Science Muons: 'Strong' evidence found for a new force of nature (BBC News)

N_Molson

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Saw that one today, sure look very interesting, even if I certainly don't understand all the implications of it right now, could probably help understanding things like Universe "illogical" expansion :

 

Urwumpe

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I thought the moun-g-2 experiment just started, because the previous moun-g experiment wasn't accurate enough to find something....
 

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According to the article, those are like preliminary results, and they have "only a sigma of 4.1" and need "a sigma of 5" to have conclusive evidence. So, "still in progress but looking good" I'd say.
 

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According to the article, those are like preliminary results, and they have "only a sigma of 4.1" and need "a sigma of 5" to have conclusive evidence. So, "still in progress but looking good" I'd say.
I wouldn't call it strong evidence, then. I mean, "strong evidence" is basically synonymous to sigma 5, that's why it's the required limit. so calling "hopeful indication for obtainable strong evidence" actual strong evidence seems a bit misplaced.

In any case, it would be nice to finally get rid of dark energy. By now it's a concept that seems roughly equivalent to "God's doing it!"
 

n72.75

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I'm going to wait for a few more papers before I get excited.
 

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So I realised that this experiment, although "just" reaching 4.2 sigma, was conducted to confirm an earlier experiment, which had reached a 3.5, I think? Or was it 3.8? In any case, that does put the whole thing on a different level. The experiment was done by the same team though, so what we really need now is another team doing an experiment and see if they come up with something too. Even if another independant experiment doesn't reach 5 but somewhere close to it, that would pretty much be enough to prove the whole thing by conflation.

So I guess we have to wait another 10 years or so for a new experiment to be set up... sigh.
 

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So I realised that this experiment, although "just" reaching 4.2 sigma, was conducted to confirm an earlier experiment, which had reached a 3.5, I think? Or was it 3.8? In any case, that does put the whole thing on a different level. The experiment was done by the same team though, so what we really need now is another team doing an experiment and see if they come up with something too. Even if another independant experiment doesn't reach 5 but somewhere close to it, that would pretty much be enough to prove the whole thing by conflation.

So I guess we have to wait another 10 years or so for a new experiment to be set up... sigh.

That's the pace of science, fundamental research like this takes time. Probably hard to get funding too as it has no 'immediate' application. If they have a confirmation in 10 years, that's really awesome. If that's truly a 'new force', we'll see thousands of theories and research projects, because it would affect physics and cosmology like Einstein's Relativity did, if not more.
 
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