Could this particle rewrite modern physics? Discovery of 4-quark hadron...

The London Daily Mail ^ | April 16, 2014 | Jonathan O'Callaghan

[2ndDivisionVet]

Scientists at CERN have confirmed the existence of a new 'exotic' particle
International team used the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) detector
The particle was first detected in 2007 but it has only now been confirmed
Dubbed Z(4430), the discovery challenges existing models of physics
It may also indicate that a new type of neutron star, a quark star, exists

In the early 1930s, scientists were fairly confident they understood subatomic physics.

That was until dozens of new elementary particles were discovered in the 1950s, forcing scientists to rewrite their models.

Now a new particle, first detected in 2007 but not confirmed until now, could send them back to the drawing board as they try to figure out what’s going on at a subatomic level.

This particular discovery delves into a particularly complex branch of physics.

It was made by physicists at the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) Collaboration at Cern in Geneva, Switzerland.

LHCb is a multinational experiment designed to identify new forces and particles in the universe....

[TigersEye]

That is very true but not many people see that.

[RitchieAprile]

Planck’s Constant times something, IIRC

[steve86]

Considering that both big and small have no finite limits, there is no limit to the discoveries yet to be made.

This is qualitative, though -- discovery of a new way in which building block particles can be combined. You can't have limitless permutations and combinations of quarks because most would violate quantum chromodynamics and other field theory.

[dr_lew]

In the early 1930s, scientists were fairly confident (meaning there was consensus) they understood subatomic physics.

They had a working understanding of nuclear physics, and this has stood up. The further forays deeper into the subatomic realm, or realms, has been ongoing through the 60's, 70's and later. I remember the excitement over the J/psi particle, back in the day. It too, was a "resonance", i.e. a "bump" in a curve of reaction cross section versus energy.

I note the Upsilon Meson was discovered about the same time. Here's a very quaint figure from the paper announcing it:

Now we have detectors the size of battle ships with INSANE computing power ( based on 1930's concepts of solid state physics, however finally honed, ) and we get tetraquarks.

OK, great.

[GraceG]

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tetryon

hmmm

[exDemMom]

I suppose humans are made out of particles :-)

Oh, fine, then--get all technical about it.

[AustinBill]

More every day.