Scientists announced that they have discovered the existence of a particle of nature. There is a wealth of speculations springing from this new finding – could it be, for instance, that this new particle is a graviton?
Two separate teams working on the Large Hadron Collider at European Organization for Nuclear Research presented their statement Tuesday, saying they had detected traces of what could be deemed as a new fundamental particle integral to nature.
One of the early assumptions is that the particle is a heavier version of the Higgs boson, a particle explaining why other particles contain mass.
Another is that the particle is a graviton, the believed quantum carrier of gravity. What this could potentially imply is the existence of added dimensions of space-time.
“[M]aybe it’s a particle related to gravity… At this stage, it’s way too early to know,” said physicist and CERN team member Kyle Cranmer, who added that the massive discovery could be more important than the Higgs boson’s discovery in many ways and could serve as a game-changer in the field.
Gravitons are small particles carrying the “force” of gravity, and are responsible for bringing someone back down to Earth after jumping. But scientists study gravitons without seeing them.
Gravitons are assumed to be massless given gravity’s infinite reach. Like other quantum particles, they are believed to carry energy, therefore having the ability to create more gravitons. These particles, though, are potentially rolled up into other dimensions, the reason they remain unseen until now.
Despite the uncertainty as to what the new particle is really about, Cranmer believes that the discovery unfolded a new chapter in understanding fundamental physics.
“[H]opefully, by this time next year, this issue will probably be settled so maybe even by the summer we might know,” he said.
In answering what this research holds for people’s everyday lives, Cranmer said that direct application is always a tough matter to tackle. Useful objects such as lasers and transistors, however, were produced by these very studies.
“But fundamental research bears fruit and you don’t really know how it’s going to play out,” he added.
