From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 06:50:20 MST
On Sun, Jan 06, 2002 at 12:55:16PM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> Does anyone on the list have enough physics knowledge to comment
> on *why* we need "axions" in the standard models? (Other than as
> explanations for cold dark matter -- which *we* know could be
> JBrains and MBrains in traveling in "silent running" mode :-) )
As far as I understand it, the axion is not needed, it is just the
nicest known solution to the CP problem for the strong force:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-ph/9807203
It doesn't strike me as a very convincing entity, but I'm not a
theoretical physicist.
In discussions like this we have to remember that there is a big
difference between what we want and how the universe actually works. The
universe *may* have life-friendly properties, or it may not. That we
fervently desire the first doesn't make it more likelier. And even if
the universe turns out to have some nasty properties making the future
of life finite, that is still not the end. There is meaning in the
finite too.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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