browning@ttidcb.UUCP (George Browning) (01/15/86)
There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times which said a fifth force had been discovered. It is called hypercharge and is about 100 times weaker than gravity. It changes the answer of the old question of whether a feather or a iron ball will hit first if dropped in a vacuum; the feather hits first as iron has a higher hypercharge. I have been unable to find any other references to this new force and would be interested in reading anything else available on it. Is it for real?
ams@philabs.UUCP (Ali Shaik) (01/15/86)
> > There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times which said > a fifth force had been discovered. It is called hypercharge and is :-) This should send the Unification fiends back to the drawing board! BTW I saw a report on the same thing in the NY Times. Ali "Bangalore" Shaik (ihnp4!philabs!ams)
rimey@ernie.BERKELEY.EDU (Ken &) (01/16/86)
This fifth force has NOT been "discovered". Its existence has been SUGGESTED, based on the reanalysis of some old experiments. I expect that there are at least a few grad students out there rushing to throw together experiments to test this. We should hear soon. This talk of "hypercharge" is strange to many including me. Apparently hypercharge is equal to baryon number for ordinary matter. So forget hypercharge and talk about baryon number. Finally, this publicity IS about something real, premature perhaps, but not quackery. The paper they are talking about is "Reanalysis of the Eotvos Experiment" by Fischbach, et. al. in Physical Review Letters, January 6, 1986. I would like to know how the original Eotvos experiment was done. I have the paper, but it's in German. Would anyone care to look it up and report back to us? Ken Rimey rimey@dali.berkeley.edu
ins_asma@jhunix.UUCP (Sandra Marie Aamodt) (01/16/86)
Could someone post a reading list on Superstring Theory? I'll wade through technical journals but I'd rather have informative popular literature (assuming that isn't a contradiction in terms.) Oh, and by the way; Hypercharge? Mark!
dobro@ulowell.UUCP (Chet Dobro) (01/21/86)
> > > > There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times which said > > a fifth force had been discovered. It is called hypercharge and is > > ????? Does anyone have any more information on this? Gryphon
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (01/23/86)
In article <174@ulowell.UUCP> dobro@ulowell.UUCP (Chet Dobro) writes: >> >> There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times which said >> a fifth force had been discovered. It is called hypercharge and is > > >Does anyone have any more information on this? > Yes, the newspapers jumped the gun a little bit, and misrepresented the research as well. Someone has performed a reanalysis of certain minor anomolies in some old experiments to *suggest* that there *might* be a fifth force. Another author has since asserted that the reanalysis is faulty and there is no basis for postulating a fifth force. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa
ins_adsf@jhunix.UUCP (David S Fry) (01/24/86)
> > There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times which said > a fifth force had been discovered. It is called hypercharge and is > about 100 times weaker than gravity. It changes the answer of the old > question of whether a feather or a iron ball will hit first if dropped > in a vacuum; the feather hits first as iron has a higher hypercharge. > I have been unable to find any other references to this new force and > would be interested in reading anything else available on it. Is it > for real? The original paper can be found in Physical Review Letters (I don't know which issue, but very recently I would assume). It was inspired by recent anomalies in data from accelerator labs. The authors, principally Ephraim Fischbach, then went back to look at the data from a famous 1922 torsion experiment by Roland von Eotvos. The force is hypothesized to act on particles no more than 600 feet apart. The theory is certainly "for real", and the paper was actually publ- ished, but, as Harvard's Sheldon Glashow says, "The work suggests an inter- esting direction, but by no means should be taken as a real discovery." (from Time magazine, 1/11/86) -David Fry
tcculpep@uok.UUCP (01/24/86)
/* Written 12:27 pm Jan 15, 1986 by browning@ttidcb.UUCP in uok.UUCP:net.physics */
/* ---------- "Fifth force" ---------- */
There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times which said
a fifth force had been discovered. It is called hypercharge and is
about 100 times weaker than gravity. It changes the answer of the old
question of whether a feather or a iron ball will hit first if dropped
in a vacuum; the feather hits first as iron has a higher hypercharge.
I have been unable to find any other references to this new force and
would be interested in reading anything else available on it. Is it
for real?
/* End of text from uok.UUCP:net.physics */tcculpep@uok.UUCP (01/24/86)
/* Written 12:27 pm Jan 15, 1986 by browning@ttidcb.UUCP in uok.UUCP:net.physics */
/* ---------- "Fifth force" ---------- */
There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times which said
a fifth force had been discovered. It is called hypercharge and is
about 100 times weaker than gravity. It changes the answer of the old
question of whether a feather or a iron ball will hit first if dropped
in a vacuum; the feather hits first as iron has a higher hypercharge.
I have been unable to find any other references to this new force and
would be interested in reading anything else available on it. Is it
for real?
/* End of text from uok.UUCP:net.physics */
There was a small article in TIME mag. (JAN. 20),
but there wasn't much info in it.
taylor culpepper / Univ. of Oklahoma
ihnp4!okstate!uokvax!uok!tcculpepsewilco@mecc.UUCP (Scot E. Wilcoxon) (01/27/86)
In article <982@psivax.UUCP> friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes: >In article <174@ulowell.UUCP> dobro@ulowell.UUCP (Chet Dobro) writes: >>> There was a recent article in the Los Angeles Times which said >>> a fifth force had been discovered. It is called hypercharge and is >>... >>Does anyone have any more information on this? >>... > Yes, the newspapers jumped the gun a little bit, and >misrepresented the research as well. Someone has performed a >... >since asserted that the reanalysis is faulty and there is no basis for >postulating a fifth force. >... 1) Look in last week's Newsweek or Time. Or "the newspapers", if you can find the article. Then you'll at least have the people's names. 2) If hypercharge is really important to you (your neutron accelerator functions, or your car won't go into the garage :-) then telegram the researcher and exchange results. 3) Wait 6-12 months for other publications with longer lead time to pick up the story and do a citation or author search at your library. (It's easy..just like using a big index) 4) Come back to the net and let us know the net helped cause yet another breakthrough :-) "Lord, it's hard to be humble when you grew up in a library." -- Scot E. Wilcoxon Minn. Ed. Comp. Corp. quest!mecc!sewilco 45 03 N / 93 15 W (612)481-3507 {ihnp4,mgnetp}!dicomed!mecc!sewilco
tino@hou2f.UUCP (A.TINO) (01/28/86)
>The original paper can be found in Physical Review Letters (I don't >know which issue, but very recently I would assume). Physical Review Letters; Vol 56, number 1, 6 January 1986, page 3 "Reanalysis of the Eotvos Experiment" E. Fischbach, D. Sudarsky, A. Szafer, C. Talmadge, & S.H. Aronson
rpt@warwick.UUCP (Richard Tomlinson) (02/11/86)
Expires:
References:
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Keywords:
Xpath: ukc eagle
I have read the article on the "Fifth Force" in Physical Review Letters and I
find it hard to accept a theory based on a straight line graph with only 7
points plotted, one of which is so far from the line that it can be
discounted. They say that the slope of the graph is remarkably close to that
predicted by your formula but I think 6 points cannot be relied upon. When
someone can repeat the experiment with more materials then the theory can
be believed more easily.
I will be very interested to receive people's comments.
Richard Tomlinson
--
...!mcvax!ukc!warwick!rptclt@newton.ARPA (Carrick Talmadge) (02/15/86)
>I have read the article on the "Fifth Force" in Physical Review Letters and I >find it hard to accept a theory based on a straight line graph with only 7 >points plotted, one of which is so far from the line that it can be >discounted. They say that the slope of the graph is remarkably close to that >predicted by your formula but I think 6 points cannot be relied upon. When >someone can repeat the experiment with more materials then the theory can >be believed more easily. Richard Tomlinson is correct that no one should accept a new theory based upon a single experiment -- and in fact nobody does. However, the results of this original experiment are sufficiently compelling that various groups are attempting to repeat this experiment (I know of at least six efforts underway at the moment). The remarks regarding the positioning of the various points, however, are wrong (especially that one point "falls too far off the line"). One expects a certain amount of statistical fluctuation during the course of any experiment, and in fact there are tests (for instance the chi square test) which one can apply to determine if there is the "right amount", "too much", or "too little" statistical fluctuation. For this experiment, the results are *too good*. The chi square is about 2 for 5 degrees of freedom (7 points - 2 parameters being fit to = 5). Normally one expects to have the chi square to be roughly equal to the number of degrees of freedom. If the chi square is significantly less than the degrees of freedom, the fit is "too good", if it's about the same, we have a "good fit", if it's much larger, we have a "poor fit". The confidence level (C.L.) for this result is about 83%. For the result of an experiment to be considered to be "normal" in the above statistical sense, one should have 10% < C.L. < 90%. Thus we see the results of this experiment are abnormal, but not objectionably so... Carrick Talmadge
waddingt@umn-cs.UUCP (Jake Waddington ) (02/16/86)
.
Could some one explain how the fith force is used to explain some
anomalies found in very high energy experiments. I not being real
clear, I haven't read the paper, but as I understand the authors
used some data from high energy collisions at CERN to demonstrate
the presents of the new force.
Note:
I'm trying to get a true physics discussion going. May some of
us could start pulling secoundary sources and post a summary. A summary
of the Phys Rev paper would also be nice.
The question becomes can real physics live in a computer science
envorment?
Paul Fink
University of Minnesota Cosmic Ray Lab
ihnp4!umn-cs!umn-phy!fink