15 January 2022 | New Scientist | 5The leader
WHY are fundamental physicists so
keen to undermine the very theories
that are the bedrock of their success? It is
a reasonable question to ask confronted
with the excitement bubbling around
anomalies that seem to be firming up at
CERN’s LHCb experiment (see page 38).
At stake is a particle that might – the
“might” bears emphasising – break open
the standard model of particle physics,
the framework that successfully explains
three of the four forces of nature.
The answer lies in what the standard
model doesn’t explain: the fourth force,
gravity; the dark matter and dark energy
that seem to dominate the cosmos; and
the fact that our matter-dominated
universe exists at all. In indicating –
perhaps – the existence of a fifth force that
could unite previously disparate aspectsof the standard model, the new particle
provides a hint of a way forward.
Good on it, but what do the rest of us get
out of it? In short, we don’t know – yet. No
one was thinking of powered space flight
in the 17th century when Isaac Newton
unified heavenly and earthly motions
with his laws of motion and gravity. WhenJames Clerk Maxwell unified electricity
and magnetism in the 1860s, televisions,
lasers or smartphones weren’t on
anyone’s radar (and nor was radar).
True, any unification that LHCb
might or might not have seen is likely
to kick in at energies far beyond anyeveryday technology we can envisage now
(although one implication could be that
those energies are lower than we thought).
But immediate technological or material
gain isn’t the point. To formulate his
physics, Newton had to invent calculus, the
mathematics that today underlies scientific
models of everything from climate
change to pandemic spread. In devising
his laws for electromagnetism, Maxwell
asserted that light always travels at
constant speed – paving the way for
Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity that,
besides explaining gravity and the wider
cosmos, enabled innovations such as GPS.
Science begets science and, along
the way, technology of universal benefit
drops out. That progress may be stuttering
and is rarely linear – but we should never
doubt it is worth going along for the ride. ❚The path of progress
Theories of material reality are less about the destination than the journey
“ We don’t know what the
benefits of any possible new
unification of physics are – yet”Chief executive Nina Wright
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