1621: Fixion

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Fixion

Title text: My theory predicts that, at high enough energies, FRBs and perytons become indistinguishable because the detector burns out.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: This explanation is very incomplete. It is a small and terrible draft, only listing some immediate things I have noticed. This article should be structured as: General idea, table of explanations for each property. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The second Christmas comic in a row, this one - released on Christmas day - is a present to all physicists of a new particle, the Fixion, which explains everything.

In physics, there are still many big questions and mysteries. There are many phenomena which don't seem to fit, and we don't know how to explain yet. The "fixion" is satirically presented as a particle which acts as a Deus ex machina (see also tvtropes) which solves all of these mysteries without any serious fundamental reasons.

The style of the chart suggests a Feynmann diagram - an easy way of drawing particle interactions. Typically, fermions (the "solid" particles like electrons and quarks) are shown with solid lines, photons (and generally the weak-force-carrying bosons) are shown with wavy lines, gluons with spiraling lines and other mediating particles (such as pions in the nuclear force, or the Higgs) with a dotted line. Randall obeys these rules only very loosely, which makes sense - many of the things involved in this Feynmann diagram are either so theoretical that they have no widely used standard representation, or would never appear in a sensible diagram (spacecraft, for instance).

Table of Phenomena

Phenomenon	Description	Solved?
Main component of dark matter	Dark matter is needed to explain the difference between how we think gravity behaves and the actual behavior of galaxies. The two leading theories of dark matter are that it is made of MACHOs (massive compact halo objects; effectively dead stars too dim to see) or WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles; unknown particles which barely interact with matter except through gravity.	No, and proving the nature of dark matter will win someone the Nobel Prize.
Confines quarks and gluons	Quark confinement means that we never see particles with color charge (i.e. quarks and gluons) on their own. Try to separate them, and new one pops into existence.	The basic facts of confinement are well understood, but some of the details are too complicated to tease out.
Suppresses antimatter in early universe	The universe today is made almost entirely of matter. Antimatter and matter are identical, except that the charges are opposite, and that they annihilate when they come in contact with each other. So why is the universe made of matter? Why didn't the universe have equal amounts of both, and if it did, why didn't it annihilate itself immediately? This is a big question in physics today. Of course, the fixion explains this.	Lots of theories, not a shred of evidence for any yet. Now that the Higgs boson has been found, the biggest project for the Large Hadron Collider experiments is to try to crack this.
Neutralizes monopoles	Magnetic monopoles should exist, according to many GUTs (grand unified theories) and string theories, but none have ever been seen.	No (despite claims that pop up in the news every year, creating a monopole-like state in the magnetic spins of a crystal is not the same as creating a real monopole.)
Spontaneously emits dark energy	Dark energy is needed to explain why the universe expands as quickly as it does... but so much dark energy is needed that it would make up 70% of the universe! The nature of dark energy is totally unknown.	Again, Nobel Prize territory.
Mediates proton decay, but then hides it.	Many GUTs predict that protons will decay, but experiments have shown the proton to have a half life of at least the age of the universe.	It's not necessarily a problem. All theories predict that proton decay is a very slow process (1032+ seconds), which is consistent with the current data.
Broken symmetry causes ϴ=0, explaining unobserved neutron dipole moment	The neutron electric dipole moment is a measure of how balanced electric charge is inside the neutron. ϴ (theta) is a number in quantum chromodynamics which quantifies the the breaking of a type of symmetry called CP symmetry. If ϴ is not 0, one result of this should be a neutron dipole moment. Symmetry breaking is a common explanation of effects in some areas of theoretical physics (for instance, it's an important part of Higgs' theory about why particles have mass), but normally it explains why a value is not zero. Presumably the fixion breaks CP symmetry independently of QCD, which means that ϴ can be 0 while preserving observed CP-breaking effects.	Again, it's not (yet) a problem - the predicted dipole moment is tiny, and we're only just reaching the point when we can measure it that accurately.
Introduces dispersion in perytons from kitchen microwaves, explaining fast radio bursts	Fast radio bursts are unexplained bursts of radio-frequency energy from space. Perytons are things that look like FRBs, but come from Earth (specifically, from the microwave oven at Parkes Observatory. Randall's fixions makes some perytons change frequency distribution so they appear to come from space.	No, but it's probably something very big - a star collapsing to a black or (as now looks likely) a magnetar (magnetic neutron star)
Covers naked singularities	A naked singularity is like a black hole without an event horizon. So far no naked singularity has been observed (except, arguably, the big bang) and the cosmic censorship hypothesis suggests they can't exist, although some people have suggested ways of making them.	Not necessarily something that needs explaining - none have been seen, and most theories say they don't exist. If support grows for loop quantum gravity, then we might have to start really searching.
Causes alpha effect	A weird effect from chemistry, where putting an "alpha" atom with a lone pair of electrons close to a molecule makes the molecule more likely to give up its electrons.	Lots of competing explanations.
Causes coronal heating	For some reason the outer layer of the sun (the corona) is hotter than most reasonable theories predict.	It's a mystery, but it possibly has something to do with waves in the corona (for example, the High Resolution Coronal Imager has seen "braids" in the corona that whip around and unravel themselves).
Intercepts certain gravitational waves before they're observed.	If gravity behaves like the other forces, it must be conveyed by waves. Our best detector, LIGO has yet to detect any gravitational waves, though this is probably just due to the low probability of events that would be detectable. Only extreme events like binary black hole mergers are detectable with the current setup. The proposed LISA spacecraft will be able to see things like orbiting black holes and neutron stars.	Let's wait for the LISA data before jumping to conclusions.
Higgs-ish	The Higgs boson is a manifestation of the Higgs field... but many supersymmetry and string theories predict multiple Higgs-like particles. It's almost a prerequisite of any new theory that it has a Higgs-ish element.	N/A
Accelerates certain spacecraft during flybys	This refers to the flyby anomaly which is sometimes (but not always) seen when spacecraft fly close to planets and pick up more speed than expected. It's not always seen - ROSETTA had no flyby anomaly when it swooped extremely close to Mars.	It could be an unpredicted quirk of gravity and relativity... or it could be experimental error.
Superluminally smooths anisotropies in early universe (but adds faint polarization for BICEP3 to find)	The CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) is incredibly uniform. In fact it is so uniform that the conclusion is that these areas must have been in contact at some time in the early universe. But with the age of the universe, even traveling at the speed of light, opposite sides never touch. The explanation usually given is that the universe expanded really fast in the beginning ("inflation"). BICEP2 is a radio telescope at the South Pole whose operators claim to have seen polarization in the CMB indicative of inflation.	As stated, inflation is the standard explanation and it holds up fairly well. Other studies haven't seen the polarization that BICEP2 has - the Planck space telescope also suggests that BICEP2 team were looking at an unusually dusty bit of space, which could cause polarization.
Triggers Siberian sinkholes	Recently, several sinkholes opened up in remote parts of Siberia. The explanation is currently unknown.	While there are lots of weird theories, there's a good chance they were caused by melting permafrost (possibly due to global warming)
Melts ice in "Snowball Earth" scenario	"Snowball Earth" is the theory that the whole planet was covered in ice at some point. To melt all that ice by the greenhouse effect would require far more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than seems plausible. However, if volcanoes were to deposit black soot on the surface of the ice, it would start absorbing heat more efficiently (in scientific terms, the Earth's albedo would decrease) and that would also make the planet heat up.	There's no firm evidence one way or the other for Snowball Earth.
Transports neutrinos faster than light, but only on certain days through one area of France	Refers to the faster-than-light neutrino anomaly, where it seemed that a neutrino beam from CERN on the France/Switzerland border to the OPERA experiment in Italy traveled fast than light. This result was not able to be replicated.	In the end, there was no mystery. Just a dodgy cable causing a measurement error.
Suppresses sigma in experiments	Sigma (σ) refers to the standard deviation - a mathematical measure of how much an observed value differs from the expected value. For a formal scientific discovery in particle physics, the standard is 5 sigma which means that there is about a 1 in 3.5 million chance that the results were caused by random errors (of course, they could be caused by systematic errors, such as measurement problems). Some tantalizing experiments have found interesting results at 3 or 4 sigma but either can't reach 5 sigma or are subsequently disproven. The fixion means that actually, these experiments have found what the experimenters wanted to find, but because of the fixion's dastardly behavior, the sigma has been artificially lowered below the proof threshold.	N/A

The title text is a further joke about FRBs and perytons. GUTs normally predict that all the forces we see are the different low-energy versions of a single force which can only be seen at extremely high energies (much higher than any Earth-based collider could produce). A high-energy FRB would be a gamma ray burst and if it came from a close enough object, would obliterate all life on Earth... and wreck the sensitive electronics at Parkes Observatory. This "high energy unification" is stated in a way reminiscent of the unification of electromagnetic and weak forces at high energies; but unlike the latter, it involves two things only "appearing" (or, in this case, not appearing) to be the same, not actually becoming the same.

Transcript

[Caption above the panel:]

A Christmas gift for physicists:

The Fixion

A new particle that explains everything

[A chart resembling a Feynmann like-diagram is shown. It begins with a solid line coming down at the top, going a little to the left. The line continues downwards all the time, but changes direction 16 times before exiting at the bottom almost straight under the starting point. At every point where it changes direction, there is some kind of “interaction” with something outside this line. There are 19 phrases, 10 on the left and 9 on the right. 11 of these are distinct labels for points on the line as 14 gray curved arrows points between these 11 phrases to specific points on the line. Three of the phrases on the left has two arrows pointing to two different, but close, parts of the line. The main central line is solid all the way, except at the very bottom, where it “disappears” inside a hole only to “reappear” later from a similar hole. Between these two holes the line is dotted. The lines going away (or to) the main line can be straight and solid, straight and dotted, wavy lines (with different waviness), even looking like a spiral. Two straight solid lines ends up at two space probes, and finally the last two straight solid lines coming in (and out) on either side of the “hole” in the line has arrow pointing in and out. Below the phrases will be listed in reading order, taking one on each side alternatingly. Above each is described if there are any arrow and, if there are, what they points at.]

[Left: Arrow pointing to the very first part of the main line:]

Main component of dark matter

[Right: Arrow pointing to the very first part of the main line, but below the previous arrow:]

Confines quarks and gluons

[Left: Arrow points to the first solid line going left and upwards:]

Neutralizes monopoles

[Right: No arrow:]

Suppresses antimatter in early universe

[Left: Two arrows points to two dotted lines going out left and downwards below the first solid line:]

Spontaneously emits dark energy

[Right: Arrow pointing to several lines going almost parallel with the main line. The first line closest to the arrow is not connected with the main line. It bends closer to the other lines in the middle. The next line is connected to the main line, and is thus actually two lines going in to the main line. The same goes for the inner line, where there is some distance between the entry and exit, as the middle of these three lines connect to the main line in between. In principle there are four lines going in/out and one not connected, but it looks like three lines:]

Mediates proton decay but then hides it

[Left: One arrow points to the first wavy line (7 peaks) coming out and up towards the dotted lines above. A second arrow points further down the main line where there are three more wavy lines coming out, but to the right, they are all of the same length and go almost straight right, only a little down. The first has as short a wave length as the line above to the left, but as it is shorter it only has 6 peaks. Then the wavelength decreases to a very long one for the last, 5 peaks and then 3 peaks. The arrow points almost where the middle wavy line exits the main line:]

Introduces dispersion in perytons from kitchen microwaves, explaining fast radio bursts

[Right: An arrow point to the part of the main line between the three parallel lines and the first wavy line:]

Broken symmetry causes ϴ=0, explaining unobserved neutron dipole moment

[Left: No arrow:]

Causes alpha effect

[Right: No arrow, but right next to the middle of the three wavy line:]

Covers naked singularities

[Left: An arrow points to a corkscrew line going upwards to the left:]

Intercepts certain gravitational waves before they're observed.

[Right: No arrow, but right next to the bottom of the three wavy line:]

Causes coronal heating

[Left: No arrow:]

Higgs-ish

[Right: A long arrow point to the point of the main line just below the line pointing to the bottom (and left) of the space probes:]

Superluminally smooths anisotropies in early universe (but adds faint polarization for BICEP3 to find)

[Left: One arrows point towards the point on the main lines where a solid line goes to the right and up and another arrow points on another solid line going away from the main line towards left and down. At the end of both lines are drawn space probes with sat4elie dish and solar panels:]

Accelerates certain spacecraft during flybys

[Right: No arrow, but right next to the solid line with an arrow going into the main line just before the first hole where the main line disappears and becomes dotted:]

Triggers Siberian sinkholes

[Left: No arrow:]

Melts ice in "Snowball Earth" scenario

[Right: Arrow points to the dotted part of the main line between the two holes:]

Transports neutrinos faster than light, but only on certain days through one area of France

[Left: No arrow but the last solid line, with an arrow pointing left, that is going away from the main line, point almost directly at it:]

Suppresses sigma in experiments

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Discussion

The next one someone asks me what deux ex machina or parsimony is, I'm pointing them to this comic. 108.162.245.179 05:17, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

The next time someone ask me what "Deus Ex Machina" or parsmony is, I'm still linking them to TV Tropes. Papayaman1000 (talk) 05:56, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Concerning the title text; has anyone considered this could be a reference to Phineas and Ferb? FRB being a reference to one of the title characters (who speaks rarely) and the peryton a reference to Perry the Platypus? Just sayin' ... --Dmbreakey (talk) 18:48, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, as far as I can tell, Randall is referencing the material here. 108.162.245.179 23:49, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Question is: Is the Fixion an Anion, a Kation or a Fermion? 162.158.91.192 15:03, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Maybe also a Glossary? GUT is defined on the page after use, and I mostly hit Federal Reserve Board before: Fast Radio Burst 108.162.221.26 16:05, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Part of of the table text on suppressing sigma, from "The question is, if the way the Fixion works ..." through "... sigma has been artificially lowered below the proof threshold" needs work IMO, but I'm not confident I could do a good job. I think the point attempted is that, depending on point of view, on "which" sigma is suppressed (the value of sigma itself, or the values of data on which 5-sigma analysis is performed), the result could be either false positives or false negatives, respectively. But, I'm not even sure I'm understanding it correctly, and I am quite sure someone other than me could concisely clarify the point. I originally read "suppressing sigma" as only the former, resulting is false positives only, but I believe I now can grasp the other option. Miamiclay (talk) 20:59, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Re: "this will improve with the BICEP3 data that should be published in 2016." - I assume this will have happened by now but I'm not familiar with where to look. --162.158.146.41 08:31, 22 May 2023 (UTC)