Cloudbusting
Not your average chicken
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
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Muons: 'Strong' evidence found for a new force of nature
[Source - BBC article]
In my opinion this may not only be an exciting development for physicists, but also those of us with an interest in fortean topics. If this discovery is indeed real, then perhaps it could explain some fortean phenomena or the mechanisms behind it (admittedly this is pure speculation on my part).
[Source - BBC article]
All of the forces we experience every day can be reduced to just four categories: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak force. Now, physicists say they have found possible signs of a fifth fundamental force of nature.
The UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) said the result "provides strong evidence for the existence of an undiscovered sub-atomic particle or new force".
There is currently a one in a 40,000 chance that the result could be a statistical fluke - equating to a statistical level of confidence described as 4.1 sigma.
A level of 5 sigma, or a one in 3.5 million chance of the observation being a coincidence, is needed to claim a discovery.
Prof Mark Lancaster, who is the UK lead for the experiment, told BBC News: "We have found the interaction of muons are not in agreement with the Standard Model [the current widely accepted theory to explain how the building blocks of the Universe behave]."
The University of Manchester researcher added: "Clearly, this is very exciting because it potentially points to a future with new laws of physics, new particles and a new force which we have not seen to date."
The finding is the latest in a string of promising results from particle physics experiments in the US, Japan, and most recently from the Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border.
Prof Ben Allanach, from Cambridge University, who was not involved with the latest effort, said: "My Spidey sense is tingling and telling me that this is going to be real.
In my opinion this may not only be an exciting development for physicists, but also those of us with an interest in fortean topics. If this discovery is indeed real, then perhaps it could explain some fortean phenomena or the mechanisms behind it (admittedly this is pure speculation on my part).