From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu May 15 2003 - 02:22:28 MDT
On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 09:49:36AM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> > If we somehow accidentally discovered a seventh
> > quark flavor, wont the physicists be majorly screwed
> > up? Would they attempt a cover-up? Would we call
> > it still-more-strange?
>
> The X-quark? The truth is in there (in the hadrons).
I can't get this out of my head:
The X-files theme plays. Grainy images of particle accelerators.
Press clippings about Nobel laureates. A bubble chamber picture.
Someone writing equations on a blackboard. A rotating 3D model
of a particle interaction. The greek letter pi. High voltage and
radiation signs. Handycam footage from someone running along an
accelerator ring. The X-Quark.
A theoretical physicist sits in a messy office, surrounded by
piles of Physics Review Letters, printouts and with a blackboard
covered with equations and notes. A poster with particle tracks
says "I believe in TOE". A blond experimentalist enters,
carrying a CD.
"Have you heard about Ds (2317)?"
"Yes, Scully. It has a significant mass discrepancy. I was just
working on a an alternative explanation."
"Please, Fox. Nobody believes in a fifth fundamental force
anymore. It is as dead as Kaluza-Klein theories."
"Which means that they discount the evidence even when it is
right under their noses. What if this fifth force was linked to
the weak force and the Higgs particle? That could easily explain
why nobody has noticed this kind of mass discrepancy before."
"But isn't the simpler explanation just a spin-orbit
interaction? Besides, nobody has found the Higgs."
"Yes. Isn't it suspicious - the missing mass of the universe,
the Higgs particle, Ds (2317), solar neutrinos - isn't there
a lot missing recently?"
Clip to a plush administrative meeting room. A smoking trustee
is discussing with the board whether to cut the funding for
theoretical physics.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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