"IT’S A HUGE DEAL."
Tumbling Down
Not
to scare you, but scientists published a new study yesterday that could
profoundly alter our understanding of the physics that underpins our whole
universe.
According
to the Guardian, the study, which was published in the journal Science, had 400
researchers and partners and took more than a decade to complete. The findings
are based on the most precise measurement of a particle known as a W boson, an
electrically charged fundamental particle that influences one of the most fundamental
scientific laws: weak force.
The
only issue, according to the researchers, is that the particle looks to be much
larger and different than previously assumed. That implies a lot of what we
thought we knew about physics could come crashing down around us like a frail
house of cards.
"If
this is real, and not some systematic bias or misunderstanding of how to do the
calculations," Harry Cliff, a particle physicist at Cambridge University,
told the Guardian, "it's a huge deal because it would mean there's a new
fundamental ingredient to our universe that we haven't discovered before."
Long Term
According
to the newspaper, Ashutosh Kotwal, a Duke University physicist who conducted
the study, the results took so long to explain because they involved 450
trillion particle collisions. The researchers employed the best particle
accelerator at the time, the Tevatron collider in Illinois, which closed in
2011 but whose data is still being studied by scientists.
It
may have taken some time, but if what these scientists claim is accurate, it
would be a game-changing revelation that would forever change how we think the
cosmos works – a humbling moment for both scientists and laypeople.
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