Physicists at Fermilab might have found evidence of a new elementary particle or an entirely new force of nature, suggesting the nation’s biggest science experiment is about to go out with a bang.
A new analysis of 10,000 proton-antiproton collisions at the Tevatron showed a weird result a couple hundred times — the numbers do not agree with the accepted theories of elementary particles and the forces that govern them. Post-collision jets of electrons and heavy particles called W bosons did not behave as they should.
The New York Times’ Dennis Overbye explains: “In about 250 times more cases than expected, the total energy of the jets clustered around a value of about 144 billion electron volts, as if they were the decay products of a hitherto unsuspected particle with that mass-energy.”There are actually a few anomalies in the data, including asymmetrical behavior of top quarks. Together the data suggest a new particle, a new force or at the very least, new behavior among recognized particles and forces. This new particle could be a new boson, though not the elusive Higgs (the Higgs decays into heavier particles than this new thing does). One theory posted to the physics arXiv says it could be a new brand of Z boson. Another theory posits that it’s a heavy version of a gluon, the particle that glues quarks together, reports Science News.
Whatever it is has physicists pretty excited. Fermilab theorist Christopher Hill, who was not part of the team, told the New York Times: “If it is real, it would be the most significant discovery in physics in half a century.”
Last fall, Fermilab physicists said they detected evidence for a new class of neutrino, a “sterile” particle that only interacts through gravity. Those results came out of the MiniBooNE detector; this is is the result of a different experiment, Tevatron’s CDF experiment.
The team posted their results to the physics arXiv online and submitted the results to the journal Physical Review Letters. As the Times points out, verifying these results would be an impressive finale for the Tevatron, which will shut down later this year when it runs out of money.
But that leaves even more juicy targets for the Large Hadron Collider.
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.


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The Tevatron looks like a Stargate lol.
I wonder if it's possible that these abnormal results are due to neutrinos that got in the way of the collisions, or were too close when the collision was occuring. And since we really don't know much at all about neutrinos, I sure hope they aren't leaving that out of the equation.
If youn are looking for suggestions on naming this particle
I hearby name this new particle
The Bozo
reasearch nassim haramein...he beleives that at the core of every atom is a tiny black hole....interesting theory...becuase atoms actually become infinitaly smaller...so science will always find new sub-atomic particles. Worth a look at least.
@Pierrek - thanx for the giggle :)
Not that I'm questioning the significance of this find, but can we please stop calling every new discovery "the most significant in _____ years"? None of them are insignificant, of course, but they can't all be the *most* significant.
So, Septimus, how would you rate the discovery of an entirely new particle or force? On a scale from one to ten? If verified, this would indeed be an extremely significant discovery in sub-atomic physics. It is important for the public to realize that the Large Hadron Collider will be doing a lot more research than just looking for the Higgs boson.
That machine looks alot like a 'stargate'
It goes to show that this legendary lab still has great physics that can be done.
Particle physics refuses to be tamed! So much for a theory of everything.
Here's a good physics site, http://bluesolver.com/
u mean they moved the stargate from cheyenne mountain and placed it in the fermilab?
so i guess they stopped using the iris and added a giant bank vault door to block incoming wormholes.
although, the unstable vortex might be able to cause fluxuations in some stuff far beyond my current math/physics grade.
I'm no physicist, so this was a little hard for me to understand, but will this change certain theories that we have? Or rather would it just expound on knowledge? How much of an impact would it have? (I can't really think of any other discoveries in the past 50 years).
Check out my tech blog at regiz.blogspot.com !
What is that written on the beam at the top of the picture? Please tell me that they're not writing on the walls and have actual paper / whiteboards to do their math on.
Look at your XBOX 360. What appears on TV is Relativistic Mechanics. What happens on XBOX motherboard is Quantum Mechanics. The laws of the game and motherboard appears totally different but they are absolutely related. In reality the computer runs at C. That is why nothing exceeds C. Byte is a superstring. Bits are the waveforms. TV displays at 4 dimenstions. Computer is 6 or more dimensions. Hence density of info determines fram rate. Frame rate is time. Differences in time is velocity. Differences in velocity is gravity. Check out my blog "Chipmunk's Grand Unification Theory" in My Blogg.
@tertertert
It looks to me like they all signed it. Probably at the grand opening or maybe each person that worked there. I've seen it done other places. I realize they're running out of funding but I'm pretty sure they can still afford paper :)
@CodeZero your right. it looks more like what a REAL stargate would look like, not a piece of Styrofoam (no really I love stargate and sad to see the BEST entry so far Universe canceled). this is VERY exciting. BUT I have a question: "“If it is real, it would be the most significant discovery in physics in half a century.”" why is this? how is quark glue or Z Boson going to change anything. I get that is a big deal. but why the biggest in 50 years? if its a force of nauture, that is indeed a big deal, but still... if it is a new force it does not seem to effect much, then again, it may effect EVERYTHING (then again cant that be said for EVERYTHING single particle and force of nature so that brings me back to why the discovery of the century)
@Septimus Prime,
They keep saying it's the most important in ___ years because new discoveries are constantly being made.
What might be the most important today, might be revealed as not very important a year from now, or might be replaced by an even more important discovery tomorrow.
Our models of reality, and hence the importance of contributions to those models are constantly in a state of flux.
I'm not going to have to kill a bunch of headcrabs now am I?
It is the Planck mass in a hyperspace co-dimension where the speed of light is 1 meter/second
@tertertert
That was the symbols for the stargate!
Here is a better pic of it
http://hep.physics.utoronto.ca/cdf/gifs/opencdf.gif
TinEye is a awesome add on for browsers
@ JohnStClair - What exactly do you mean by Hyperspace co-dimension and light traveling at 1 meter / sec? Also could you link to your site, I would like to know more about the man who patented walking through walls.
@Wanamingo - I don't have a site, but you can see my 2006 video lectures called "The Chi Energy Amplifier" and "Hyperspace and the Marital Arts" in which I talk about levitation, walking through walls, the discovery of the circular gravitational field, boosting one's energy field using hyperspace energy, the calculation of the radius of the pendulum swing generated by hyperspace energy flowing in from hyperspace, the discovery of the Dan Tien plasma ball of the second orange chakra, a vampire energy being that causes chronic fatigue syndrome and the geometry of hyperspace as depicted in the Tetrahedron Diagram which shows that the electron and proton are one and the same particle (tet0565). I believe the videos are still available from psychotronics.org in Kentucky. At the conference I was awarded the best lecture. I also gave a six- hour lecture on all the various spacecraft and how they achieve their lift, but it was not recorded unfortunately.
"The Bozo"
Love it.
To me, with the color scheme, it looks like a chunk of Optimus Prime.
Zero Point Energy isall I have to say!
I hope the new particle or force ends up allowing us to find a way to make a warp drive.
@JohnStClair,
"video...in which I talk about levitation, walking through walls..."
LOL!
How about a video where you levitate and walk through walls instead?
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The Sixth Sense - New GROUNDBREAKING Book in 2012! The Sixth Sense leads to Enlightenment
DNA Healing Code - Hardwired in ALL Humans
As an example of what I mean by “Groundbreaking” info that can be found in the 2012 release of my new book on The Sixth Sense (not yet titled )…..
There is a sequence required to communicate with Infinite Intelligence – to gain insight and/or much more complicated yet achievable, HolisticDNA Energy Healing. The sequence required is on multiple simultaneous levels, not just “step by step” like an instruction manual for assembling a piece of furniture.
The “Key” sequence has to do with applying known facts, beliefs, emotions and faith (not religious) – if not applied exactly as detailed, the Sixth Sense will remain dormant, and not be “activated”. As an example:
fact --
fact --
fact --
belief --
fact --
in theory --
belief --
fact --
belief --
Faith --
fact --
fact --
fact --
Faith
you won’t find this in any existing text, which is why The Sixth Sense is so rarely utilized and hard to confirm. This will allow the Scientific Community to experiment and confirm my claims — remember, just a few decades ago, it was impossible to have a Man walk on the moon. Time for the next impossible to be challenged and confirmed — real
Steve Meyer HolisticDNA