35
Scientists Are on the Brink of Discovering the Fifth Fundamental Force of Nature
(www.popularmechanics.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
35 points (75.4% liked)
Science
13257 readers
82 users here now
Subscribe to see new publications and popular science coverage of current research on your homepage
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If what theyre seeing is real, it could indicate the presence of unknown particles. Not necessarily a force but something. Essentially quantum mechanics predicts that the magnetic moment of the electron, muon etc. are a little bit off from what would be expected without interactions with the quantum foam. Space isnt empty, there are virtual particles popping into and out of existence constantly over short time periods that still manage to interact with other things before they dissappear. This quantum foam's effects on the magnetic moment of electrons, muons etc. depend on what particles are in that quantum foam. The standard model can be used to predict the magnitude of these effects given what particles it predicts should be in that foam. But if there's more particles there that it doesn't predict should be there, the magnetic moment measurement won't quite match predictions. I.e if there is stuff in the quantum foam that we don't know about, we can infer their existence through indirect effects.
I don't understand virtual particles. Everytime I ask someone for an explanation, they just tell me they "pop into existence" and I can't get anything specific on that. What is the energy that produces these particles?
Energy itself is a weirdly defined thing at those sizes. It's sort of a wavy property rather than a physical action.
Vacuum has a lot more energy than its "supposed to" have. This is a huge problem because Einstein says that energy equals mass (multiplied by a constant), so if there is no mass, how can there by energy?
The energy of vacuum is observable, but the mass is not. So the question really is "Where is the rest of this energy?"
The idea of virtual particles is then that the vacuum is full of these energy fluctuations that equals out without ever turning into actual particles with mass.
It's the energy of the quantum fields that permeate space. They're less "particles" per se, and more just the random jiggles in the quantum fields that aren't coherent enough to be a full-on normal particle of that field, so the ripple starts and then dies out.
https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/