2873: Supersymmetry

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Supersymmetry

Title text: High-speed collisions at the Baby Park track may support the hypothesis that Daisy is her own evil twin, a theory first suggested by Nintendo in the game Majorana's Mask.

Explanation

This comic imagines a "theory of supersymmetric Mario Bros." that merges the theoretical physics concept of supersymmetry (explained below) with another "super" thing, Super Mario Bros., originally developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System and later the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), two home game consoles popular during Randall's childhood. Mario game characters are equated with certain subatomic particles, with the central protagonists Mario and Luigi (his brother) comprising the center of an atom (proton and neutron).

The "Free Luigi Decay" diagram is a Feynman diagram, a particle physics depiction of interactions between particles. This diagram reinterprets the process of free neutron decay, in which a neutron that is left alone — not part of a nucleus with a proton — is unstable, such that one of its constituent quarks will transform, making a more stable proton, by emitting a W^- boson (not shown, or renamed), after around 10 to 30 minutes. The boson will then almost immediately decay into a suitable electron and neutrino. In Free Luigi Decay, the Luigi particle decay leads into there being a Mario, a Peach, and a notably right-handed Daisy, which would imply that this particular Daisy represents a sterile neutrino. The instability of a Luigi particle could be a reference to the fact that Luigi is almost never seen without Mario; decades of Mario games and spinoffs have produced just a few Luigi-only video games, such as Mario Is Missing! and the Luigi's Mansion series.

The Mario characters and their subatomic particle equivalents:

Particle	Symbol	Type	Charge	Mass	Mario Character	Notes
Proton	p / p+	Baryon ('uud' quarks)	+1	≲1 mu	Mario	The hero-protagonist of a large majority of the series
Neutron	n / n⁰	Baryon ('udd' quarks)	+0	≳1 mu	Luigi	Mario's younger brother and deuteragonist of many of the games, as well as the unwilling[actual citation needed] protagonist of a few games
Antiproton (not involved in the diagram)	p / p-	Antibaryon ('uud' quarks)	-1	as proton*	Wario	Mario's arch-rival, occasional antagonist/anti-hero, protagonist of the Wario Land series, and major character in the WarioWare series
Antineutron (not involved in the diagram)	n / n-0	Antibaryon ('udd' quarks)	-0	as neutron*	Waluigi	Luigi's rival and Wario's partner, exclusively appearing in spin-off games such as Mario Tennis, Mario & Sonic, Mario Kart, and Mario Party
Electron	e-	Lepton (charged)	-1	5.5x10-4 mu	(Princess) Peach	Mario's love interest, as well as the "damsel in distress" and/or reward-giver when not a character in her own right
Positron / Antielectron (not depicted/involved)	e+	Antilepton (charged)	+1	as electron*
Electron Neutrino	νe	Lepton (uncharged)	0	Assumed >0 (very small*)	(Princess) Daisy	Luigi's (rumored) love interest, as well as another "damsel in distress" and/or reward-giver when not a character in her own right
Electron Antineutrino (not depicted, hypothetical)	νe	Antilepton (uncharged)	0	as electron neutrino*

* - to within experimental uncertainty

The Mario-Peach particle relationship is appropriate. Just as Mario is attracted to Princess Peach in the first generation of Mario games, so is the Mario particle (proton) attracted to the Peach particle (electron).

The particle assignments for Peach and Daisy are also appropriate. Just as Princess Peach is often the central character (e.g., needing rescue) with Princess Daisy usually playing a supporting or secondary role, so too is the electron a well-known particle with a significant role in forming atoms and determining chemical properties, while the neutrino is more elusive, playing a less obvious role in the universe.

The title text is a pun on the title of the Nintendo 64 game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and the concept of Majorana fermion, which attempts to reconcile how, while many particles have separate antiparticle counterparts, certain ones do not. Until this is resolved, scientists may depict a theoretical antiparticle in place of a neutrino in order to preserve various total values across the diagram. But scientists do wonder if a neutrino is its own antiparticle, much as they have also previously wondered if they also flip their 'flavor' as a way to explain certain experimental results.

Baby Park is an oval-shaped race track in the Mario Kart series and used as a particle collider in the title text, first featured in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! on the Nintendo GameCube, and most recently appearing in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch. The Baby Park track is unusually short by the series' standards, making collisions between racers more likely than on the other, longer tracks.

This comic was posted shortly after the release of concept art from Mario Tennis (the game where Waluigi debuted) of Wapeach, an "evil" counterpart to Peach which was ultimately scrapped. Under the model depicted in the comic, Wapeach would serve as a positron analogue.

Background on subatomic particles

At the atomic level, particle interactions may involve the bulky nucleons (protons and neutrons, these being each a particular triumvirate of quark 'flavors'), electrons (smaller, charged fermions) and various others (such as neutrinos, also fermions, chargeless and often nearly massless). Sometimes other more exotic/fundamental particles (force-mediating or otherwise transient) are included.

Added within the standard model are the "antiparticles" that are oppositely charged (or built up of more fundamental antiparticles), and further issues have required extending this further through theories of supersymmetry which further adds counterparts that have alternate 'spin's.

The right-handed Daisy (Electron Neutrino) means that Daisy’s direction of spin (in subatomic terms, a measurement which does not now match that of the angular momentum in classical physics which inspired its naming) is the same as the direction of motion. A left-handed Daisy (Electron Neutrino) would have the opposite value.

Certain current understandings of the process require that the electron neutrino be an antineutrino, but antineutrinos have not so far been sufficiently confirmed to exist, with some theorising that a neutrino can be its own anti-particle (unlike the neutral neutron, composed of charged quarks, which has the similarly neutral antineutron, composed of oppositely charged antiquarks).

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[List of characters with their heads on the left side and particles with their depictions on the right side.]

Mario : Proton

Luigi : Neutron

Wario : Antiproton

Waluigi : Antineutron

Peach : Electron

Daisy : Electron neutrino

Free Luigi decay:

[An illustration of Luigi → Mario + Peach + Daisy (shown with the characters' heads).]

[Label below Daisy:] (Right-handed)

[Caption below the panel:]

The theory of Supersymmetric Mario Bros suggests that each fundamental particle has a Super Nintendo partner.

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Discussion

Ah, good, I was just about to tell people (on 2872's Talk page) that there was a new one... (And that we obviously need to prod the theusafBOT.) Currently, 2872: Hydrothermal Vents doesn't have the 'Next' links to here, but (from last comic's experience) it might just be a matter of nudging its server-side cache a bit. I'll try the tricks I tried yesterday. 141.101.99.101 20:08, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Too bad the franchise has never introduced a Weach character (there's a couple of witches). A game with Peach as the main protagonist would be interesting, and it would give us a convenient positron. 172.71.26.135 20:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

If they made Weach, people would start asking for Wowser. 108.162.245.202 21:53, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Isn't that just Bowyer? 172.70.131.37 21:59, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

There is a Princess Peach game, Super Princess Peach. 172.68.174.237 14:06, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

We're getting another next year (Princess Peach Showtime). Maybe we'll be seeing new physics? 172.70.105.143 13:04, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the mouse over text references mariokart? We know that Randall plays... 172.70.200.144 00:43, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely. It's directly referring to the track GCN Baby Park, found in Double Dash, MK8, and MK8DX. on the other hand, it also references The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (which is already included in the explanation) someone, i guess^{(talk i guess|le edit list)} 02:21, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Bot should be working again. —theusaf (talk) 19:19, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not that familiar with Mario or particle physics. What would the anti-Peach particle be? Bowsette? GreatWyrmGold (talk) 00:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm fairly well acquainted with particle physics but not at all with anything Mario (post Donkey Kong, at least). I wish now I'd formatted my own initial explanation with unordered-list (*) or tabular format of the referenced-particles side of this parody when I first visited (141.101.99.101, 20:08, 27 December 2023) rather than the current stop-gap version, but would naturally want to have columns/continuation for the Marioland characters (of which I know too little, only that they exist and that Mario's evil 'twin' is Wario at some much later point in the franchise). Can we perhaps knock it into shape, or are too many editors on Christmas break/distracted by RL? I can still reformat it into a table, but I have less idea what the Mario columns need to leave space for than the other bits... 172.69.194.14 12:37, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Clearly, he's referencing Wapeach. --162.158.74.118 10:35, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd suggest to prefix the explanation by explaining what a "Super Nintendo" is. I had to look it up in the other wiki to figure that the SNES (which I'm only familiar with by name) actually stands for "Super Nintendo". Ralfoide (talk) 15:09, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Wow. In USA in the 90s, nobody said "SNES", they all said "Super Nintendo", and all the ads called it that too.

When it comes to value, don't forget! Super Nintendo Super Set!

172.69.6.107 23:34, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Far out in the reaches of Zelda we find the legendary Tom Brier rendering a Zelda theme on the piano. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dvF-Z7vPK0 172.71.26.127 16:03, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, Electron Capture "is a process in which the proton-rich nucleus of an electrically neutral atom absorbs an inner atomic electron, usually from the K or L electron shells. This process thereby changes a nuclear proton to a neutron and simultaneously causes the emission of an electron neutrino." Does this mean Bowser is an unstable amalgamation of Marios and Luigis? Maybe all of the Marios And Luigis that failed to reach the castle become part of Bowser. And since he is made of them that is why he is obsessed with capturing Peaach. Does he release Daisy whenever he captures Peach? 162.158.18.28 16:10, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if there's significance to the "Γ" on Waluigi's hat being mirrored, or if that's just an error. Right now it's a rotated L, when it should be a vertically flipped L (or an upper-case gamma, which complicates things further). 172.70.46.84 23:31, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I was about to dispute this claim, but then i searched Waluigi and learned this is correct. maybe it's a mandela effect, like the O in Wint-O-Green. someone, i guess^{(talk i guess|le edit list)} 23:35, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

You didn't know lifesavers were "Wint-O-Green" instead of wintergreen? - 172.69.6.107 09:33, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Clearly, someone hasn't read What If? 2, Chapter 46: Candy Crush Lightning.

(...) but the old Wint-O-Green flavor* of Life Savers candies (...)

* Which has apparently been spelled like that all along and I never noticed until now. I guess the O in Wint-O-Green is like the a in Berenstain Bears.

someone, i guess^{(talk i guess|le edit list)} 21:21, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the bit where it's claimed we don't see Luigi alone games because it would spontaneously decay into Mario, the truth is that there actually are a few Luigi alone games, it's a series of games called Luigi's Mansion. Can I remove that bit? 172.69.90.140 08:42, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Just added that bit --172.69.71.140 14:57, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

There seems to be some questions about the handedness of the Daisy particle spin, so here's my question as I have never played the game (nor do I have any particularly good knowledge of particle physics): In Mario Cart, after a collision between two players, which direction do the characters and their carts rotate? Is there a correlation? --198.41.242.208 09:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Fun fact: Colonel Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) from SG-1 called Neutrinos "Nintendos" once. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 09:58, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Blue shells are the Z force, i presume? GetPunnedOn (talk) 21:35, 19 February 2024 (UTC)