[HN Gopher] The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon in the Sta...
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       The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon in the Standard Model: an
       update
        
       Author : evanb
       Score  : 9 points
       Date   : 2025-05-28 20:13 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
        
       | jiggawatts wrote:
       | The reason this is big news is that modern physics theories such
       | as quantum electrodynamics and the Standard Model can be used to
       | calculate certain measurements such as the anomalous magnetic
       | moment of the electron to absurdly high precision, with
       | prediction and experiment differing in only about one part per
       | ten billion.
       | 
       | Run the same calculations for the Muon, and... err... not so
       | good, previously differing by 3.5 standard deviations.
       | 
       | Either the theory is wrong, or the experiments are wrong. The
       | former is _very_ interesting, because Muons are easy to
       | experiment on, and if we can find  "new physics" in something so
       | ordinary, then it's an "accessible" regime for conditions that
       | can be reproduced in a lab (albeit a big one).
       | 
       | This paper is saying that the discrepancy has been solved by
       | using a more fancy set of computations and newer experiments at
       | Fermilab.
       | 
       | In other words: No new exciting physics.
       | 
       | Still though, this is interesting because a mystery was solved,
       | even if the answer is in some sense boring.
        
         | kayo_20211030 wrote:
         | Interesting. Quick, what's the correct response to the
         | statement: "the standard model is wrong"? Generally, it's "it's
         | not". Maybe it will be some day wrong, but glad to know it
         | still holds.
        
           | staunton wrote:
           | At this point, "the standard model" basically means "state of
           | the art particle physics without highly speculative stuff".
           | People tell me that neutrino masses are part of the standard
           | model now...
           | 
           | So if the standard model is wrong, long live the right
           | standard model. At least, perhaps until it takes a
           | _completely_ new paradigm to go further.
        
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