W boson mass: The hardest measurement

Fermilab’s CDF experiment has recently announced a measurement of the mass of the W boson with unprecedented precision. Even more interesting, the measurement disagrees with theoretical predictions. If confirmed, this could be a very big deal. In this video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln gives a far ranging explanation of the measurement and its significance.
CDF collaboration at Fermilab announces most precise ever measurement of W boson mass to be in tension with the Standard Model:
news.fnal.gov/2022/04/cdf-col...
High-precision measurement of the W boson mass with the CDF II detector:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...
Fermilab physics 101:
www.fnal.gov/pub/science/part...
Fermilab home page:
fnal.gov

[@andrekz9138]

"While I'd usually trash talk the competition..." That's healthy competition. Actively supporting each other instead of undermining each other's research. I love being a part of this this society. Cheers to physics and the scientists that are studying it!

[@midlander4]

And a huge FO to science deniers - including flerfers and creationists - who have literally no idea how this beautiful stuff works.

[@linkin543210]

I think he was joking about trash talking the competition….

[@andrekz9138]

@@linkin543210 It was 100% playful. Above all else, we want to see each other succeed.

[@supercobra1746]

Nah, its not healthy competition, its actually meaning that this stuff doesn't effect anything in the world. Otherwise, it would be censorsed, cancelled, or privatized.

[@Feefa99]

there is definitely difference between competition in science and between sport fans.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

When scientists say "I don't know," that's when you know things are going to get interesting, and I love it!

[@johnkean6852]

Mmm no it means they haven't got a clue just like most 20/21c science. Nothing 'new' on science since the 60s all re-hashed as original.

[@midlander4]

Imagine a xtian having the honesty to say that.

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

@@midlander4 You can say christian, because we both know they are going to try their best to mutilate anything published about it and claim it as "proof" for god. As if that psychopath imaginary freind ever existed in the first place!

[@bohanxu6125]

To be fair... they only don't know about the 0.1% disagreement between theory and experiment.

[@AlexanderMoises]

@@midlander4 you are psychotic

[@BaalFridge]

physicists are the only professionals who get hyped when they find find out they were wrong all along. I think everyone else should see that as an example of determination.

[@johnkean6852]

THANK YOU

[@tinfoilhomer909]

phrenologists are also happy when they get it wrong.

[@johnrubensaragi4125]

Definitely unlike surgeons.

[@enderallygolem]

"YES! I ACCIDENTALLY KILLED THE MAN!"

[@JohannPetrak]

Totally disagree - any serious (natural/technical) scientist gets hyped about this, of course, because it definitely means a paper in a highly ranked journal.

[@Jac2587]

I got to meet you with my high school AP physics class back in 2004, and I was so excited by all of the talk of neutrinos at the time. Here I am, almost two decades later, just as excited to hear about another of my favorite topics in particle physics.

[@drdon5205]

As a student or teacher?

[@Mireaze]

Lol, nerd

[@johnkean6852]

@@drdon5205 Clever question l'm wondering if he just sat back and let them brag about their research or became Particle Physicist Well never know. Note they don't want newcomers, they're trouble, for stating the obvious, so perhaps just as well if he did not.

[@Jac2587]

@@drdon5205 I was a student who thought they had everything figured out. I'm glad I didn't, or it would have been a boring 18 years.

[@poppadbear2016]

I love the honesty! At the end he says “what does it all mean?… I don’t know…” that is how I feel after watching these videos sometimes… I love them, don’t get me wrong… but sometimes I just don’t get it either…

[@shiffermonster]

Spoiler!!

[@Bassotronics]

I love physics, but sadly my 35% monkey brain can’t grasp much info.

[@ferretappreciator]

@@shiffermonster can you spoil physics??

[@johnkean6852]

He is becoming a realist. It will take time before he realeyes the anomalies

[@gordianknot5625]

Welcome to the club.

[@fatfrumos1163]

I've seen about 5 clips about this already, but there's nothing like a real scientist to put it in simple terms. Props to you mate!

[@briannaw.7226]

This is simple terms? lol

[@greedowins2917]

Love that you guys maintain this channel! Always interesting, and Don is such a likable host.

[@greedowins2917]

Double props for the extra long technical narration here, that was impressive presentation stamina.

[@StephenJohnson-jb7xe]

I have often thought that "unknown physics" might come into play but I say that as someone totally out of his depth in the field. However the more I learn about it the more I believe that there could be something acting in a way we cannot measure (yet) that is affecting a lot of the physics that we are currently struggling to explain.

[@matthewluecke3704]

Thank you for addressing supersymmetry, even quickly. I hadn't heard it referenced in other videos I've watched about this.

[@joseraulcapablanca8564]

Thanks doctor Lincoln this helps to put this confusing result into some kind of perspevtive. Keep up the good work.

[@cesarjom]

The CDF measurement is a historic result. To think this could motivate a new theoretical understanding in the standard model.

[@johnkean6852]

For heaven's sake NO MORE THEORIES lets put some older theories into practice confirm them and get Nobels printed before we move on and invent more incredulous atomic models that noone accepts/understands and there is never any real proof.

[@maythesciencebewithyou]

Imagine you work for the next two decades or more on a new model which perfectly describes these result and fits everything together only for a measurement in the future to tell you that this measurement was wrong.

[@Dimitri-Jordania]

What a coincidence, I grew up in West Boson!

[@RemikPi]

Boson or Boston? :D

[@bennylloyd-willner9667]

Must have been really tough to actually see how much you grew😁

[@Tubluer]

@@bennylloyd-willner9667 West Boson. It's a small town.

[@bennylloyd-willner9667]

@@Tubluer sure, I just mean it must be hard to MEASURE growth 😂 (I'm not the one asking if he meant Boston)

[@Tubluer]

@@bennylloyd-willner9667 We have no idea where West Boson is, therefore we know exactly how big it is....

[@Ninjahat]

Thank you for taking this subject up so fast! On the edge of science 😀

[@mkz42279]

What is amazing to me is that the CDF detector has been scrapped almost 10 years ago.

[@johnkean6852]

Precisely

[@Hossak]

Great to see you Dr Don! Thank you again for a great video - looking good!

[@vikkris]

The difference to standard model estimate seems ~ 0.087%, I am surprised that this deviation already breaks down standard model.

[@fvsfn]

Thanks for sharing this exciting news in an understandable way. For the uninitiated, could it be possible to reverse the error bars and draw a table of Experiment N vs probability bound assigned by N that the SM prediction is correct ?

[@jasonlough6640]

As soon as I heard the news, I knew you would be making a video on it, and I was eagerly anticipating it, moreso than any marvel movie in recent memory. So exciting!

[@SciTechEnthusiasts]

are you in some chat groups or you have any links? please add me bro I like knowing this stuff and asking questions and thinking about it.

[@MoRiley9]

WOW! One of the best videos so far. And, I love that you pronounced “short-lived” correctly - it’s a long “i”, not a short “i”. Just one of my pet peeves. Thanks!

[@joededimanadedi]

Not a native speaker here, what makes the long i version correct? Dictionary says there are two accepted pronunciations, so I assume it's similar to the either (ee) and either (i) distinction. Regional varieties perhaps?

[@pelimies1818]

As there cannot be ”new boson found”, everyday in the news, and there has been a bit calmer period what comes to meganews in the quantum realm - these kind of interesting news are a lifeline for us, the lamemen science enthusiasts. Cheers and thanks from Northern Europe!

[@JohnVance]

So happy for all the folks at Fermilab! Wonderful to see them keep squeezing new science out of the Tevatron.

[@rickprice7919]

Yes, there are many still unknowns. It is great that we still keep searching there!

[@GEOindustries0]

I only half understand what you say, Don. But I fully understand your enthusiasm.

[@ianallen738]

In the last graph, you should show the error weighted average of all the independent measurements along with the newly calculated s.d, and compare that to the SM prediction. Just eyeballing it, it looks pretty close.

[@williamroberts6937]

Refreshingly candid! Great channel.

[@Jobobn1998]

Thanks for explaining why the LHC hasn't/is unlikely to resolve the issue. I've seen several videos about the CDF's findings and they never addressed whether the LHC could answer the question.

[@Soundhound101]

This was also a fun video to watch. Some great thought experiments. Thanks a million Dr.Lincoln. 👍

[@kathrync829]

I'm glad that somebody understands this.

[@a.lewisraymer7772]

Thank you, Dr. Don. I've been waiting for this.

[@japiereinders626]

Love the way of explaning

[@juandavidgilwiedman3490]

Really Admire Don. I’m really impressed by his great story telling.

[@petergreen5337]

Thank you very much, for another enlightening lecture.

[@maksspychalski7116]

Wrote ib physics hl 6 days ago and I actually understand what you are talking about.

[@robertschlesinger1342]

Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.

[@nelsonavalos5707]

Hearing this from a member who was/is part of that scientist teams is amazing.

[@bibleredpill7225]

What I like about Lincoln is how he can tell it exactly how it is

[@flammablewater1755]

I've been waiting for this video since I heard the announcement.

[@familiegeier4828]

Excellent video! Yours Stefan Geier, Haidholzen

[@guilhermecrlima]

I read the news, nut I was waiting for Don's Fermilab video.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

How much do the previous measurements still have to be taken into consideration? Are there patterns in all the measurements that would support or oppose the new measurement, also taking into the range of the uncertainty in the measurement?

[@tryphonsoleflorus8308]

Great content!Thank you!

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

When the W boson decays into quark and anti-quark; can this be used to find out what happens to antimatter?

[@Davelement]

The outro was the best!!!

[@morpheaworld]

You look as cool as you looked in 94 Thanks for the great videos!!!

[@ian_b5518]

But doesn't an average of all the results agree with the standard model? Strongly hints that the various error bars are a tad off.

[@tretolien1195]

This isn't exactly good evidence against but something seems a bit odd about this measurement. Looking at the other measurements we see that they fall on both sides of the SM not the new, but more importantly several of the old measurements are 2-3 stds away from the new one. If those probabilities were independent we could combine them and see that there is a roughly equal chance that the new result is wrong vs the SM being wrong, that is even with the measurement being confirmed. I.e we will probably need a new experiment.

[@EliasMheart]

Even 50/50 of the Standard Model being wrong is quite substantial, considering the accuracy in general. If anything has sufficient evidence to get that, that is insanely good evidence. So I don't actually agree with your assessment of it being 50/50 just based on this, but I may be wrong about that, this is definitely not a field of expertise for me. Either way, if we consider your argument for the date without the new measurement, it would actually confirm the SM pretty well. Given that this new one is so narrow in error, and it is an extreme outlier in what otherwise looks like a balanced distribution, seems to be what is so interesting here. Still, I applaud you for considering the problem on a meta-level, this is important, since it allows considerations _before_ we wait 20 years for the next experiment.

[@holz_name]

It's weird that the different experiments are all below and above the SM prediction. Normally you would think different experiments would all have the same trend. Either SM estimates are too high or too low of the real mass then the experiments would be all below or all above the SM prediction, respectively.

[@martindoppelbauer7738]

The answer to any question in modern physics is always ‚we need a new, larger accelerator‘. And this video doesn‘t dissapoint 😉

[@NullHand]

Well, to be honest, they are probably justified. When astronomers want to peer farther into the Universe we don't say "just try squinting harder into the scope you have.." We just build a bigger EYE.

[@peteparadis1619]

Wrong

[@BlueCosmology]

A larger accelerator is the opposite of the answer to this question. W mass measurements are worse at higher energy, not better.

[@fg786]

Can we get a video about how you condense such a complicated system down to one uncertainty?

[@DrDeuteron]

experimentationlab.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdfs/Bevington.pdf

[@tresajessygeorge210]

THANK YOU PROFESSOR LINCOLN...!!!

[@amalieemmynoether992]

Are each measurement using a different method to estimate neutrino momentum &energy? A high level of precision does not mean the high accuracy. Could there be a systematic error in the calculation of the CDFII especially since the D0II and ATLAS measurements (though less precise) are more in line with each other and the SM?

[@ldbarthel]

Definitely a possibility, although I'm sure the CDF team did their best to rule out all likely candidates. Wasn't there at least one instance where a result that didn't agree with the standard model was due to a slight deformation in the accelerator?

[@ritvikg]

I really see this in a positive way, there's still a ton of things in particle physics which are kind of empirical and lacks a solid reasoning. This breakthrough looks like a positive step to make the subject more robust!

[@timjohnson979]

Yes! A chance to discover new physics. What's not to like?

[@johnkean6852]

Are you sure 🤔

[@ritvikg]

@@johnkean6852 in every other reaction particle physics have some exception regarding the conservation laws! It's a complete mess, I don't know what's not to be sure in that!

[@johnkean6852]

Let's agree it's all a mess. But l'm cynical and believe it's all cloaked in subterfuge since if all the rabbits were revealed, (research) science would simply die a death, as it should have done last century, as there is nothing new to discover, invent... He never really exlained the purpose apart from saying science would be re-written. I've heard that a million times.

[@peteparadis1619]

@@ritvikg Without exceptions what works

[@koenth2359]

Hi Don, that's a very exciting result! I have two questions. 1. You said that total momentum before the collision is zero. Can you say a bit more about how that is known? 2. When a W-boson is created from an (e+, e-)-collision, can it be that sometimes other particles are created from that same collision?

[@parabolicpanorama]

I'm no physicist but from what I understand 1. Since you are colliding 2 beams in opposite directions in such a way that the collision always happens inside the detector, the total momentum of the two beams cancel out to leave 0 total momentum 2. Since energy is quantised, at each energy level of the beam, there are only so many particles that you expect to see, and the theories tell us the probability of seeing each particle. So if you run billions of collisions with billions of particles over a decade, you can have enough data to start to map out our expectations against what we observe.

[@BlueCosmology]

The total momentum before the collision *isn't* zero. The two beams don't cancel out as only a small random portion of the momentum of each beam takes part in the collision. However the total transverse momentum (momentum perpendicular to the beams) is close to zero since both beams have very little transverse momentum. Yes almost all collisions are very messy and produce many particles not just one.

[@johneonas6628]

Thank you for your video.

[@sacredband9812]

I have seen part of the collider that got Rubia his Nobel prize for the boson discovery. CERN have kept a section of it. Awesome bit of engineering. The food in the CERN restaurant is also awesome. We visited the magnet testing facility. More awesomness. Then finally we had a talk back at base and the guy pressed a button on the wall to reveal the CERN control room. 😱.

[@douglasstrother6584]

Perhaps this indicates the start of a new understanding of our physical world along the lines of: Newton, Faraday, Maxwell (for E&M), Maxwell (for Stat Mech), Boltzmann, Planck, Einstein, Schrödinger, and so many others.

[@benediktwalch1605]

I love the new intro, or if it's not new for me at least it is.

[@Walery1024]

Third question: Are the retained results originating mainly from head-on collisions or from fender-benders between protons? actually are some specific angles ( or levels of overlaps between colliding protons ) that are expected to give the best results for given experiment , ( or in general)?

[@KonekoEalain]

I hope that my kids will work on the high energy e+ e- collider when they are grown up.

[@johnkean6852]

Try the e-roundabout instead less dangerous.

[@Mormielo]

That's actually an excellent video.

[@philippedaussy6817]

It would be interesting to understand how measurements are made and how to improve them.

[@frinoffrobis]

I've been watching for this exact video for weeks.. ty so a follow-up video would be awesome.. something on where the equations of the standard model had failed,, and where the new value makes any of the other particles break,, and if the new found weight of the muon has any effect??

[@_John_P]

Or what was the blunder and how it was made.

[@johnhoward6201]

When a discrepancy was found by the Muon g-2 experiment, there was some controversy as to the accuracy of the calculation. Could a similar situation exist here, that is the theory if perfect but the calculation of mass based on the theory is complex and open to error?

[@ritvikg]

I think you meant to say, calculation of mass based on experiments!

[@drdon5205]

Yes.

[@darkmath100]

It's unlikely given the 7 sigma, that's clearly pointing to a new aspect of physics we don't understand yet. The difference isn't that unusual either given the Universe is "smaller" than it is "big", i.e. there's a lot more unknown territory between us and the Plank scale vs us and the width of the known Universe.

[@drdca8263]

@@darkmath100 I don’t follow. If the calculations were done in subtly wrong ways, then making more and more precise measurements would result in more and more significance in the difference between the measured value and the wrongly-calculated value, right? So, why would many sigmas imply that the issue isn’t in the calculation?

[@darkmath100]

@@drdca8263 I'm sure they tried to eliminate all measurement errors, they spent *years* analyzing the raw data. If they're saying there's probably new physics involved then they're probably right. Like I said this isn't surprising, when it comes to analyzing really small things we're at the Galileo just improved the telescope stage of humanity's journey into the tiniest corners of the Universe.

[@Techmagus76]

Dear Don, something about why D0 II and ATLAS did not overlap with the new CDF II paper? Did they changed something in the modelling of the momentum distribution?

[@luciddewseed3095]

That is what's interesting. That CDF is out of the error bounds of even ATLAS and D0 II. This is why the CDF measurement needs to be validated by future experiments.

[@EricJaakkola]

How fast does something move when it passes the event horizon? What happens to its momentum such that it can go in but not out?

[@davidcourt4207]

Many years ago after reading a bunch of books about particle physics, most of which I didn't understand, I came up with an idea about how mass on the atomic scale causing a long dip in space, the tip has nothing to hold it so it loops back up touching "real space" forming a spinning look, this would tie the electromagnetic force with gravity. Does the measurements very at all by local gravity?

[@Walery1024]

Dr. Lincoln, I have a problem to make sure that my question is clearly stated because the textbox does not offer ability to paste in a screenshot of the graph. But I hope for you it could be clear what graph I refer to: When the existence of Higgs boson was confirmed to exist at around 125 GeV, the graph which was published along with a tiny bump around 125 GeV contained huge peaks at around 80-90 GeV and another starting sharply at around 180 GeV and slowly diminishing towards end of the entire spectrum evaluated. Could you expand on interpretation of these two maximums?

[@t7732155980]

Several people mentioned the G-2 experiment, what is the relation between CDF-II and G-2 ?

[@davidtetard5781]

I'd love a video on how physicists calculate the predicted masses of these particles.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

Is the following true or not? If any 2 particles interact in any way (e.g. bounce off each other when they collide) does that mean there has to be some EQUATION that relates their motion? I assume it has to be some sort of differential equation, but maybe that is too restrictive. All I know are Coulomb's inverse square law and Newton's inverse square law of gravitation. But, wouldn't there have to be a similar equation between ANY pairs of particles? If so, what are they?

[@rajkumar-bp5bl]

I am no science guy.... but I love watching these videos.... and Sir, you look better in mustache

[@VijayGupta-lw7qz]

PicoPhysics: Boson Vs Nucleus - While in Bosons elementary particles exist in nucleus they are formed as per nuclear decay process. The two process are not same - and half-life concept of decay; which always keep a residue of original may not hold for Bosons. I believe it is possible to establish experimentally that Bosons do not decay but disintegrate.

[@richardahmyt8683]

Thanks for sharing!

[@OldGamerNoob]

If some higher-mass particle that doesn't show up in detectors (such as some dark matter component) were to be involved in the decay, could the measurements all be wrong but the calculation that compares them still be correct? ... or does the calculation directly imply that there are no other particles involved?

[@parabolicpanorama]

for each collision at each energy level, you can expect showers of different particles with different probabilities. so if you keep crunching the numbers, you should arrive at all possible combinations of particles at each energy level. in case it deviates, that means that we miss something in our calculations that should have been accounted for.

[@peteparadis1619]

@@parabolicpanorama OR, it’s all BS

[@peteparadis1619]

@Diraction It’s ALL BS.. Colliding protons together at close to c.. Let’s take a billion marbles, spin them up to .9999999999 c and bang, you get particles, BUT they are still marbles, tiny ones, but marbles.. SiO2… Collide slower and the particles are larger.. YES.. All these so called particles are still protons, pieces of them, calling them this and that and saying they decay, hell, they disappear out of your vacuum chambers view.. ALL BS.. They’re still protons, just smaller with less mass, like the marbles.. Still marbles.. Keep hitting them together faster and faster and they get smaller but they will never ever get to an ultimate size or energy because YOU can’t send them together at an ultimate speed, infinity can’t be reached, only guessed at.. It’s just so much BS to keep getting funding.. 40yrs to nowhere in particle physics.. Use that money for other stuff, like better auto batteries or fusion reactors, anything else..

[@Jkauppa]

measure planch constant h directly from photons (or electron-positron physical dual particle spinning system), its kgm^2/s or Js or angular momentum of the ½Jw2 system

[@briannaw.7226]

i wish i understand this language in science. it would help a lot following what they are saying.

[@antumurikks4861]

standard model needs update? i´ll put popcorn waiting.

[@graynoxgnx7998]

is it possible that the expansion rate of the universe could change the values over time? i mean the standard model "changing" because of the alteration of the planck scale... little by little...over time making a drastic change...eventually changing the values observed at the measurements...

[@Boogaboioringale]

Good point. Certainly possible

[@Pspersonal-bp8by]

You're a class act.

[@ayoubfenkouch5992]

If i understand correctly , the mass theorized by the standard model is based on the measurement of the mass of other particules . Couldnt this theoritical mass be wrong because the measurements of the other masses werent as precise as we thought ?

[@jarredallen]

this is where engineers and physicists always argue, precision.

[@SciTechEnthusiasts]

we will have to wait centuries to understand what happens in subatomic time. I hope Sir Don Lincoln will be born in every century to make us understand this stuff.

[@johnkean6852]

Perhaps an English refresher course may help you elucidate.

[@SciTechEnthusiasts]

now is it better?

[@Walery1024]

Second question: When we expect a particle to exist around 125 GeV why we make collisions at 7000 GeV ( or 140000 GeV ) and not at 125 GeV ?

[@EricJaakkola]

Could the missing antimatter be in the supermasive black holes?

[@joededimanadedi]

The ALEPH result is similar to the CDF one. So someone has already claimed the standard model is not up to date before, right?

[@richardf7992]

What about the Atlas result that has low uncertainty and matched theory. This new result tells that Atlas result is very wrong. Have they been any re evaluation of that Atlas measurement? That is also another way to check, isn't it?

[@Luca-xr7bs]

our fav prof looks much younger with this look

[@davep8221]

I've been wondering why we only see precision numbers + error bars. I know what they mean and why it's important to know both -- the classic target analogy. It looks like it's expressed by the distance from the expectation. Is it given by the width of the standard model calculatation bar? What am I missing?

[@maevrik]

I'm not certain of the process, but the value + error is the result of millions of measurements. The standard model should predict a single value, although some uncertainties could come from somewhere else within the standard model. I don't think it would be relevant here to understand the presented graph

[@davep8221]

@@maevrik Thanks.

[@IngTomT]

9:16 Except from CDF II the results seem to agree VERY well with the SM. Error bars usually indicate a probability of around 2/3 that the true value lies in between. For four results (4/6=2/3) SM lies exectly between the error bars, two times it's (a little) outside. Perfect... if there was no CDF II...

[@johnkean6852]

Too ambiguous

[@Kyanzes]

Been thinking about something (and sorry if this is obvious to others). We have minimum time, planck time, minimum length planck length, so wouldn't it kind of follow that we may have minimum volume? That is, no matter (haha) how small you go, you must calculate with planck volume. This would immediately imply minimum energy as well (planck energy?). I mean, this could remove the singularity issue.

[@davidraveh5966]

I think you have a misconception of Planck length etc., it's just a definition, not a unit of absolute minimum like absolute 0 kelvin

[@drdon5205]

Actually, you are right...or are right if quantum gravity thinking is real. In quantum gravity, if nothing can be smaller than the Planck length (which is a common thought), then there is no singularity, since the singularity has size zero. So...yeah...basically...(always assuming current thinking on quantum gravity is right).

[@VincentGroenewold]

Given the video from Sabine just recently, it would be absolutely great if it's true, but it's more likely it will be corrected in a few months. Is that valid criticism? Also, and to quote Feynman, "It doesn't matter who's name it is who did the experiment", so it doesn't matter if someone is a so called leader in the field. Sabine also mentioned that super-symmetry can be used to explain literally everything. :)

[@drdon5205]

It won't be corrected for a very long time. Maybe the LHC can do something, but it could be decades before it is improved. Sabine is a naysayer and has long been disillusioned with particle physics.

[@ferociousmullet9287]

@@drdon5205 'and has long been disillusioned with particle physics.' Not without good reason. Modern physics is a complete mess in endless arena's. The paper mill analogy she uses is very apt, and I feel quite right. It is also not a problem that is relegated to only the world's of particle physics. Science as an entirety is suffering from this issue.

[@MOAB_MOAB]

@@ferociousmullet9287 , Would you like some more chips to go with your Po-Mo starter?

[@ferociousmullet9287]

@@MOAB_MOAB Not sure what post-modernism has to do with anything I said, other than some pointless attempt to be edgy. But you do you, my guy.

[@rossmcleod7983]

@@ferociousmullet9287 “science as an entirety is suffering from this issue.” How is that view from the summit going? Let me guess - you are vast and contain multitudes.

[@Abah-cuh-bus]

What would it cost to create a small collider only for interrogating the W boson? Any estimations? Could we make a one trick pony relatively cheaply and quickly?

[@DrDeuteron]

"small" and "80,000,000,000 volts" are mutually exclusive.

[@Abah-cuh-bus]

@@DrDeuteron it would be relatively small and inexpensive compared to the state-of-the-art ( LHC and beyond) I would think.

[@IngTomT]

@@DrDeuteron x'D

[@luciddewseed3095]

W bosons are not detected by us; we can't see them with our detectors. We "reconstruct" them from its decay products...leptons, missing transverse energy, quarks. And to detect them, you will need a bigger and powerful hermitic detector. CMS and ATLAS are such.

[@theoriginalstoney]

The L3 measurement also disagreed with the standard model... and this new result. why is that not mentioned?

[@VijayGupta-lw7qz]

PicoPhysics: Conservation of Momentum is uncertain in densely habitated space as prevailing inside Nucleus and heavy particles. The measurements that consider Conservation of momentum as universally true are very optimistic about the result. In Picophysics there is a distinction between Geomatrical Space and Real Space . Uniform unperturbed space behaves like Geomatrical space. Law of conservation as derived from Unary Law "Space contains Kenergy" is valid for uniform unperturbed space. In modern physics principles of General Theory of Relativity shall be considered before applying Law of Conservation of Momentum. Space inside and around particles is in great turbulance as per PicoPhysics view on formation of Elementary particles from free Kenergy.

[@oisnowy5368]

It would be cool to collect previous measurements; I think I've seen them on one chart and it seems to me that most measurements indicate the W-boson turned out heavier than predicted. I got a great idea: let's built a particle accelerator designed specifically for measuring the W-boson! Also: calculating backwards to figure out neutrino momentum... is there something we could use to do more accurate measurements of neutrino's?

[@DrDeuteron]

A reliable neutrino detector would require lightyears of material (blackhole formation notwithstanding).....they are that unlikely to interact.

[@JoeDai]

@@DrDeuteron There already exists neutrino detectors though, using very large tanks of fluid IIRC

[@DrDeuteron]

right, and with a flux of 30,000,000,000,000,000 per second, they detect a few neutrinos per day. Meanwhile, Fermilab had 4,200,000 W's to work with, so you'll never detect a complete event.

[@JoeDai]

​@@DrDeuteron Rightttt oops. Plus I guess surrounding the detector with a few hundred tons of fluid isn't exactly feasible...

[@SGTbocus]

The plot you are after is in this article: www.home.cern/news/press-release/physics/improved-atlas-result-weighs-w-boson#:~:text=The%20W%20boson%20mass%20came,an%20uncertainty%20of%2019%20MeV.

[@TheRolemodel1337]

could you explain how/why one accelerator is better at producing W bosons while the other is better at producing Z's what are the mechanisms involved 3:35 wont time dilation do us a favor here like with muons generated in the upper atmosphere?

[@youstandcorrected]

Fascinating!

[@lisasupertramp]

Why is it possible to measure the Z0 mass with much smaller uncertainties? (or what is the difference compared to the W mass)

[@timjohnson979]

Although the error bars are longer in the AELPH measurements, the value is close to the CDF II value. Has anyone looked into that? CDF II seems like a good confirmation of the AELPH value.

[@samwang8749]

The estimated mass from both experiments is similar, but because the ALEPH measurements are not statistically significant, the two experiments are saying fundamentally different things about whether the true mass differs from the theoretical mass. Therefore, you can't say that CDF II confirms or denies the ALEPH result.

[@timjohnson979]

@@samwang8749 So then, the same could be said about the other measurements with larger error bars such as DELPHI, LS, and perhaps OPAL.

[@Metaldetectiontubeworldwide]

Quantum DON , knows the SECRET OF TIMErEVERSAL Hé gets cooler as he ages ...LOL well done DON ☆☆☆☆☆ Old time viewer Grtz from the netherlands Johny geerts