Is naturalness already hidden within the Standard Model?

The Guardian ^ | 9/2/13 | Jon Butterworth

[LibWhacker]

Maybe the Standard Model is even more wonderful than it appears. Maybe we really don't need supersymmetry. Plus, other difficult topics, ouzo and a big Greek wedding

In a somewhat bizarre end-of-the-summer interlude, I just spent two nights and a day in Corfu at a Summer Institute on particle physics. Originally I intended to stay longer, but embarrassingly I agreed to give a lecture here months ago and then forgot. I also didn't realise at the time that it coincided with the end of the school holidays... a tricky time when one of your children is starting a new school and your partner is a school teacher swamped with preparation for the new term.

I was not popular at home, and the best I could do was sort of zoom in, lecture, and zoom out again. Thankyou Easyjet. Also for the pull-out table on which I am writing this as we scud over the Adriatic.

Actually in some more detail, it was: Zoom in, listen to a very enthusiastic Greek wedding until 3am, sleep briefly, swim, eat and drink a big and lovely lunch, lecture, spend an evening discussing physics, sleep and zoom out.

I have never been to Corfu before. In case you are as ignorant as I was, it is snuggled up against the Adriatic coast where Greece meets Albania, has quite a lot of cultural connections to Britain, and was never part of the Ottoman Empire. They play cricket on the green under the walls of the old fortress. And the Duke of Edinburgh was born in the big house ("Mon Repos") where we had the meeting. Though my taxi driver was keen to point out that "We're not especially proud of that." Well, nor am I, but hey...

[ClearCase_guy]

Only her hairdresser knows for sure.

[onedoug]

Though it’s still incompatible with quantum mechanics.

His “partner”, eh?

[Rockingham]

For more than a generation now, the immensely expensive LHC and other leading edge devices of modern physics have failed to produce a deeper understanding of matter and energy. Instead, they seem to offer only greater complexity, confusion, and uncertainty, with ever more abstract mathematics and bizarre theories that are barely if at all testable. The bottom line then becomes a plea from the elite of high energy physics for more cash for more research using yet more expensive machines. One cannot but wonder how long the effort can be sustained before taxpayers rebel at the cost, futility, and lack of economically useful results.

[LibWhacker]

Lol, yeah, I caught the partner thing, too. I’ll even bet the big Greek wedding was same sex. I debated whether or not I should post the article. Decided I would go ahead with it since it stuck (mostly) to physics. I may have decided wrong. We’ll see how other Freepers react to it... :-(

[Migraine]

Puzzling over the “why” of symmetry and balance in the universe is a good thing. Taoists have noticed it (yin-yang), albeit in unscientific terms. The Psalms and Proverbs of David and Solomon speak eloquently of it.
Scientists are noticing symmetry on both a macro and a micro level; i.e., the universe expresses equations everywhere you look. And they are now supposing that there are as-yet-undiscovered explanatory particles that will be equally in symmetry.
To some, this is an exquisite coincidence, with more coincidences found every day.
Others scoff that we are expressing this in unwarranted anthropomorphisms.
I, on the other hand, believe that such ingeniously complex and elegant symmetry could only be an expression of a God who is unimaginably superior to us in His thought processes and power to create.