There is some skepticism around this to say the least[1]. The core of it is that this group has found new bosons twice before:<p><i>The Atomki group has produced three previous papers on their beryllium-8 experiments — conference proceedings in 2008, 2012 and 2015. The first paper claimed evidence of a new boson of mass 12 MeV, and the second described an anomaly corresponding to a 13.45-MeV boson. (The third was a preliminary version of the Physical Review Letters paper.) The first two bumps have disappeared in the latest data, collected with an improved experimental setup. “The new claim now is [a] boson with a mass of 16.7 MeV,” Naviliat-Cuncic said. “But they don’t say anything about what went wrong in their previous claims and why we should not take those claims seriously.”</i><p>[1] <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-boson-claim-faces-scrutiny-20160607/" rel="nofollow">https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-boson-claim-faces-scrutin...</a>
It's important to keep in mind that there are <i>always</i> plenty of outstanding experimental anomalies in physics. At the moment, this is one of ~40 roughly equally credible hints towards new physics, and it's more likely than not that all of those hints will fade away over time. That isn't anybody's fault either: it has always been like this, and it happens because experiments are difficult and subtle.<p>Personally, I still find this extremely exciting, even though history tells us it has less than a 1% chance of panning out. A 1% chance of revolution is still meaningful. But don't be too surprised if we land in the 99%.
I find the E8 lattice incredibly interesting, if for no other reason to find out if it's truly representative of particle physics. It predicts more particles we haven't observed yet.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory_of_Everything" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Exceptionally_Simple_Theory...</a>
[1] <a href="https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/theory-of-everything2.htm" rel="nofollow">https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-m...</a>
Related thread: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21616381" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21616381</a>
Someone knowledgeable, please tell us why this is just runaway science journalism before we get too excited!<p>This is potentially the most groundbreaking stuff in decades, right?
What, you say><p>Nobody should argue that advancements haven't been made since 1988, but nobody's manufacturing organic human organs yet --- chemical pieces of: probably.
could someone explain something--<p>I have a faint understanding of the "Standard Model" of physics, which lays out a pattern of particles and forces that has so far held up to experimentation i.e. the Higgs boson fit neatly into the model, exactly where the model predicted it would go.<p>The standard model predicted the Higgs, and the Higgs was found exactly how the model predicted, right? But I've never heard of this X17 particle before. Is this something the standard model has predicted? Does it go against the standard model, strengthen it, or neither?