New Particle Throws Monkeywrench in Particle Physics

Posted by Greg Laden on March 23, 2009
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We know where Dora’s monkey is…. She’s over at Fermi Lab throwing a wrench in Teh Physics:

… scientists have detected a new, completely untheorized particle that challenges what physicists thought they knew about how quarks combine to form matter. They’re calling it Y(4140), reflecting its measured mass of 4140 Mega-electron volts.

“It must be trying to tell us something,” said Jacobo Konigsberg of the University of Florida, a spokesman for Fermilab’s collider detector team. “So far, we’re not sure what that is, but rest assured we’ll keep on listening.”

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Comments

  1. #1 dreikin
    March 23, 2009

    Cool. Link?

  2. #2 Stephanie Z
    March 23, 2009

    Link.

  3. #3 Jason Thibeault
    March 23, 2009

    I first read about it at Science Daily, right here. I *can’t wait* for the LHC to come along — if FermiLabs, aging as it is, can come up with not only rare findings like the single top quark they discovered last month, but wholly untheorized ones, I’m sure the LHC will discover something worthwhile. Been meaning to blog about this for a while myself, but never got around to it, in much the same way that I’ve never gotten around to taking any particle physics classes. :)

  4. #4 01Jack
    March 23, 2009

    I read … scientists have detected a new, completely unauthorized particle … As in “Who ordered that?

    I’ll just go back and read quietly now…