# How Many Sparticles Can Dance on the Head of a Dark Matter?



## J-Sun (Nov 13, 2012)

Rare Particle Find May Cast Doubt on Popular [sic] Physics Theory


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## RJM Corbet (Dec 1, 2012)

Thanks J-Sun. 

Also interesting on your page link is the mysterious new 'discovery' by the Curiosity Mars Rover.

Has Curiosity already discovered organic compounds, so early in its mission?

Astounding, if true.

Seems they're keeping quiet about it until further sample analyses turns up the same result ...


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## J-Sun (Dec 1, 2012)

This article?

Yeah, the Curiosity team has seemed pretty decent so far but NASA, generally, has taken to massively overselling "forthcoming announcements" so I don't know. My guess would be that the most exciting thing they'd announce is evidence of past biologicals. Which would be pretty exciting, but pretty, um, archaeological, I guess. We'll just have to wait about 2-6 days to find out.


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## Metryq (Dec 1, 2012)

Perhaps Curiosity found Alan Shepard's golf ball? One of the upper corners of a buried black monolith?

Or maybe Curiosity found one of Heinlein's Martian flat-cats by running over it, in which case it is no longer alive. So, Curiosity killed... oh, you get it.


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## J-Sun (Dec 1, 2012)

Metryq said:


> So, Curiosity killed... oh, you get it.



Thanks - I needed a good long laugh.  Classic.


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## Gordian Knot (Dec 2, 2012)

J-Sun said:


> Yeah, the Curiosity team has seemed pretty decent so far but NASA, generally, has taken to massively overselling "forthcoming announcements" so I don't know.



The latest is that NASA is backpedaling like crazy from the initial "This is going to be a game changer" sort of comments. Methinks they realized they had created such excited anticipation that their actual news was going to be a bust!


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## Alex The G and T (Dec 3, 2012)

I was hoping for a Black Monolith.


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## J-Sun (Dec 3, 2012)

Gordian Knot said:


> The latest is that NASA is backpedaling like crazy from the initial "This is going to be a game changer" sort of comments. Methinks they realized they had created such excited anticipation that their actual news was going to be a bust!



Probably so. I wish they would realize that it only hurts to do that, rather than helps anything. If you have anything, put out enough to make it interesting and no more and hopefully the real news will exceed expectation.



Alex said:


> I was hoping for a Black Monolith.



Now _that_ would have been cool. It'd be kinda hard for even NASA to oversell that one.


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## RJM Corbet (Dec 3, 2012)

J-Sun said:


> ... My guess would be that the most exciting thing they'd announce is evidence of past biologicals. Which would be pretty exciting, but pretty, um, archaeological, I guess. We'll just have to wait about 2-6 days to find out.


 
Don't knock it: past biologicals would be HUGE.

Against the chance of even microbial life originating being something like the sum of all the atoms in the universe?


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## J-Sun (Dec 3, 2012)

RJM Corbet said:


> Don't knock it: past biologicals would be HUGE.
> 
> Against the chance of even microbial life originating being something like the sum of all the atoms in the universe?



Yeah, that didn't come off right, because it definitely would be. Not as much as evidence coexisting with us or outside the solar system but it would at least knock off the *utter* uniqueness of life on earth and just make it (known) unique to the Solar system. But I just meant it wouldn't be the little green men or underground oases it seems NASA wants you to expect half the time. 

All we apparently have so far is anti-news.

-- Oh wow. No, that _was_ the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. It's a little clearer here. Man, NASA's PR people (and Bolden himself and most everybody else) needs to be fired. At best, it's a hypothetical proto-subset of what I was guessing. Intriguing but no more than that.

Yeah - I haven't read the whole article, but it includes a nice summation: "The big news was that the rover is working perfectly, early scoops of the soil it’s collected are representative of the soil on much of Mars — which means they serves as reliable samples — and the chemistry of the planet is certainly complex enough to have once been home to life or even still be home to it. But we knew that already."


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## Vertigo (Dec 4, 2012)

This is the latest I have seen from Curiosity's soil analysis:



> CheMin's examination of Rocknest samples found the composition is about half common volcanic minerals and half non-crystalline materials such as glass. SAM added information about ingredients present in much lower concentrations and about ratios of isotopes. Isotopes are different forms of the same element and can provide clues about environmental changes. The water seen by SAM does not mean the drift was wet. Water molecules bound to grains of sand or dust are not unusual, but the quantity seen was higher than anticipated.
> 
> SAM tentatively identified the oxygen and chlorine compound perchlorate. This is a reactive chemical previously found in arctic Martian soil by NASA's Phoenix Lander. Reactions with other chemicals heated in SAM formed chlorinated methane compounds -- one-carbon organics that were detected by the instrument. The chlorine is of Martian origin, but it is possible the carbon may be of Earth origin, carried by Curiosity and detected by SAM's high sensitivity design.


 
The full page is here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1399

Sorry this is sliding rather off topic


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## J-Sun (Dec 4, 2012)

Vertigo said:


> Sorry this is sliding rather off topic



No problem - that ship sailed long ago. 

I sent a flare up to a mod to see if the topic could be recalibrated one way or another. We're obviously all much more curious about Curiosity.


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## Vertigo (Dec 4, 2012)

Hehe, well I did read the original article you linked but I confess its conclusions stretched my (rather sketchy) quantum physics knowledge to interpret in lay terms. However it is both interesting and rather reassuring (if a little disappointing to many physicists) that the discoveries coming out of the LHC do seem to be confirming existing theories more than throwing them out or posing new fundamental questions.


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## J-Sun (Dec 4, 2012)

Okay - word is to just carry on as we were - consider this a dual-topic thread and don't worry about being off-topic. 

As far as the original article stretching things, it definitely stretches me, too. I just thought it was interesting and agree with what you said. It's pretty unscientific but I just have a strong "feeling" that contemporary physics is in need of Ockham's razor. And it's also very good to see that that the LHC is apparently doing good and useful work, regardless of the particular findings. I just wish we could get more space/astronomical toys as cool as the LHC is for its sphere of work. It's hard to get funding for anything but especially off-earth stuff these days. (Not to start a third topic. ) Still, good work to the LHC guys.


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## Vertigo (Dec 4, 2012)

Agree with you completely on the LHC folk. Especially after the slightly damp squib start when it had its grand opening. But as you say they're doing some really cool stuff over there!


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## RJM Corbet (Dec 5, 2012)

Vertigo said:


> Hehe, well I did read the original article you linked but I confess its conclusions stretched my (rather sketchy) quantum physics knowledge to interpret in lay terms. However it is both interesting and rather reassuring (if a little disappointing to many physicists) that the discoveries coming out of the LHC do seem to be confirming existing theories more than throwing them out or posing new fundamental questions.


 
From what I could get of it, the LHC finding, if it is one, would work to prop up the standard model -- and to give string-theory a knock


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## Vertigo (Dec 6, 2012)

That's pretty much exactly right by my understanding. Their findings conform to predictions based on the standard model but are out for those of _some_ of the string theory approaches.


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## RJM Corbet (Dec 7, 2012)

As you say it must be very gratifying for them to have the LHC confirming/proving their theoretical work, that some of them have spent most of their lives working on


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