Today I learned about the Madala boson - a fake particle physics discovery most particle physicists were fortunately not aware of
This is the story of the Madala boson in the way I learned about it. Just to make a long story short: there is no Madala boson in LHC data, no matter what can be found on the Internet.
[image credits: CERN]
To setup the drama, we consider a class of students in Johannesburg, a couple of great professors and a nice exercise that I will first describe quickly. This exercise starts from an extension of the Standard Model of particle physics where the theory contains an additional scalar boson with respect to the Standard Model particle content. This new boson can actually be seen as a distant cousin of the Higgs boson.
The exercise then focuses on the study of eight LHC analyses whose results are fitted with respect to the new physics model. Funnily enough, the best fit results point towards the existence of a new boson with a mass of 270 GeV, which is more than about twice the Higgs boson mass.
Why do I found this funny? Because the existence of the 270 GeV boson only originates by the virtue of fluctuations gathered from the eight considered analyses. No matter which kind of fit is done, there is always a best fit point. And in our case, this point has a name: a new boson, named the Madala boson, with a mass of 270 GeV. However, when direct signs of this new boson are searched for in other channels in the LHC data, nothing has been found.
This was the exercise. Nothing more so far and the story could have ended there. But… an article on the sciencealert.com website was released. In other words, the medias are now in the game and with the help of a few confusing statement involving CERN, a mess had started. Shortly after, things were clarified by CERN:
Sorry guys, but there is no evidence so far in the LHC data to support the existence of a hypothetical Madala boson
as also added at the end of the sciencealert article above. This story however gave me, as a particle physicist, the opportunity of reading many funny statements on Facebook!
For more information, you can also find the results of the original study on the arxiv. This article has not been published in any peer-reviewed journal.
LINKS
- The arxiv article;
- The sciencealert.com article.
Fake?, Nothing is real anyways. Therefore various levels of understanding are are just that of (mis/)understanding. Very interesting and thank you for sharing! :)
shared on twitter
Thanks a lot for sharing my post on twitter! I agree, it is only a matter of interpreting what we see.
By the way, is reality real? :)
You are most welcome. Interpreting what we think we see. Interpreting what we think we think even. Much of what is thought of others and not actual self.
No, reality is not real.
...reality is only thought to be real...
Maybe I should make some fake post to try to explain that reality isn't real. But how can that be!? Then my post wouldn't be real as is not this comment...
I touched on this in a comment below before I read your comment.
I like recursivity :)
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Is this that one weird peak I was talking to you about a few months back from the higgs boson experimental data?
Nope. The 270 GeV stuff I discuss here is only related to run I data (at a lower collision energy of 7-8 TeV). In contrast, the infamous 750 GeV boson (that triggered at least 400 theory papers) appeared in the run II data at a collision energy of 13 TeV. These are disconnected.
The 750 GeV one was really featuring a resonant behavior, i.e., one produces a heavy state at the LHC that then decays. The 270 GeV is only coming from statistics (it is the best fit point and nothing more).
Wait. Are you telling me that everything on the internet isn't real. No wonder that Nigerian prince never got back to me...
Nothing is real. Nothing exists. Reality doesn't even exists.
Thoughts may only be simply thought to exist.
Thoughts may only appear to exist when they appear to the thought of another. For a thought not shared does not exist to another.
Since no thought is fully shared. That thought is not real to someone's thought.
Just a little to something ... or nothing ... to think about.
Incredible, isn't it? ;)
But note that this time there is a real study behind. The way in which the medias have interpreted the conclusions is the problem.
Interesting! Today I learned something new! ;)
I am happy to have been able to contribute to this :)
Some sites take any little bit of info and run with it
Sometimes, it is not even on purpose. They are only looking for a good title that will attract readers. Then, add a fair amount of misunderstanding of the deep aspects, and we are there.
I must admit that for the title part, I am trying too. I may however not be the best one in designing good titles (that's up to you to let me know ;) ).
It's not really surprising really. These days a lot of scientists (regardless of the field) - decide to go public before they even check their results properly. It happens all the time in medicine - I think everyone is hoping to become a celebrity scientist!
Here the results are actually correct. Anytime a fit is made, you have a best it point. The problem lies in the interpretation, in particular by the press.
Do you think the scientists involved perhaps knew this would happen and did it with that in mind? It brings to mind something that one of my medical professors said at university - "Those who really succeed in science, like most other fields in life, are those who are best at promoting themselves and they are NOT always the best in the field". I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the exact words recorded but it was a very valid point.
This I don't know. I know some of the names involved and they are very serious guys. My guess is that this funny interpretation started as a joke they were making with each other... And they did it once too much. But this is a guess :)
EDIT: the sentence you quote contains a part of truth, but there are other very valid points that make you succeeding in science.
Of course. It is an exaggeration to make the point:) You have to be a good scientist too but you will see some people who are really brilliant but lack the social and promotion skills and so don't get as far as their peers. I think it applies to all occupation to be honest.
So I'm not real, that actually makes sense, most of the time I feel I'm not here. :)
It may depend on whether you are a boson or a fermion... :D
Can you find me evidence of midichlorians? There does not seem to be any evidence of them before 1999.
For this purpose, we actually need to build a Large Sith Collider on Tatooine to be able to find them. Machines on earth cannot actually help, I am afraid.