back to article LHC results may solve riddle of how universe can exist

Top boffins at the Large Hadron Collider – mightiest particle-punisher and largest machine of any kind ever assembled by humanity – say that they may have uncovered a vital clue explaining one of the greatest mysteries of physics: namely, how is it that matter itself can exist? This is a mystery because the so-called Standard …

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  1. Isn't it obvious?

    The truth of beauty?

    Surely you mean "bottom?" "Beauty" hasn't been used for the name of that flavour in decades, as best I recall.

    1. Chris Miller

      True - I was going to post the same,'beauty' and 'truth' have been replaced by the more prosaic 'bottom' and 'top'. But the folks at CERN do actually call themselves LHC beauty:

      http://lhcb.web.cern.ch

      "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all

      Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

      "Ode on a Grecian Urn" - Keats

    2. Steve Knox
      Happy

      Beauty and Bottom

      Whilst not entirely synonymous, the two are certainly not mutually exclusive.

      1. Chris Miller

        Actually, I can see why you might not want to be associated with a bottom detector. Even CERN pointy-heads are not immune to schoolboy sniggers.

  2. Sir Runcible Spoon

    Sir

    Do we *know* that matter anti-matter collision results in a bang?

    It could all just go phut for all we know, especially if it's damp.

    1. Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT)

      Additional

      I always imagined it as more of a *splut*

    2. Chemist

      "Do we *know* that matter...... "

      Well of course we do - Dan Brown cleared that up years ago

    3. Spiracle

      And would it be a bang or an anti-bang (a gnab?). We should be told.

    4. Ammaross Danan
      FAIL

      E=Mc^2

      "Do we *know* that matter anti-matter collision results in a bang?"

      That is all.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Sir

        @Ammaross - it's a nice theory. Experimental evidence?

        1. Ammaross Danan

          @Sir Spoon

          Sure. An atomic bomb tends to follow the equation quite well. We already *know* that both a particle and anti-particle *completely* annihilate each other, which would mean 100% conversion to energy (be it heat, light, etc). Does it make a boom? Sure. Likely makes a fancy light display too. Do we have enough antimatter to test with? Nope. But just because I'm not outside to see that the sky is blue, my knowledge of light refraction tells me it likely is.

  3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Exciting stuff.

    Either the "Standard model" is going to need a few more nips and tucks (shades of Simon Cowell?) or a wholesale scrapping.

    While not quite in the 60ns faster than light category it's still pretty impressive.

  4. Tom 38
    Thumb Up

    If we find out we can't possibly exist will the universe disappear into a tiny ball of light?

    Enquiring existential minds demand to know!

  5. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
    Happy

    Calling Mr. Higgs

    "Almost anything you might want in the way of crazy particles will appear..."

    Except, maybe, the Higgs Boson

  6. K. Adams
    Coat

    "The boffins ... typically focus on so-called 'beauty' quarks..."

    Quark was never "beautiful" (or even handsome). Neither were Rom nor Nog.

    ;-)

    {Hook latches on from stage left; I'll get my coat...)

  7. Anonymous John

    Won't this just replace the question "Why is there more matter than anti-matter?" with "Why do mesons and anti-mesons decay differently?"

    1. Paul Shirley

      Or maybe they'll remember no-one actually knows if there is more matter than anti-matter in the entire universe and the current question is 'why can we see more matter'.

      1. Anonymous John

        I've long wondered if matter and anti-matter repel each other. Something that CERN would like to test. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13666892. If they do, it would explain a lot.

        1. Anonymous John

          Why the downvotes?

          The universe seems to be expanding at an increasing rate, and a mysterious repulsive force called dark energy invoked to explain it. Even though there is no theory to explain this repulsive effect.

          Is matter and anti-matter repelling each other not a possible alternative hypothesis that also explains why we don't see equal amounts of anti-matter?

          1. Tom 38

            The downvotes are probably because matter and anti matter are well known to annihilate each other. Look at the particle interaction charts..

            If they repel each other, how would annihilation work?

  8. hugo tyson
    Coat

    GNAB

    ...that's bang out of order.

    1. Paul_Murphy
      Joke

      Does reversed count as out of order? probably more like a sub-set of out of order I suppose.

      nbag would be a better word to use IMHO.

      ttfn

  9. scrubber
    Joke

    Ban the LHC...

    ...It's going against orthodox science. Burn the heretics.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    >"Top boffins"

    No mention of Up, Down, Charmed or Strange boffins then?

    (I don't even want to think about "Bottom boffins". Or "expert proctologists", as I imagine they're more fomally known.)

    1. Swarthy
      Joke

      They're all a bit Strange.

  11. John.B

    A question

    Is the reason we have more matter than antimatter the same as why life only uses right handed isomers?

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
      Joke

      Probably, yes.

      Here where we are now, everything is matter, and here too, all the isomers are right-handed.

      However over there (points); everything is anti-matter and the isomers are left-handed. Probably the aliens are also silicon based, although sure as eggs, James T. Kirk will get it away with one of them.

  12. sisk

    *BOOOOM*

    Dangit....forgot my reinforced hat. I knew I shouldn't have clicked that link.

  13. Knochen Brittle
    Devil

    Standard Deviants

    Not many fules kno this, but the gnat's chuff is a unit of diameter, not velocity ~ and it takes about a million of them to equal one chocolate starfish, a mussel traditionally used by the British Navy for moving-target practice.

    Otherwise, as you were, SeaLord Page [with minions bowed afore ye].

  14. Goat Jam
    Thumb Up

    For some reason I now have Hawkwind playing in my head

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFPLgGWMndc

  15. Wombling_Free
    Coat

    Is that a...

    ...metric or imperial gnat's chuff?

    For that matter was it an African or European gnat?

    OK, I going, you don't have to shove!

  16. James 36

    obligatory Hithchikers quote

    There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Strange? You want Strange?

    Google Pink Cigar STrange. Takes you to a YouTube vid. Could get the the YT link directly but not from work.

    AC: see last sentence

  18. Blue eyed boy
    Boffin

    There is antimatter out there....

    ....we just haven't met it yet.

    At least that's the conclusion that a silly theory I came up with as a child (age about 10) would suggest.

    In my theory, "before" the Big Bang the laws of electricity worked the other way. Like charges attracted, opposite charges repelled. Result: all matter congregated together, squeezing itself together as closely as possible.

    Meanwhile all the antimatter squeezed itself together at the hyperspherical antipodes of where the matter was, to be as far away from it as possible.

    But over the gigayears, this homophilic electric force weakened, passed through zero and out the other side, to become the homophobic force we know today. Result: this vast assemblage of matter suddenly found itself tro be in violation of the new laws of physics and broke up. The moment of zero crossing is what is conventionally known as the Big Bang.

    Of course, a similar fate befell the agglomeration of antimatter half a universe away.

    Crazy theory I admit, but one of its predictions (that the rate of expansion of the universe should itself be increasing) has recently been confirmed.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    That collaboration, and therefore CERN itself are bunch of hypocrites looking for cheap labour.

    Actually, management is so much more important than LHCb -- or any other experiment for that matter -- that it is simply outrageous. If you look at the proceedings of CHEP (Computing in High Energy Physics) you can verify for yourself. A bunch of manipulative sociopath to be careful with.

    "The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y) [where Y>X]

    source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report

    ISBN: 9290831693 http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264

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