2351: Standard Model Changes
| Standard Model Changes |
 Title text: Bugs are spin 1/2 particles, unless it's particularly windy. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by VIN DIESEL. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
In this comic strip, Randall is proposing some changes to the Standard Model of particle physics. The currently accepted particle table has 15 slots - 12 fermions (six quarks and six leptons) and five bosons (four gauge bosons and one scalar boson, the Higgs). This comic consists of a normal version of the particle table to which Randall has made substantial alternations and additions, which are drawn in red over the black and white table.
While the Standard Model's predictions are very well supported by experiments, the physics community has identified several flaws in it (e.g. it lacks any particles to convey gravity), and so lots of research is committed to searching for "Physics beyond the Standard Model". Some of Randall's changes are sort of intended to fill some of those gaps, but for the most part they are nonsensical.
Quarks
Randall's proposed changes to the quarks are relatively restrained -- he proposes only that the "strange" and "charm" names should be moved to bosons, while the strange quark should be renamed the "right quark" and the charm quark should be renamed the "left quark", so that all quarks will have "ordinary" directional names.
In reality, the original quark model proposed by Murray Gell-Mann included only three quarks, with the "strange" quark so named because the particles that contained them were strangely long-lived relative to their masses. The "charm" quark was so named when it was proposed because it brought a "charming" symmetry to the weak interaction, which we now understand is because it completes the second generation of quarks, along with the strange quark. When a third generation of quarks was proposed, they were called top and bottom by analogy to the up and down quarks (which are so named because of the spin they carry).
It's strange that Randall assigns the "left" direction to the charm quark and the "right" direction to the strange quark, when many languages have it the other way (e.g. "sinister" vs. "dexterous").
Leptons
Bosons
Randall proposes several new names for existing particles. First, that the W and Z bosons should be renamed to the charm and strange bosons, respectively (taking the names from the quarks), and second, that the Higgs boson should be named the Vin Diesel boson, as he considers Peter Higgs's name to be too boring to be given to a particle. The Higgs boson is known in the popular press (to the chagrin of many physicists, including Higgs) as "The God Particle", which is certainly a flashy name, but which itself was changed by the editors of the book of the same name from its authors' originally-intended title: The Goddamn Particle.
Speaking of the popular press, Randall also proposes that a false decoy "Magic" particle should be added to the Standard Model, to trip up promoters of Quantum mysticism.
Transcript
[A chart of the Standard Model of particle physics with red marks all over the chart.]
Changes I would make to the Standard Model
[In reading order:]
u up, connected to the down quark below.
c charm, connected to the strange quark below, in faded gray with a red l left written over it. Above is a red note with an arrow pointing to the charm quark. The note reads,
Consistent quark names (use "strange" and "charm" for bosons)
t top, connected to the bottom quark below.
g gluon
H Higgs, in faded gray with a red V Vin Diesel writted over it. To the right is a red note with an arrow pointing to the Higgs boson, which reads,
With all respect to Peter H, the Higgs boson needs a flashier name
d down, connected to the up quark above.
s strange, connected to the charm quark above, in faded gray with a red r right written over it.
b bottom, connected to the top quark above.
γ photon
G graviton, in red with a red border. To the right is a red note with an arrow pointing to the graviton, which reads,
Let's just include it, it's probably fine
e electron, connected to the electron neutrino below.
µ muon, connected in faded gray to the muon neutrino below, with red rounded corners cutting it off.
τ tau, connected to the tau neutrino below, in faded gray with a red scribble over it. On the tau lepton is a red note which reads,
No one needs tau leptons
Z Z boson, with the Z symbol and the Z in the name in faded gray. The symbol has a red s written over it and the Z in the name is scribbled out in red. The word strange is written in red between the symbol and the name.
M magic, in red with a red border. To the right is a red note with an arrow pointing to the magic particle, which reads,
Decoy particle for people making nonsense claims about "quantum" philosophy stuff
v e electron neutrino, with the e as a subscript of the v, connected to the electron above. The v is in faded gray and a red N with a circle around it is written on it. Below is a red note with an arrow pointing to the electron neutrino, which reads,
Fix neutrino symbol so I stop mixing up ν and v
v μ muon neutrino, with the µ as a subscript of the v, connected to the muon above, in faded gray with a red scribble over it. On the muon neutrino is a red note which reads,
Too many neutrinos
v τ tau neutrino, with the τ as a subscript of the v, connected to the tau lepton above, in faded gray. Written over it is a D dark matter in red with a red border. Below the tau neutrino is a red note with an arrow pointing to it, which reads,
We found it!
W W boson, with the W symbol and the W in the name in faded gray. The symbol has a red c written over it and the W in the name is scribbled out in red. The word charm is written in red between the symbol and the name.
🐞 cool bugs, in red with a red border. To the right is a red note with an arrow pointing to cool bugs, which reads,
Very small bugs are fundamental particles now
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refresh comments!Discussion
Re: "but for the most part [the changes] are nonsensical" I find the symbol changes pretty compelling, actually. Much clearer :) 172.69.34.210 00:05, 27 August 2020 (UTC) Related: I was going to respond to Randall here with Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" :=) Cellocgw (talk) 10:04, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Honestly, I'd vote to change every nu in physics to something else since its so damned hard to write differently and read lazily.
Yeah. Can we get the president of physics in here please? 172.69.34.140 01:35, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
- There is no president. Changing names is probably ok, but if you want to change the physics like with removing of neutrinos, you need to talk to God. -- Hkmaly (talk) 23:41, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
- So... We need to talk to the pontiff of physics, then? 162.158.159.110 03:44, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Top/Bottom should probably be In/Out or Front/Back or something. And that's even before Randall's proposed changes. 141.101.98.70 01:51, 27 August 2020 (UTC) "T" and "B" originally were going to be short for [redacted] and Bums , back when sexism was rampant. Possibly that's an urban legend, but having been in Physics grad school around the time quarks became a thing, I can believe it. Cellocgw (talk) 10:04, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Didn't t/b stand for truth and beauty at some point, thus formerly lining up more favorably with strange and charm? Also, a "cool bugs" boson with spin 1/2 would itself be a cool bug, in the sense of a glitch. 172.69.34.150 05:07, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
It's a bit weird that he added left/right since most of the particle already come in left- and right-handed chirality.
Comic 2240 has a "cool bug epoch" in the expansion of the universe that could be linked from the "cool bug" particle in this comic. ----
The explanation says that the cool bugs particle goes into the scalar boson group, which isn't right because there isn't such a group here. Vin Diesel is a scalar, but the general agreement is that graviton has spin 2 (and for this reason it's also not really correct to move it to the gauge boson group). The group is more accurately called the everything else group. 162.158.202.110 11:22, 27 August 2020 (UTC) anon
I posit the reason for "left, right" being in the order they are (instead of the more logical "right, left") is due to the Konami code being up, up, down, down, left, right, etc... SiliconCarbide (talk)
- Standard (American) English pairs Up-Down, Top-Bottom, and Left-Right, in that order, much like To-Fro, Here-There, Salt-Pepper and Shoes-Socks. It is unusual to refer to Right-Left ordering in English. 162.158.74.209 17:37, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
The Right/Strange description box included this: "What's strange is how Randall assigns the charm quark the left and the strange quark the right, when so many languages have it the other way around. But since when has Randall cared?" Which is not at all clear. What is it that languages have what other way around? I moved it because it is so vague to seems meaningless. If it was a useful observation, please clarify so somebody who doesn't know what it means already can understand. 162.158.106.244 17:32, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Isn't a τ-Lepton just the same as two π-Leptons? That's why it's superflous. -162.158.202.86 17:54, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
- Except that π is a meson, not a lepton. 108.162.215.108 04:39, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
Most recent revision "(→Leptons: neutrons are universally lower-case n, ..." isn't strictly true in its reversion of a prior statement. Wikipedia (amongst other places) states possible symbols of "n, n⁰, N⁰". The replacement information is probably not wrong, though. 162.158.158.185 11:38, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
"Randall apparently considers magic to exist and be a particle, both of which are blatantly false." - but both the text of the comic and the sentence immediately after this one clearly state that it is intentionally inaccurate, so this seems like a strange claim to make. 172.69.34.156 01:59, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
This is the first time I have seen an explainxkcd that blatantly and intentionally lies in the explanation. Jokes are common, especially the 'citation needed' meme. But your supposed to do that without any lies. Someone please fix it (especially the bug section) to be a funny, but accurate explanation as per the norm. 108.162.237.226 17:37, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
I misread the right-most vertical caption [in the explanation's chart] as "secular bosuns" and didn't understand what the religious beliefs of seaman have to do with the rest. These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 09:18, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
Neutrinos naturally undergo flavor-changing oscillations, so the idea of getting rid of the extra generations is more reasonable than it seems at first. Electron neutrinos change to mu and tau neutrinos in flight and vice versa. Mentioning this simply because I didn't see anyone else mention it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_oscillation
"Higgs" loosely rhymes with "Pigs". I guess that's the reason why Randall doesn't want to use the name "Higgs". 2659: Unreliable Connection (talk) 08:05, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
- Higgs exactly rhymes with Pigs, but there's absolutely no reason to believe that hS anything to do with anything. Stupid comment, made for stupid reason, and I think this needs highlighting more than it deserves to be swept under the carpet. 172.70.162.229 19:44, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
