the zoo of pentaquarks, but suggest a tamer explanation for their structure. The findings, from the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb), a particle detector fed by the LHC at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, suggest pentaquarks are not bags of five quarks binding in a new way, but are more like conventional atomic nuclei, with a particle called a baryon that contains three quarks bound to another called a meson, which has two. Researchers say it's too early to say which model of pentaquarks is correct, but the new observations move the needle toward the molecular picture. The study has been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Re: Modern physics is religion

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously don't get the obsession with saying all forces are electric. There is a common belief already that at high enough energies the forces converge. You could be obsessed with grand unification theory and it would be so much SMARTER, but instead you make everyone roll their eyes with this electric universe shit.

Re:

[iggymanz]

electric universe debunked decades ago but of course the EU tards craw out of the slime on slashdot

I think the answer is simple

[rsilvergun]

they were just going through a phase.

Thank you, I'll be here all night. Tip the veal and try your waitress.

The Craft: LHC Coven

[fahrbot-bot]

Pentaquarks: Symbols drawn in the dark corners of the LHC sub-basements by goth particle-physicists to power their mystical machine ...

Usually articles hype new mysteries

[Tablizer]

or unusual discoveries. This is the opposite: "Scientists Discover Boring Normalhood!"

That's like, "Try microservices! They make your system slightly better under the right conditions!"

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats one of the things I find interesting about the LHC experiments. they keep NOT finding new physics.

Re:

[Tablizer]

But what will they replace it with to explain things like funny galaxy rotation speeds?

Re:

[Tough Love]

In quantum mechanics, normality is unusual and exciting.

Re:

[Tablizer]

"Non-spooky action that's nearby"

Up down

[Anonymous Coward]

In your model you have Charm Up and Down quarks.

Assume instead you have N wavelength ribbon of resonance oscillating dipole pairs, wrapped around into a donut.

The donut twists on itself, and can break.

So F4 is 4 wavelengths of resonance, it twists back on itself, folds over, collapses back 2xF2's at the twist point.

You quickly realize that the only resonance lengths that hold together are prime numbers.

F1, F2, F3 but not F4, F5 but not F6.... and so on.

If you mirror a donut in one axis with respect to the o

Quite.

[robotonrecall]

It's strange. Having read this article from top to bottom, I've come to the realization that I can't make up my mind whether the author is down with the explanation the scientists gave them. Charming write up, though.