SASW%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (07/25/84)
From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC>
''How the Universe Works,'' 254:2 The Atlantic Monthly p. 66 (Aug '84),
is mostly about the experiments and theories which ultimately led to
the unified theory of electromagnetic and weak forces. The final part
of the article make some speculations about currently unsolved
problems. On p. 92 it states:
Late last March two groups of researches ar CERN stunned the physics
world when they announced [they had] happened upon bizarre subatomic
events that apparently are not predictable by either SU(5) or the
standard model. In mid-May, Carlo Rubbia ... gave a talk ... in
which he described still other anomalies so peculaiar that some
physicists immediately dubbed them ''Zen events.'' These discoveries
have yet to be confirmed ... .
What are these ''Zen events'' and what do theoretical physicists make
of them? What implications do they have for attempts at Grand-Unified
field theories?
When Rubbia and his colleagues examined the subatomic collisions that
produce Z^0s, they found that these particles decay by shooting out
photons in a way that the standard model does not seem to explain.
When the teams at CERN looked closely at the data, they also
discovered unexpected sprays of subatomic particles (''jets'' in the
jargon).
There is some more about some experiments which show that debris from
certain proton-antiproton collissions also create ''jets.'' What does
this mean, if anything?
Lastly, there is a tidbit about how the half-life of the proton ''is
now 10^32 years and climbing.'' Does this imply that quark-to-lepton
transformations do not occur, or does it say something else entirely?
Yours in relative ignorance,
-- Steve