'What the results illustrate is that there are multiple pathways to a deeper understanding of the new physics.'
As a physicist working at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, one of the most frequent questions I am asked is “When are you going to find something?” Resisting the temptation to sarcastically reply “Aside from the Higgs boson, which won the Nobel Prize, and a whole slew of new composite particles?” I realize that the reason the question is posed so often is down to how we have portrayed progress in particle physics to the wider world.
We often talk about progress in terms of discovering new particles, and it often is. Studying a new, very heavy particle helps us view underlying physical processes – often without annoying background noise. That makes it easy to explain the value of the discovery to the public and politicians. Recently, however, a series of precise measurements of already known, bog-standard particles and processes have threatened to shake up physics. And with the LHC getting ready to runthan ever before, it is time to start discussing the implications widely.
In truth, particle physics has always proceeded in two ways, one of which is new particles. The other is to make very precise measurements that test the predictions of theories and look for deviations from what is expected. The early evidence for Einstein’s theory of general relativity, for example, came from discovering small deviations in the apparent positions of stars and from the motion of Mercury in its orbit.Particles obey a counter-intuitive but hugely successful theory called quantum mechanics. This theory shows that particles far too massive to be made directly in a lab collision can still influence what other particles do .
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