This video about muons (an “elementary subatomic particle similar to the electron but 207 times heavier”) explains:
One byproduct of these collisions is the creation of extraordinarily short-lived particles known as muons that, rather curiously, seem to exist for much longer when moving towards the planet than when created by scientists working in the lab.
“Extremely small and incredibly fast, muons offer amazing proof of special relativity” at Aeon
Apparently, time dilation that we can observe is to blame. The only reason for the “alas” is that the conflict between major theories that are all well-supported must leave some wishing that at least some of the contenders could be less well-supported. 😉
See also: Physicists need courage to confront the Collider dilemma, says boson pioneer Could the great age of particle physics be coming to an end? That is, not so much a crisis as the beginning of a long, slow decline? That happened to science in many former civilizations. There were high points and then somehow things slowed down. How would we know?
Sabine Hossenfelder: Has The Large Hadron Collider “Broken Physics”?
Extreme black hole shows Einstein was right Of course, there is so much talk these days of a crisis in physics that one is tempted to wonder if vindicating Einstein is regarded as just as positive an event as it would have been decades ago. Good stuff anyway.
At Scientific American: Understanding the cosmology crisis
At Forbes: Cosmology’s Crisis Is Merely “Manufactured Misunderstandings”
Rob Sheldon: The real reason there is a crisis in cosmology Nearly everything that has failed about the Big Bang model has been added because of bad metaphysics, a refusal to accept the consequences of a beginning. The remaining pieces of the Big Bang model that are failing and which can’t be attributed to bad metaphysics, were added from sheer laziness.
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