All Things
In this situation, announcing that we already know everything seems an act of inconceivable arrogance (?????). The ancient Greeks knew very well where this usually ends.
Spanish version of this post
- Einstein?s Mistake
When Einstein formulated in 1915 his theory of general relativity, he soon applied it to the entire universe, deriving the following cosmological equation: It is curious that this equation is identical to the equation that would result from Newton?s...
- The Horizon Effect
We are well aware of the horizon effect: as we walk towards the horizon, the horizon gets further away. In science sometimes this effect seems to apply. Let us look at a few examples:Mycoplasma genitalium genetic mapSynthetic biology: In 1960, producing...
- Why Science Can?t Explain Everything
The difficulty of explaining everything is not due to our mental weakness, but to the very structure of the universe. In recent centuries we have discovered that the fabric of the cosmos can be considered on several different levels. While the next level...
- The Multiverse And The Fine Tuning Problem
The multiverse theories appeared in cosmology over half a century ago, but they have proliferated and spread starting at the eighties, together with the discovery of the fine tuning problem, the verification that the universe appears to have been designed...
- The Precariousness Of Scientific Theories
It is better to keep a certain skepticism about scientific theories,. Not only because these theories are always simple approximations tuned by further advances, as in the case of Newtonian gravitation and Einstein?s general relativity, quoted in a previous...
All Things
The God Particle
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| Peter Higgs |
With the discovery of Higgs boson, two years ago, the media and a few scientists have presented the discovery as the final completion of the standard theory of particle physics, in such a way that we now know everything and do not need God. Hence the nickname given to Higgs boson, the God particle, a name, by the way, that Higgs does not like.
The discovery of a particle whose existence was predicted nearly a half century ago is a spectacular success of the standard theory, comparable to the success achieved in 1846 by Newton?s theory of universal gravitation with the discovery of Neptune, whose existence had been predicted by Le Verrier and Adams. Then it was also said that we now know everything.
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| Urbain Le Verrier |
True, there was still a loose end, a very small discrepancy of just 43 seconds of arc per century in the precession of the orbit of Mercury. Le Verrier tried to repeat his success and predicted that this discrepancy was due to an unknown planet between Mercury and the Sun. He even gave it a name: Vulcan. For 60 years, many astronomers tried to find the mysterious planet in vain, for the problem in this case was in Newton?s theory, which eventually came to be just a first approximation of a new better theory that explained the discrepancy: Einstein's general relativity.
Could something similar happen to the standard theory of particle physics? Will its great success be followed by its first failure? Are there any loose ends still remaining in the theory?
The answer to the last question must be affirmative. The standard theory of particle physics has the following outstanding issues:
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| Standard model of particle physics |
1. We don?t know why the two families of quarks have charges equal to -1/3 and 2/3, or why the two families of leptons have charges equal to -1 (electrons) and 0 (neutrinos).
2. The strong interaction has not been satisfactorily integrated with the electro-weak interaction.
3. The gravitational interaction is not covered by the model. Consequently, the standard theory of particle physics and Einstein's general relativity are incompatible.
4. This theory depends on 19 independent constants. Many physicists think they are too many.
5. It does not explain why the universe is made of matter, rather than antimatter.
6. It predicts that the energy of vacuum is infinite. To resolve this anomaly, physicists apply renormalization, which essentially consists of dividing by infinity, something that mathematics forbid.
7. The Higgs field does not explain why neutrinos have mass (as they seem to have, although very small).
8. If dark matter exists, as many cosmologists believe, it must be made of yet unknown particles not integrated in the model.
9. We do not know what the cosmologic dark energy may be.
10. Finally, it has not been proven that the standard theory of particle physics is consistent (i.e. it contains no contradictions).
In this situation, announcing that we already know everything seems an act of inconceivable arrogance (?????). The ancient Greeks knew very well where this usually ends.
Spanish version of this post
Manuel Alfonseca
- Einstein?s Mistake
When Einstein formulated in 1915 his theory of general relativity, he soon applied it to the entire universe, deriving the following cosmological equation: It is curious that this equation is identical to the equation that would result from Newton?s...
- The Horizon Effect
We are well aware of the horizon effect: as we walk towards the horizon, the horizon gets further away. In science sometimes this effect seems to apply. Let us look at a few examples:Mycoplasma genitalium genetic mapSynthetic biology: In 1960, producing...
- Why Science Can?t Explain Everything
The difficulty of explaining everything is not due to our mental weakness, but to the very structure of the universe. In recent centuries we have discovered that the fabric of the cosmos can be considered on several different levels. While the next level...
- The Multiverse And The Fine Tuning Problem
The multiverse theories appeared in cosmology over half a century ago, but they have proliferated and spread starting at the eighties, together with the discovery of the fine tuning problem, the verification that the universe appears to have been designed...
- The Precariousness Of Scientific Theories
It is better to keep a certain skepticism about scientific theories,. Not only because these theories are always simple approximations tuned by further advances, as in the case of Newtonian gravitation and Einstein?s general relativity, quoted in a previous...