Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Misbehaving Missing Muons

This isn't related to early Genesis, except as evidence that there is a lot about this universe that science still doesn't understand.

I noticed that the "Standard Model" of particle physics has been mildly challenged by a finding that detected electrons over their heavier version muons in certain quark collisions. In the standard model, these collisions should produce equal amounts of each. Instead, 1,000 times more electrons were detected.

I have thought about particles seeking the "lowest energy point" in their interactions with each other as an explanation for say, the unification of gravity and electromagnetism. I don't have the background to really look into it, but it seems that this finding would be expected in such a case, even if it was not expected by the standard model. The hadrons are created not in an actual instant, but as a process that occurs over a tiny but not instantaneous length of time. During that process, the would-be electron or muon should orient itself so as to wind up an electron rather than a muon.

A coin toss should get a random number of heads and tails, but if one side of the coin is much more massive than the other the most stable way for it to land would be with the heavy (say heads) side down, resulting in most toss's resulting in "tails". In theory each side has a 50-50 chance of occurring, but in the process of the toss the coin orients itself to its more stable state.

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