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- Fermilab’s Muon Discovery Could Rewrite the Laws of Physics
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I loved drawing Pokémon when I was a kid. Sketching each of the original 151 felt relaxing and prepared me in case I ran into Team Rocket in the wild.
Someone stole one of our bikes this week (probs Team Rocket) and I’m still stuck feeling bummed about it.
So I invited a Pokémon to hangout with st3v! And asked chatGPT to help explain recent research on something I’m still learning: physics and muons.
—Steve 🔬
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More Muons
The following excerpt was written by chatGPT after my prompting about this recent muon news.
Scientists at Fermilab have measured the magnetic behavior of a particle called the muon more precisely than ever before—and it could either confirm what we know about the universe or shake it up completely.
A muon (pronounced MYOO-on) is like an electron’s heavier cousin. It’s tiny, negatively charged, and unstable, lasting just millionths of a second. But in that time, it can tell us a lot about how nature works.
The new experiment looked at the muon’s magnetic moment—basically, how it wobbles in a magnetic field. According to the Standard Model (our best theory of particles and forces), we should be able to predict that wobble. But past experiments showed a tiny mismatch, hinting that something unknown might be influencing the muon.
Fermilab’s new results—part of the Muon g-2 experiment—confirm earlier measurements and do so with unprecedented precision: just 127 parts per billion. That’s like measuring the width of the Earth to within a couple of centimeters.
So, did they find new physics? Maybe. But here’s the twist: newer calculations of what the muon’s wobble should be are now closer to the new measurement. That means the supposed mismatch might just be vanishing—strengthening the Standard Model, not breaking it.
Still, the door isn’t closed. A different lab in Japan is planning to run a similar experiment using a different approach. If they get a different answer, the mystery could deepen.
Whether it confirms or challenges our theories, this work is a milestone in precision science—and a reminder that even the smallest particles can hold big secrets.
Hmm...How did you pronounce "muon" before today? |
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Unnatural Selection
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We shall call it “ear-tificial intelligence”!!!
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Traditional research fails to consider that some “unexplainable” phenomena are actually just Mew and st3v playing tricks on our laws of physics.
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