April 26, 2007
six quarks and three leptons
And there are many answers to the question of how much longer this Russian-doll game will continue. If one is to be absolutely honest, none is reliable, although at least there is a fascinatingly stringent basic system, from whose hat all the currently known subatomic particles can be pulled: the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. It knows six quarks and three leptons (with their respective anti-particles and neutrinos) as well as four bosons which mediate the forces between particles. All these particles and their combinations – christened with nice little names like Charm, Pion and Kaon – are well defined within the model, whose clairvoyant powers border on the magical. And yet particle physicists are not entirely satisfied with their construction kit, because it has a few gaps in it which prevent them from sleeping at night.
more from Ulrich Woelk on the origin of things at Sign and Sight here.
Posted by Morgan Meis at 07:05 PM | Permalink
Comments
This unenlightening article uses the catch words "fascinatingly stringent" to describe the numerous elementary particles or "free parameters" necessary to describe events by the physics orthdoxy of 2007. What are these "particles" themselves made of? Who knows? With enough free parameters one can describe almost anything. Why not just use a least squares fit with all these free and unexplained parameters? At some point does not all this fail to be even physics at all or fail to deserve to be described as "doing physics research" instead of simply data fitting that few others can reproduce or check anyway?
Every new generation of accelerator claimed to be the end of the rainbow and pot of gold. But every time the pot of gold is just a myth. At least when the physicists fail, more suffering patients won't die as with the war on cancer, where the "cure" or pot of gold is just around the next billion dollar corner. Man has been very lucky to understand so much from classical mechanics through quantum mechanics. But everyone should always keep in mind even classical mechanics can be very complicated if enough bodies and variables are involved and different forces are involved. After all, perturbation theory, which allows complicated non-linear, coupled equations to be solved, originated from Newton's problem of graviation. And while we can solve the equations and understand the motions of the planets about the Sun, in over 3 centuries since Newton Man has not the foggiest idea of why masses attract in the first place; and Man may never understand this. But fortunately, this knowledge is not necessary to get out of the way of a falling brick or place a space shuttle into orbit. Isn't it too bad the cancer generals don't and won't learn this simple principle, that it is not necessary to understand all the myriad of complex signaling processes inside the cell to control cancer, since cancer is caused by the wrong energy.
Posted by: Winfield J. Abbe | Apr 28, 2007 7:27:54 PM
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