〈 Berger | Dillon 〉

I really wish I understood all this stuff better. I have a high level understanding of what you folks do, but its hard to find any resources that go in more detail that dont require a degree in physics :-D

I agree it can get a bit jargony sometimes.. the main thing is that there are only a few properties that (anti) matter can have.. why? We measure (anti)matter all the time in the LHC.. as far as we can see, there are 3 fundamental forces (and hence 3 measurable properties)

Wait. Only three? I thought there were four! Electromagnetic, strong, weak, and gravity, right?

Yes! And gravity but I left it out because it’s not a part of our fundamental particle theory.. but yes! It’s there haha

I see what youre saying though. The fundamental forces are exactly those things we can measure to see what makes antimatter different from antimatter. If antimatter has some hidden property weve so far missed, thats akin to saying theres a fundamental force weve so far missed.

Which seems exceedingly unlikely! Im curious though: why exactly did you leave gravity out? Ive been told it doesnt really fit in the standard model, but in what sense?

Well I left it out because I do a lot of particle physics haha.. But it doesn’t fit in the standard model because it is a Quantum Field Theory.. and it happens that when we follow our usual process to quantize a theory the equations become ill defined

Ill defined in what way? Im a layman here, but are we talking about something like a division by zero?