Neutrino Result Heralds New Chapter In Physics 58
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A new chapter in physics has opened, according to scientists who have been searching for a vital building block of the Universe. A major experiment has been used to search for an elusive sub-atomic particle: a key component of the matter that makes up our everyday lives. The search failed to find the particle, known as the sterile neutrino. This will now direct physicists towards even more interesting theories to help explain how the Universe came to be. Prof Mark Thomson, the executive chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which funds the UK's contribution to the Microboone experiment, described the result as ''pretty exciting'." That is because a sizeable proportion of physicists have been developing their theories on the basis that the existence of the sterile neutrino was a possibility.
Dr Sam Zeller from Fermilab says that the non-detection does not have to contradict previous findings. "The earlier data doesn't lie," she said. "There's something really interesting happening that we still need to explain. Data is steering us away from the likely explanations and pointing toward something more complex and interesting, which is really exciting." Prof Justin Evans, from the University of Manchester, believes that the puzzle posed by the latest findings marks a turning point in neutrino research. "Every time we look at neutrinos, we seem to find something new or unexpected," he said. "Microboone's results are taking us in a new direction, and our neutrino program is going to get to the bottom of some of these mysteries."
Dr Sam Zeller from Fermilab says that the non-detection does not have to contradict previous findings. "The earlier data doesn't lie," she said. "There's something really interesting happening that we still need to explain. Data is steering us away from the likely explanations and pointing toward something more complex and interesting, which is really exciting." Prof Justin Evans, from the University of Manchester, believes that the puzzle posed by the latest findings marks a turning point in neutrino research. "Every time we look at neutrinos, we seem to find something new or unexpected," he said. "Microboone's results are taking us in a new direction, and our neutrino program is going to get to the bottom of some of these mysteries."
Alice is tired of nested rabbit holes (Score:1)
It's complex turtles all the way down. Or was it cats? Or rabbits?
Only scientists... (Score:4, Funny)
Scientist 1: Well shit. We didn't find the macguffin afterall.
Scientist 2: Wait. Really? NOTHING?
Scientist 1: Yup. Zilch. Zero. Nad~
Scientist 2: Oh. My. GAWD! This is ah Maaaay ziiiing!
Scientist 1: What? But think of all the money we wa~
Scientist 2: AMAZING!!
Re:Only scientists... (Score:5, Insightful)
Finding nothing is amazing ... or at least interesting.
Sterile neutrinos are one candidate for dark matter. If they don't exist, then DM is something even more exotic.
Sterile neutrinos are also a candidate for the reason there is so much matter in the universe yet so little anti-matter. If they don't exist, something more exotic caused the M-AM asymmetry as well.
Re:Only scientists... (Score:4, Interesting)
something more exotic caused the M-AM asymmetry as well
Re:Only scientists... (Score:5, Interesting)
something more exotic caused the M-AM asymmetry as well
....or something a lot more mundane like not fully understanding low energy cross-sections.
Apparently not. In earlier experiments it was noted that the number of electron neutrinos exceeded the number expected from neutrino oscillation. Thus it was speculated that there was a fourth type of neutrino taking part in the oscillation which would create an excess of electron neutrinos because it was an additional source. This type of neutrino then should not have a lepton partner like the other three, paired with the electron, the muon and the tau, thus being called sterile. Now, MicroBOONE didn't find any sterile neutrinos, which leaves the excess of electron neutrinos unexplained.
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In earlier experiments it was noted that the number of electron neutrinos exceeded the number expected from neutrino oscillation.
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There is no reason, neither theoretical nor empirical, to believe that there is any asymmetry there.
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I'm not quite sure why you think that would be more mundane. ISTM that this could call for changing a lot of the theories about ... well, ordinary particle interactions.
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Research money doesn't go to the scientists who says, "Weird, well I haven't a clue what's going on".
What you're seeing is called, "Marketing", a pivotal and large part of "Research Science" in the country today.
Re:Only scientists... (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus, go back to school and learn how physics research is done. If they only ran experiments for stuff they already know about, there's no point to the experiment, is there?
Re: Only scientists... (Score:3)
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Perhaps you should learn a bit about physics, and natural sciences - and particularly: research.
Dumbass
a pivotal and large part of "Research Science" in the country today.
Your attitude is probably wide spread in your country, and is the reason why your country is so far behind in research and development.
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I didn't say I liked it, did I? I'm just not denying the reality.
Boring science doesn't get the cash, so you have to punch it up to sell it. And if you think that's a behavior that's limited to a single country, I have a bridge to sell you.
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And if you think that's a behavior that's limited to a single country,
Yes it is.
In Europe that behaviour is unheard of. As a "researcher" simply researches something else when a certain project is no longer funded or is considered obsolet.
Because: it is your job to research. Regardless what the topic/funding is. You are employed at an university, or scientific institution.
Your job does not really change if "something changes", and it is most certainly not the funding that changes.
Seems to be hard to grasp
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"No idea" doesn't suggest any experiments that might prove/disprove anything. Instead, you make your best guess (a theory), then you hypothesize an effect that should be seen if that theory is correct, then you test your hypothesis (an experiment or observation). It may require more than one experiment or observation. There may be competing theories that need to be differentiated by further hypothesis and experiments.
Unlike the experiments you might have done in science classes in school, there is no teache
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Often times these experiments cost a great deal of cash, but even putting that aside for a moment researchers live and die by the grants they can con out of people.
Which means there's a certain amount of spin inherent in any research proposal. Quite a bit of it really. To the extent that oftentimes the "science" takes a back seat to the funding, particularly when your benefactors have specific results they'd like you to find ( more common in the politically oriented sciences, but not unheard of in the "ha
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There is no doubt that there are way too many funding games with plenty of spin, and I do agree that it seems the science takes a backseat to finance way too often. But your first complaint was wide of the mark.
Only a few scientists... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes.
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Name checks out :-)
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...Can spin "we didn't find shit-all" as exciting.
The very best, most useful experiments are the ones that disprove things. They're the ones that change the direction of science.
Simply confirming the same old results doesn't teach us anything.
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Yeah, but this series of experiments did not disprove anything.
They only have as a result: so far we have no clue if it exists.
And, as we have tried every plausible thing, we are confident now: it most likely does not exist.
Just because you do not find my secretly stashed away gold, it does not mean, the gold is not stashed away somewhere :P
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But by the time we have disassembled your house bit by bit and dug up and sifted the grounds down to 3 feet, we can be fairly confident that if you have a stash of gold, it's not at your home.
Re: Only scientists... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most scientists I know (including myself) are trained with the mantra "a null result is still a result". It's critical to bear that in mind during data analysis, lest you bias your interpretation away from the null. We all like big signals, but the lack of signal in an otherwise well-functioning experiment can be just as interesting.
Re: Only scientists... (Score:1)
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Which is why I got really pissed when certain "scientists" altered temp records and ice core samples,
They did not do such thing.
They had a sequence of numbers, and later they figured those numbers were wrong. So they fixed the wrong measurements.
Are you an idiot?
Data is supposed to be the most absolute truth
And that is the reason why they fixed it. So YOU can download it and do your own math with it, without having to know everything behind how the data was gathered and what was wrong with the gathering.
Se
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Don't know the individual case, but:
If they're presenting the altered data as the raw data, this is wrong.
If they're presenting it as "corrected data", and the reasons for the corrections are explained, perhaps in a series of footnotes, this is most proper.
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If they're presenting the altered data as the raw data, this is wrong.
If they're presenting it as "corrected data", and the reasons for the corrections are explained, perhaps in a series of footnotes, this is most proper.
That is exactly how it was done.
Or how else would "everyone know" the data was altered/corrected?
The raw data is still available anyway ... all climate research raw data in the western world is "open source" since 30 years.
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Which is why I got really pissed when certain "scientists" altered temp records and ice core samples, as well as proposed deleting some records, in order to make their hypothesis fit.
But they don't. Stop getting your information from YouTube.
There are five major groups that are doing analysis of global temperature. They rigorously document how they analyze the data. The GISS Surface Temperature Analysis process for example, can be found here:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis... [nasa.gov]
with updates here: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis... [nasa.gov]
and a comprehensive listing of how the data analysis has changed and why here: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis... [nasa.gov]
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures (BEST) pro
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MWP-a topic of active research [Re:Only scientists (Score:3)
they tried to throw out the records from the midevil warming period.
No, they most assuredly did not. The Medieval warm period is still an active research area in paleoclimatology; stop listening to the idiotic denier youtubers and bloggers who tell you it's not.
You know, of course-- or maybe you don't?-- that there are no global temperature records from the Medieval Warm Period. All of the temperatures are reconstructions from proxy indicators. So, it is true that the measurements have high error bars compared to measurements from later periods, and the global record is spo
Re: Only scientists... (Score:2)
That has nothing to do with a null result, that has to do with bad data. The emphasis in that case should be on "well-functioning". The previous measurements were not the result of a well functioning (or well-calibrated, well-characterized) experiment. The options are to disregard that data as questionable, correct the data if possible, or reduce its significance relative to other, better characterized data sets.
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Just because your apparatus to measure aether winds is built wrong doesn't mean they don't exist. :)
Re: Only scientists... (Score:4, Interesting)
The hard part of accepting a null result is that you may be seeing no effect because you've done the experiment wrong. Or, put a more insightful way, the experiment you actually did was not quite the experiment you thought it was. I lose a lot of sleep over exactly that. As a result, and unlike many of my peers (ahem), I include multiple controls in every experiment, often both positive and negative ones. I worry constantly that when we see a result, we've managed only to fool ourselves, rather than tease out something true. Mother Nature seems to delight in making things not quite as they seem.
Re: Only scientists... (Score:2)
I completely agree, and I should have emphasized "well-functioning" in my OP. Well-functioning to me means that you have a way to demonstrate that a null result is actually a reflection of the system being measured and not a reflection of instrumental capability or function.
Re: Only scientists... (Score:2)
Confused people use that to claim that it's scientifically proven that homeopathic treatments deliver results.
I think this belongs here (Score:4, Funny)
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
more complex and exciting... (Score:2)
So we're going to need a bigger budget to study it!
Can someone please explain... (Score:2)
... if "sterile neutrions" cannot interact with matter, how could one measure them? And if the experiment shows no interaction, how would you distiguish "sterile neutrions exist but don't interact" from "sterile neutrinos don't exist"?
The article leaves a bunch of questions unanswered.
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MicroBooNE will investigate the low energy excess events observed by the MiniBooNE experiment, measure a suite of low energy neutrino cross sections, and investigate astro-particle physics.
Absence of evidence... (Score:1)
... is not evidence of absense. Just because they haven't found it doesn't necessarily mean it isn't there. Neutrinos arn't exactly easy to spot and if their theories are only a bit out they might be looking for the wrong signal or energy.
Also spinning this as some kind of success takes some hubris IMO.
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Ya, like they should have checked for all possible signals at all possible energies. Then, by gum, they'd have found it.
So why don't you build such a detector and give it to them. Should take you what, a whole afternoon, to whack one together.
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If you're going to be patronising you need to try harder pal.
It took them almost 50 years to find the higgs boson with constant revision of its possible energy levels after endless theories about what value it could be were binned.
But yeah, I'm sure this particular search is different, right?
Re:Absence of evidence... (Score:4, Insightful)
I see you are unfamiliar with physics testing. You just don't decide on a battery of tests. You must first have theory that tells you WHAT to test. Otherwise you are just shooting in the dark and hoping to hit something.
The 50 years for this Higgs boson was because the most promising theories were naturally tested first with the available testing equipment. The LHC bumped up their capabilities and newer theories bounding the Higg's energy levels were available.
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Congratulations on completely missing the point.
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... is not evidence of absense[sic].
Except when the evidence should be there, but isn't. For example, if there is no evidence that a big meteorite hit Tokyo yesterday then a big meteorite did not hit Tokyo yesterday. Absence of evidence CAN be evidence of absence.
This is Evidence of Absence (Score:2)
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Well, it's evidence that the particular theories that they were testing were incorrect. There could be some other theory that would explain both. One, of course, is that one of the experiments had an undocumented design error. (Think FTL neutrinos from Italy.) A more interesting one would be that both experiments were correct, and yet there *is* a sterile neutrino. So it would need a less obvious description. Best, of course, is if it's a break in the standard model.
Matter / Anti-matter Conversion (Score:1)
I always thought that maybe the reason for asymmetry of Matter vs. Antimatter in the universe was due to the current theory that our universe is still expanding (pretty sure it's no longer a theory). There is more Matter and less Antimatter in the present state of the universe. For lack of a better term or explanation, the "positive" Matter is tied to this expansion and maybe this imbalance in the reason why it is happening. Perhaps if some sort of conversion or energy exchange happens over time to cause th
Can't resist telling this old joke (Score:3)
A neutron goes into a bar & orders a drink
The bartender serves the drink and the neutron asks "What do I owe you?"
The bartender replies, "For you, no charge"