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AxeMaster237 t1_j95uku4 wrote

Reply to comment by Sherlock-Holmie in Physicists nail down the most precise value yet of the electron magnetic moment. A newly measured value of an electron’s magnetic moment — a property of its spin and charge — is twice as precise as the one physicists have used for the past 14 years. by MistWeaver80

>This doesn’t have much use for physical applications. It’s kind of particle physicists doing particle physicist things.

Would you say it's similar to the math community calculating more digits of pi?

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Sherlock-Holmie t1_j95vowq wrote

Calculating the digits of pi in modern times is pretty much purely for competitions

This is more particle physicists flinging stuff at the wall hoping something will stick. That’s kind of their thing

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TricksterWolf t1_j96fzy3 wrote

You sound a bit dismissive of them (not that I disagree entirely).

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Sherlock-Holmie t1_j96j5wc wrote

They just have a reputation of doing poor science. They’re smart people, but have a tendency to try and come up with something from nothing since the 1950s.

The high energy physics cycle for most of them is “hey we technically don’t know this isn’t true and if we finagle this in this way it technically fits all the old data but also predicts this” then an experiment some years later shows it isn’t true then they finagle a little more.

They also have to be writing something or they’re out of a job but the challenge is that the standard model is pretty exceptional so there isn’t many things to investigate more directly

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TricksterWolf t1_j96mbfo wrote

I agree with all of this, though perhaps not as robustly.

I have a friend with a Post-hole Digger in quantum physics. He said he was finally able to get a job when a prospective employer realized somepony with his credentials could perform tasks other than firing a particle beam at a target.

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Detectorbloke t1_j9bh8if wrote

>They just have a reputation

Just because it's the latest video in an obnoxious YouTube channel doesn't mean it's their "reputation".

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Detectorbloke t1_j9bb5ko wrote

Not at all. This is a test if our models are correct. If they find a dipole moment, it has to be explained by new theories. If they don't, then they can rule out proposed extensions of our current models that would imply a non-zero dipole moment. There's no comparable model that predicts the n-th digit of pi to be a 7 and if it's a 6 we need a new model.

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