The end of the Standard Model?

JWST, the epitome of technology accomplishments by humans has been churning out data ever since it stabilized at L2. And now, it looks like it may upend the Standard Model (1). It is about time. Physicists were getting lazy fine-tuning parameters in an apparently incorrect model and now, they can start over. There was a plethora of symptoms before, but most have been explained away by finer and finer measurements of unknown uncertainty. Statistics can predict and prove but never explain anything.

When a theory gets dominated by engineering, that is — scientists get excited about the precision of measurements, it is likely nearing its useful life. Because JWST is peaking into regimes that were not in the theory to start with, it has found fascinating data that will shelve the theory. Here is one of the rare instances when engineers caused immense grief to scientists, not by design but by accident. The instrument the engineers built and launched to confirm 100 years of precise calculations by scientists has destroyed the model they have been using, one that was invented not by data but by imagination.

This is a useful notion for budding scientists and engineers. The former should not get too attached to a theory as it will be replaced in the future and the latter should not simply adhere to what the scientists want to measure as such measurements are simply a waste of time. It certainly manufactures PhDs and university professors but not much else. The fine dance between engineers and scientists has to get chaotic by the scientists asking for what they do not yet know and the engineers building without knowing what is to be found.

Humans may be in a perpetual discovery cycle. The simulator simply chuckles.

(1) Cosmic Paradigm Shift: New Research Doubles Universe’s Age to 26.7 Billion Years (scitechdaily.com)