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Physics to crack wide open ?

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Pack a lunch. Bring a towel to sit on. From our favorite physicist, Rob Sheldon:

The “2-sigma” bump in data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider was widely touted in early summer: “If the observations are confirmed, it will be revolutionary. This could mean nothing less than the fall of the Standard Model of particle physics (SM), which has passed every experimental test thrown at it since it was first put together over four decades ago.”

Not everyone was so enthusiastic. One particle physicist, Sabine Hossenfelder, wrote in an article for Forbes:

“If the bump goes away, this would catapult us into what has become known as the “nightmare scenario” for the LHC: The Higgs and nothing else.

Many particle physicists are afraid of this scenario because, if it comes true, it will leave them without guidance, lost in a thicket of rapidly multiplying models that threaten to block out sunlight.

Without some new physics, everyone is concerned we’ll have nothing to work with that we haven’t had already for 50 years. Without any new inputs that can tell us which direction to look towards in the ultimate goal of unification and/or quantum gravity, we’d finally have to admit the truth: we’re completely
lost.”

Sabine’s nightmare has happened. BBC posted this today:

Earlier this year, the revamped LHC finally reached its full operating potential and was set to collect data from collisions at an unprecedented rate. Thousands of scientists at Cern were hoping that they might be on the verge of one of the all-time biggest discoveries in science – even bigger than the Higgs…The experiment wore on and the bump disappeared…

According to Prof Butterworth, it’s a theory [SUSY] that refuses to die. “I hate to describe it as a ‘zombie theory’ but it is never going to be absolutely ruled out. But every time we look and we don’t find any obvious sign of it then it becomes a little less plausible.”

Of course, in this post-modern world, there’s an alternative to admitting we are completely lost—make up the missing data. After all, other than funding for new projects, new construction, salaries and prestige, who really knows if SUSY is proven true or not?

What their theory lacks is court rulings that force it to be taught in publicly funded school, like Darwinism.

See also: In search of a road to reality

Comments
And speaking of Darwinism...or rather, the slow motion collapse of it, here's a good article putting another nail in the Darwinian coffin. My favorite line: "...it seems neo-Darwinian theory is coming undone on every level." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/08/the_origin_of_m103062.htmlTruth Will Set You Free
August 10, 2016
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