[HN Gopher] NIST research reveals new details about a possible f... ___________________________________________________________________ NIST research reveals new details about a possible fifth force of nature Author : geox Score : 132 points Date : 2021-09-09 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nist.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nist.gov) | monocasa wrote: | > Each neutron in an atomic nucleus is made up of three | elementary particles called quarks. | | Well and tons and tons of virtual particles popping in and out of | existance. Only a little over 1% the mass of a neutron is the | three quarks normally listed. | tomrod wrote: | I love that our fundamental reality is built on virtual | particles. Physics rocks! | JackFr wrote: | I love that our mental model of reality is built on virtual | particles. Metaphysics rocks! | LeegleechN wrote: | The headline is misleading. The work tightened the range of | possible strengths of a fifth force by a factor of 10. In other | words it ruled out the existence of a fifth force within a wide | range of parameters that were previously open. | RedShift1 wrote: | Is this fifth force something that could disappear with more | precise measurements of the known 4 forces? | garmaine wrote: | There is nothing to disappear. There isn't a fifth force to | within experimental precision. TFA is about an increase in | that experimental precision which further reduces the | possibility (or at least the magnitude) of any yet | undiscovered "fifth force." | Out_of_Characte wrote: | The fifth force is already a hypothetical. More precise | measurements would make the hypothetical force weaker and | weaker. | kibwen wrote: | Note that the original article's headline is "Groundbreaking | Technique Yields Important New Details on Silicon, Subatomic | Particles and Possible 'Fifth Force'" (which is too long for | HN), which makes it clear that the focus is on the technique. | It's the abbreviated HN title that sort of makes it sound as | though the focus is on the force. | criticaltinker wrote: | It seems like the title length constraint on HN is a bit too | limiting and often results in these types of clarifying | comments. | | Couldn't we expect more accurate and higher quality titles by | relaxing the length constraint? I'm sure it's been discussed | before here, but I'm struggling to think of downsides from | such a change. | nl wrote: | It would involve a change to HN. | | There's still no mobile friendly stylesheet. I wouldn't | hold your breath. | Cederfjard wrote: | I mostly read HN on my phone and I think the experience | is fine. So maybe there's just not enough demand on that | front. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | People have been clamoring for mobile friendly blockquote | for a while. | reificator wrote: | > _There 's still no mobile friendly stylesheet. I | wouldn't hold your breath._ | | Beyond code blocks having line wrap, the HN mobile | stylesheet seems fine to me. What issue do you take with | it? | nl wrote: | Well there isn't a mobile stylesheet. It's the same as | the desktop styling (and that code block issue affects | desktop too). | | There are multiple issues with using the desktop styling, | but most are related to Fitt's law[1]. | | The whole UI is terrible for finger interactions, but the | best example is the _tiny_ upvote /downvote buttons | immediately above/below each other well within the | diameter of a normal finger. It's literally impossible to | use that without zooming, and if you try to then there is | no way to know if you vote up or down. It should be used | in textbooks for how not to do a mobile interaction. | | [1] https://www.interaction- | design.org/literature/article/fitts-... | saalweachter wrote: | Maybe a different limit for links versus "ask HN"s? | | External links have some sort of constraint, weak as it may | be. The limit more forces people to editorialize rather | than focusing their thoughts toward concisitude. | vikingerik wrote: | Good point. The details are "constraints on a fifth force _if | one exists_ ", NOT behavior that indicates it does or might. | whimsicalism wrote: | If anything, it can be viewed as evidence that this fifth | force _does not_ exist - as we can rule out more | possibilities. | Raineer wrote: | As a Boulderite and a huge fan of NIST, I am bummed out that the | misleading headline does come from NIST itself and not an | overzealous contributor. | | Exciting results, all the same. | blondin wrote: | wait, how is what they wrote misleading? | prutschman wrote: | It's not literally false, but I got an inaccurate impression | based on the headline. To me it implied a positive discovery | of evidence rather than a ruling-out. | | If they'd said "determined new constraints on a hypothetical | 5th force" or something I would have gotten a correct | impression. | redis_mlc wrote: | Because there's no fifth force. | potatoman22 wrote: | I've always wondered why there has to be a discrete number of | forces, rather than it being a spectrum describing types of | interactions. | roywiggins wrote: | The known forces, other than gravity, are mediated by specific | particles that have characteristic masses and other properties. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_boson | | (there might be a graviton, too) | | With a Grand Unification Theory, they might turn out to be one | force with several aspects (eg electroweak force), but that's | not really a continuum. | maxerickson wrote: | Is "particle" the correct model, or is it just very useful? | whimsicalism wrote: | Is the "correct model" even well-defined or remotely | falsifiable? | | In my view, we're sailing awfully close to metaphysical | waters with phrases like that. | drsnow wrote: | The latter. | Y_Y wrote: | What do you think a model is? | | There are phenomena explained by the particle model, and | there are phenomena that are not. This is true of all | models, and it's a a strong claim that we could eventually | land on a "correct" model at all. | | To be fair, a "particle" as the term is used in quantum | field theory doesn't refer to a billiard ball, it's a | perturbation in a "field" and encapsulates behaviour which | could be described as wave or particle or neither. | maxerickson wrote: | Oh come on, what do you think a leading question is? | amackera wrote: | "All models are wrong, but some are useful." [1] | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong | macksd wrote: | There may not have to be, as far as we know. From the Wikipedia | page[1]: | | _Many theoretical physicists believe these fundamental forces | to be related and to become unified into a single force at very | high energies on a minuscule scale, the Planck scale, but | particle accelerators cannot produce the enormous energies | required to experimentally probe this. Devising a common | theoretical framework that would explain the relation between | the forces in a single theory is perhaps the greatest goal of | today 's theoretical physicists. The weak and electromagnetic | forces have already been unified with the electroweak theory of | Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg for which | they received the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics. Some physicists | seek to unite the electroweak and strong fields within what is | called a Grand Unified Theory (GUT). An even bigger challenge | is to find a way to quantize the gravitational field, resulting | in a theory of quantum gravity (QG) which would unite gravity | in a common theoretical framework with the other three forces. | Some theories, notably string theory, seek both QG and GUT | within one framework, unifying all four fundamental | interactions along with mass generation within a theory of | everything (ToE)._ | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction | at_a_remove wrote: | Forces are mediated by fields (or particles, depends on your | interpretation). If you want 4.5 forces, what does that .5 look | like? | | Essentially, each force does describe a type of interaction. So | what does one-third of a type look like? | klodolph wrote: | We used to think that electricity and magnetism were | different types of interaction, but it turns out that they | are more coherently described as a single "electromagnetic" | force. | | The same may be true of other seemingly different forces: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Unified_Theory | at_a_remove wrote: | This is a true statement, but it does not disprove anything | I said. | | Before, we thought there were _two_. Now we know there are | _one_. We do not say "one and a half." | jakeinspace wrote: | Sure, there might be 1 equation for 1 force. But that is a | very different thing from a "spectrum" of forces. | malwarebytess wrote: | Maybe something like fractional dimension in fractals. lol | cybernautique wrote: | https://www.quantamagazine.org/fractons-the-weirdest- | matter-... | | I'm not conversant enough with physics to do more with this | article than say "wow, that's cool!" and let my mind run | into all sorts of fun science-fictional speculation... but | wow! Fractals are cool, and fractals in _physics_ are | _very_ cool! | cybernautique wrote: | I'm not very knowledgeable of physics, but my intuition is | that a fractional type should just be a type that falls | between the characteristics of two integer types. So if A is | the electromagnetic force and B is the strong nuclear force, | A.5 should be some interaction that exhibits characteristics | of both, is fully described by neither, yet exhibits no | properties which can't be typified by some combination of the | integer endpoints. | | Of course that raises the question of "shouldn't A.5 then | just be considered its own type?" at which point I suppose | we'd have to refer to how these "types" are constructed, | which seems more like a mathematical/computational | (ontological?) question than a purely physics question. Then, | I suppose, the question further resolves to: which assumption | makes our equations easier to work with? | | Please correct me if I'm entirely off-base. | sroussey wrote: | Actual title: | | Groundbreaking Technique Yields Important New Details on Silicon, | Subatomic Particles and Possible 'Fifth Force' | sroussey wrote: | "A vastly improved understanding of the crystal structure of | silicon, the 'universal' substrate or foundation material on | which everything is built, will be crucial in understanding the | nature of components operating near the point at which the | accuracy of measurements is limited by quantum effects," said | NIST senior project scientist Michael Huber. | dexwiz wrote: | If this came from almost any other group it would be an easy | write off. But NIST really does have some of the best analytical | chemists and physicists around. | fennecfoxen wrote: | Headline is misleading. The "new details" are of the sort "if | there is a fifth force, you won't find it over here." | | > The scientists' results improve constraints on the strength | of a potential fifth force by tenfold over a length scale | between 0.02 nanometers (nm, billionths of a meter) and 10 nm, | giving fifth-force hunters a narrowed range over which to look. | | This is not surprising and it would be possible believe this | sort of a thing from a variety of qualified groups. | lilyball wrote: | I'm not sure what's misleading about it. "If this force | exists, you'll find it in this range" seems to be a valuable | detail to know when searching for this force. | | It feels to me like this is very similar to the trend of only | caring about positive experiment results and thinking | negative experiment results aren't interesting. But they are! | Negative results are useful and give us information! And are | often crucial contributions toward positive results from | later experiments. | roywiggins wrote: | Yes, technically _it 's not over there_ is a "New detail | about a possible fifth force", but it's not exactly what | first jumps to mind? | | Consider "New details about a possible Game of Thrones book | release date" being a similarly unsatisfactory headline if | the article content is "it's not in the next 12 months". | Technically true, that is a new detail, but is it really | what the headline implies? | sidlls wrote: | A constraint on the domain and range of values _is_ a | detail. Restricting the possible range of action for a | force is certainly something physicists look for. | jcranberry wrote: | I think that's not the best example since it is assumed | this book is eventually coming out. Maybe if it was "New | details about a possible Game of Thrones seasons 5-8 do- | over" essentially being "no plans in the next 12 months". | fennecfoxen wrote: | It is misleading because it suggests that they have found | new signs, previously unknown, that such a force might | exist, rather than new details that demote it from | "possible with certain limitations" to "possible with | narrower limitations". | | This is presumably why dexwis seemed to think that it was | so remarkable and that it might easily be written off as | too-fantastic. | vagrantJin wrote: | > the trend of only caring about positive experiment | results | | Probably starts in school. Negative results are just a loss | of marks rather than a potential point of interest. Even if | the lab report states that the results were unexpected and | possible reasons given - it was an automatic fail. Never | has it been considered, at least in my alma mata, that a | negative result reasoned about might actually be | interesting on its own and worth the time. Since _aint | nobody got time for that_ , said trend will probably | continue for a long time. | retbull wrote: | From what I read in this article they didn't prove that the | force exists at all they actually showed that it wasn't present | in several areas. This helps other people who are doing | experiments in the area by cutting down on the range of sizes | they need to look in for it but it doesn't provide evidence for | its existence. | analog31 wrote: | Indeed, and in addition, their research programs focus on | improving the science and technology behind making | measurements. So they have the best metrologists around too. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-09 23:00 UTC)