2023-09-01 18:37:02
A new experimental measurement, twice as precise, confirms a possible difference with an old theoretical value. But this is questionable.
0.000002%. This percentage is the tiny difference that physicists observe for the moment between the theoretical value and the experimental measurement of the magnetic moment of the muon. It might seem unimportant. The muon is indeed an uncommon and relatively rare object: this obese twin of the electron (200 times its mass) is a very unstable particle which only forms, so to speak, in particle accelerators (and when cosmic rays hit the atmosphere) and never survives more than a fraction of a second.
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That specialists can be interested in the properties of such a particle, why not, but how could such a tiny deviation be of interest to the general public? The reason is simple: this small gap is to date one of the most promising avenues for trying to uncover a flaw in the Standard Model, this theoretical edifice that describes the entire strange world of particles. With general relativity…
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