[HN Gopher] A Breakthrough in Measuring the Building Blocks of N...
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       A Breakthrough in Measuring the Building Blocks of Nature
        
       Author : CapitalistCartr
       Score  : 50 points
       Date   : 2021-01-10 08:48 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (m.nautil.us)
 (TXT) w3m dump (m.nautil.us)
        
       | mikewarot wrote:
       | I have this suspicion that in the coming decades, the rush to
       | make all of our standards based on the "unchanging constants of
       | the universe" might turn out to have been a bit presumptive. For
       | instance, assuming that the speed of light is constant and
       | uniform in all directions, might be a mistake.
        
         | TooKool4This wrote:
         | I believe there would be minimal practical impact in any case.
         | 
         | In the case of anisotropy of the physical constants, it would
         | have to be so small that to date independent labs around the
         | world haven't detected a difference outside of the measurement
         | uncertainty.
         | 
         | In terms Of time variance a similar logic can apply. I would
         | also add that variation of the physical constants over the span
         | of a few decades is not very likely in the grand scheme of the
         | universe.
         | 
         | It's the same reason that nothing in your life materially
         | changed when we switched the definition of the kilogram last
         | year, unless you are a metrologist ;). The variations being
         | discussed here have to fundamentally be below our current
         | measurement uncertainties and our current measurement
         | uncertainties are very very small.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | zvrba wrote:
       | What I don't understand is why Higgs' boson wasn't discovered
       | before LHC: its mass is 125GeV, which is way smaller than that of
       | the top quark at 171.2GeV... Yet the top quark was discovered in
       | 1995.
        
         | ssivark wrote:
         | It's not just about the mass, but how strongly it couples to
         | the things we can directly manipulate (typically, protons,
         | electrons, muons and occasionally their anti-particles, and
         | photons). The top quark, being a third generation quark turns
         | out to be far easier to produce (if you work out the details of
         | the standard model) than the Higgs. Yes, the heavier mass might
         | act as a suppressor but stronger couplings act as an enabler.
         | 
         | So, a "dark matter" particle at even few GeV could have gone
         | hitherto undetected, because it hardly talks to anything we can
         | directly manipulate/sense (hence the "dark" moniker).
        
       | l33tman wrote:
       | On a (somewhat) related matter, I find the experimental search
       | for inconsistencies in measurements in different directions in
       | space and quantization of length scales very interesting as well.
       | There are some experiments done constraining the level of
       | anisotropy or space quantization in our universe. These are of
       | course interesting for the "universe could be a simulation"
       | crowd; basically searching for limitations and/or bugs in the
       | code..
        
       | zer0gravity wrote:
       | This makes me ask the question: Is it possible for a cellular
       | automata to measure its state in one region without getting
       | inconsistent results, since the simple act of measuring means
       | changing its state?
        
         | fsloth wrote:
         | I don't think the word 'measurement' has any meaning in a
         | context without a memory. And without consistency you can't
         | have a memory.
         | 
         | In other words in cellular automata context aren't the concepts
         | of 'memory' and 'measurement' isomorphic. I.e. a cell pattern
         | {c} can be copied from region 1 to region 2, and from there any
         | number of times.
         | 
         | Or have I misunderstood something?
        
       | sanxiyn wrote:
       | If you are interested in this ongoing saga, you can start at
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_radius_puzzle.
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | How did we eliminate the possibility of a proton in the midst
         | of a muon being smaller than one near an electron?
        
           | sanxiyn wrote:
           | We haven't. It is in fact one of alternatives considered. The
           | problem is just that the direction doesn't work well.
        
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