this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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[–] raspberry_confetti@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How do we even know there is another fundamental force?

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The article overstates the case. I posted it because it's interesting, but the headline is hyperbole. It is the usual situation where an anomalous observation could lead to an important new discovery and a revolution in theory, but it may turn out to be an issue with the experimental setup, a confounding factor that no one has thought of, or some new phenomenon that can after all be accommodated without major theoretical upheavals.

Here's another source that reports that a Russian experiment has obtained results that fit with the Standard Model, so the discrepancy could be caused by any of these other factors, not by a deficiency in the Standard Model itself:

Dreams of new physics fade with latest muon magnetism result

(archive link)

So it's far too early to be saying we're on the brink of a scientific revolution due to these anomalous results. All we know is that the anomaly seems intermittent and is so far unexplained.

[–] yokonzo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

It’s in the article, the standard model is proving to be incomplete, not covering new phenomena, it works for other things but there’s something missing

[–] xkforce@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

If what theyre seeing is real, it could indicate the presence of unknown particles. Not necessarily a force but something. Essentially quantum mechanics predicts that the magnetic moment of the electron, muon etc. are a little bit off from what would be expected without interactions with the quantum foam. Space isnt empty, there are virtual particles popping into and out of existence constantly over short time periods that still manage to interact with other things before they dissappear. This quantum foam's effects on the magnetic moment of electrons, muons etc. depend on what particles are in that quantum foam. The standard model can be used to predict the magnitude of these effects given what particles it predicts should be in that foam. But if there's more particles there that it doesn't predict should be there, the magnetic moment measurement won't quite match predictions. I.e if there is stuff in the quantum foam that we don't know about, we can infer their existence through indirect effects.

[–] DarkLogic@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Love. The fifth force is love.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

Is it a onepom?

[–] Amro@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

@floofloof I was just pondering Quantum Cable Entanglement. There's proof?

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

No, there's no proof of anything. There's an anomalous result in some of the experiments, while others claim to give the expected result. It's too early to draw conclusions.