Physics Tweak Solves Five of the Biggest Problems in One Go
27th October 2016
It’s not a bad day at work. Five of the biggest fundamental problems in physics seem sorted in one go. The model that can do this, formulated by Guillermo Ballesteros at the University of Paris-Saclay in France and his colleagues, may explain dark matter, neutrino oscillations, baryogenesis, inflation and the strong CP problem.
Dubbed SMASH, the model is based on the standard model of particle physics, but has a few bits tacked on. The standard model is a collection of particles and forces that describes the building blocks of the universe. Although it has passed every test thrown at it, it can’t explain some phenomena.