The top student must be diligent

"The physics community has achieved electroweak unification, but the understanding of strong interaction is very weak, so the research on strong force is also the focus of many research institutes. As for gravity... this thing is not within the scope of discussion."

"Like the QGP we are currently studying, it is actually quite successful. The only problem is that these are all high-energy situations, in other words, extreme situations, but the research on low-energy situations is relatively weak."

"Especially the problems related to entanglement and mass gap. I believe you are also familiar with the mass gap problem, which is one of the millennium mathematical problems."

Click on a computer, and as the screen lights up, a bunch of data and images appear on it.

"Here, these are the experimental data, all on the computer, you can see them at any time if you want."

"Well... these should be the data of p-Pb collision. QGP is generally produced by the collision of protons and heavy ions. You can take a look, but in addition to these, there are also pp collisions..."

Looking at these data, Xiao Yi's mind has begun to automatically think and analyze them.

For example, how are these data generated, and why are they generated?

Comparing these data with the standard model one by one, most of them can match, but there are still some small parts...

Xiao Yi narrowed his eyes, looked at some points that were particularly deviated from the distribution, and asked: "Why are these points so different from the other points?"

"These." Guo Ding said very normally: "Experimental errors, there will always be some erratic data, which may be noise, such as the Coulomb interaction between beams and the residual gas in the equipment, which will bring all kinds of sudden noise, which is normal."

"Is that so." Xiao Yi nodded to show his understanding.

Particle collisions need to maintain a vacuum state, but it is obviously impossible to create an absolute vacuum environment on Earth, and there are generally some gas molecules.

If it is residual gas molecules, when a collision occurs, it may indeed cause some very prominent noise.

Without thinking any more, he continued to look down, and at the same time took out a draft paper and a pen to calculate and analyze the data on these graphs.

Just like he studied the data of FeSe single-layer superconductors in the morning.

However, as time passed, he once again had a strange feeling in his heart.

Why...some of the errors here always make him feel that there are similar errors to those in the data this morning?

"There is a problem."

He said.

"Huh? What's wrong?" Guo Ding, who was doing a fluid mechanics simulation at the moment, asked in confusion when he heard Xiao Yi's words.

"Look at the data I calculated." Xiao Yi said: "Calculate them together, consider the errors, and the final result will be very strange, take a look."

Guo Ding looked for a long time, but still couldn't see anything. Suddenly, he felt a sense of déjà vu, and soon realized that this thing seemed to have happened in the morning.

He was immediately amused and said: "You also felt something was wrong in the morning, and now you feel something is wrong again. It is correct that physics is wrong. After all, it is not as rigorous as mathematics."

"Is that so?" Xiao Yi murmured.

He thought for a moment, then pointed to a group of images on the computer and said, "Look at this group of images. These data should be some W bosons and Z bosons generated in the process, right?"

"And there is this group... this group..."

"The generation rate of W and Z bosons seems to be much higher than expected."

"In addition, the most important thing is that in the calculation, according to the mass of W bosons predicted by the standard model, it is completely inconsistent with the result, unless we increase the mass of W bosons a little bit, um, about 0.1%, to make it match, don't you think?"

Guo Ding: ? ? ?

What do I think?

I just feel like my head is going to explode now.

Is he really a genius?

Ahem, mathematical genius is the default, but the question is, Xiao Yi is also a physics genius?

He can actually see these problems from these data?

Swallowing his saliva, Guo Ding finally said: "I...I'll call Academician Tang for you."

You are torturing me.

I really just want to be a salted fish!

Chapter 163 New Physics?

Finally, Academician Tang was called over by Guo Ding.

After arriving at the computer room, he asked with a smile: "Did Xiao Yi encounter any problems?"

"Uh..." Guo Ding nodded: "That's right."

What Xiao Yi asked was indeed a problem, right?

It's just... a little beyond the scope.

When he saw Tang Yifang, Xiao Yi once again took out the results he had just calculated and explained them.

After listening, Tang Yifang was stunned like Guo Ding just now.

After hesitating for a long time, he said: "It is equivalent to, you think the mass of the W boson predicted by the standard model has a large error?"

Xiao Yi nodded: "Probably."

"According to my calculation... at least more than 5 standard deviations."

"5 standard deviations?" Tang Yifang was stunned again, and then he stretched out his hand and said: "Let me see your calculation process."

Xiao Yi nodded, and then handed Tang Yifang the draft paper he used for calculation just now.

Tang Yifang started to read.

There is a criterion in high-energy physics called the 5σ criterion, which is widely considered to be the standard for judging whether a result is statistically significant. Among them, "σ" refers to the standard deviation in the normal distribution curve, indicating the degree to which the data deviates from the mean. .

For experiments whose results reach 5σ, it means that the results of this experiment are very likely not caused by statistical fluctuations or systematic errors, and are very likely caused by new physical phenomena that have not been discovered in a certain system.

It means... Xiao Yi may have discovered something that can subvert the world of physics!

Maybe even... maybe new physics!

But how is this possible? !

Tang Yifang had the same idea as Guo Ding.

Are you kidding me?

With disbelief, Tang Yifang began to watch Xiao Yi's calculation process carefully from beginning to end.

And soon, he squinted his eyes and discovered the problem.

"Wait...what method of handling errors are you using?"

"No... the error processing method you use is completely different from the processing of W boson data in other research institutes."

"In addition, you also need to explain the statistical methods you used and how you finally obtained these results."

He turned to look at Xiao Yi and asked, "If you can't explain the principles of these methods, you won't be able to convince the vast majority of people."

He thought he had found the key point of the problem, and he felt relieved.

That is to say, how could there be a problem with the mass of the W boson?

What's more, even if there was a problem, how could Xiao Yi be able to discover it just by counting a few moves?

However, after hearing Tang Yifang's question, Xiao Yi asked doubtfully: "Hasn't my method been used in the high-energy physics community?"

"As for this method, it should be quite easy to think of, right?"

Xiao Yi's rhetorical question immediately made Tang Yifang unable to deal with it.

What?

Is this method easy to think of?

Xiao Yi continued to explain at this time: "The first and most critical method is maximum likelihood estimation, in which I introduced an improved algorithm that can process high-dimensional data more effectively and ensure the accuracy of the results."

While talking, he pointed at the scratch paper and explained to Tang Yifang how he came up with these new methods.

"Then there is the Bayesian estimation method. You see here, I introduced another simpler prior distribution model, which makes the calculation of the posterior distribution more efficient and accurate. At the same time, I also used Mal in it. The Kov chain Monte Carlo method, which I have used in the absolute electronic calculation principle, has now been added to the processing of these experimental data.”

"Of course, these are just some minor improvements in statistical methods, as well as the error processing method you just mentioned. I mainly established an analysis framework here. This may be the key reason why you are unclear about this method."

"You see, here we first introduce an error matrix and represent all possible error sources as elements in the matrix. For these errors, we also need to divide them into controllable errors and uncontrollable errors. Controllable errors are those that can Errors are reduced through further calibration and experimental design, while uncontrollable errors are caused by natural randomness or external environmental factors.”

"Then it's a matrix decomposition. I mainly use two methods here. The first is singular value decomposition. By decomposing complex error sources into a set of independent components, the main error contributors can be identified. and quantify the impact of each factor.”

"In addition, there is a principal component analysis that helps us find the most significant error patterns in high-dimensional data."

"And then there's..."

In this way, Xiao Yi explained his data processing method to Tang Yifang from beginning to end.

Tang Yifang thinks that her mathematics is pretty good. Although it is still worse than those of pure mathematicians, it is still very good among physicists.

However, now facing Xiao Yi's very information-intensive method, he still became confused.

"... Of course, these results are limited to my paper calculations today, and my energy is limited. If more relevant experimental data can be extracted and processed uniformly, I think we can also make this accurate The speed will be improved a lot.”

After saying that, Xiao Yi felt a little dry in the mouth and looked around to see if there was any place to drink water. But at this time, Guo Ding appeared out of nowhere and handed him a glass of water: "Boss, please drink." water."

"Well……"

Xiao Yi glanced at him speechlessly, but he didn't talk nonsense. He took the water and took a sip, which slightly relieved the dryness in his throat.

Next to her, Tang Yifang, who was still staring at the draft paper, was still reviewing Xiao Yi's explanations just now in her mind.