LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt

Re:LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt by andrepd on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @07:49PM (#17762855)

Not really. We have several ideas going forward, it's just that no experiment so far has produced evidence for them. On the other hand, a null result is still a result. Of course it would be cooler to witness supersymmetric partners, but the fact that we searched and didn't find them at those energies is a result in itself.

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Re:LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt by lambdadmitry on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @07:33AM (#17765247)

Is is true though? I've been to a talk by one of LHCb researchers [1] where he said that they observe a pretty significant anomaly in meson decay (I believe [2] has more details) and expect to publish updated results later in 2018. Looks like there is some hope

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edvdzh9Pggg

[2]: https://www.nature.com/news/physicists-excited-by-latest-lhc...

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Re:LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt by vectorEQ on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @08:27AM (#17765483)

null result is still a result. thats cute. but looking at the budget of LHC i would hope for a bit more actual result. instead of using backward logic to promote failure as success.

ah, i have this wonderful theory.... i didn't prove it yet. but that doesn't disprove it... >.> what happened to solving real-world problems, with practical solutions, and doing science along the way? we used to discover many interesting things about nature and the universe in just that way, and at the same time this attitude changed, the 'null result is also a result' cult started to eat our brains and pollute our thought.

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Re:LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt by amelius on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @08:32AM (#17765512)

> what happened to solving real-world problems, with practical solutions, and doing science along the way?

Imho, the most beautiful results originated from letting people just sit in a room and think, rather than putting pressure on them to generate something useful (e.g. publication pressure, shareholder pressure).

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Re:LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt by empath75 on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @09:41AM (#17765925)

To demonstrate the importance of null results:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_exper...

> i didn't prove it yet. but that doesn't disprove it

A null result actually disproves a theory.

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Re:LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt by amelius on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @01:05PM (#17767687)

That's not a null result, but a negative result. A null result is a result that tells you nothing new (by definition). At least, according to the parlance in this thread.

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Re:LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt by olliej on Thursday August 16, 2018 @09:58PM (#17779784)

Particle accelerator research has resulted in theories and equipment as a byproduct of what they found - either proving or disproving specific theories, or by producing new or unexpected results. The last of which results in new theories to explain those results. Those new theories producing “useful results”.

MRIs and PET scans were the result of theories that only came about as a result of data that came out of particle accelerators. The goal of the accelerators was never specifically “develop new medical imaging devices”, it was simply the “basic research” that makes thing like that possible in the future.

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Re:LHC physicists embrace brute-force approach to particle hunt by super_serious on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @09:28AM (#17765842)

Promote failure? Do you even know what the scientific method is? They found the higgs boson! They proved some of the most difficult particles predicted by the standard model. How is that a failure????

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