Poll 94 - Shadows and Symmetry

Poll 94 - "Rob Bryanton says 'the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. Our universe arises from a breaking of an underlying symmetry." Do you agree with him?"  Poll ended June 25 2012.  81.3% agreed, and 18.7% did not.

Well, well, it would be interesting to run this poll again now and see if people are changing their opinion on this one yet. Here's a link to a Scientific American article published a few days ago, with the title Supersymmetry Fails Test, Forcing Physics to Seek New Ideas. It discusses the latest revelations from the Large Hadron Collider, which appear to rule out an idea which was has dominated science for decades, because particles predicted by Supersymmetry are simply not appearing at energy levels predicted by "SUSY" (as Supersymmetry is affectionately known).

Here are a few paragraphs from the article:

Supersymmetry has dominated the particle physics landscape for decades, to the exclusion of all but a few alternative theories of physics beyond the Standard Model.

“It's hard to overstate just how much particle physicists of the past 20 to 30 years have invested in SUSY as a hypothesis, so the failure of the idea is going to have major implications for the field,” said Peter Woit, a particle theorist and mathematician at Columbia University.

The theory is alluring for three primary reasons: It predicts the existence of particles that could constitute "dark matter", an invisible substance that permeates the outskirts of galaxies. It unifies three of the fundamental forces at high energies. And — by far the biggest motivation for studying supersymmetry — it solves a conundrum in physics known as the hierarchy problem.

Please follow the link to read the whole article, which was written by Natalie Wolchover and Simons Science News.

Where does this leave my poll question? The fact remains that science believes equal quantities of matter and antimatter should have been created at the beginning of the universe, and supersymmetry was just one possible explanation for the actual imbalance that we observe. Does this strengthen the argument for extra dimensions? Is, as I've suggested with this project, the underlying symmetry state not a function of space-time, but rather a function of an underlying ultimate ensemble which is very much "outside" of space-time? That is what I continue to propose.

So. Even with Supersymmetry now falling off the table for likely theories of reality (and make no mistake about it, this is big news!), the symmetry state that I'm describing doesn't require supersymmetry, but it does require extra dimensions. As science marches on to deeper and deeper understanding of the world around us,  those extra dimensions appear more inviting than ever as the real explanation for the mysteries that remain.

Enjoy the journey!

Rob Bryanton