Real-Life Decision Making
If you like making tough decisions, then you should consider a career in
particle physics.
"Every decision is tough" for a particle physicist, says Douglas Beder.
These scientists design new pieces of experimental equipment and may work
on projects worth more than $100 million. Since some of these projects have
2,000 people working on them, many of the decisions are made as a team.
As the physicists run experiments, the resulting data may occupy hundreds
or even thousands of large disks or tapes. An experiment may include more
than 100 million individual collisions by the time it's finished, and
the physicist collects data on every one of them for later analysis.
You're a particle physicist, and you're studying the fundamental
interactions of matter. The key interaction being tested is the "electro-weak"
interaction, which is one of the four big interactions between particles.
About 300 people are working on various aspects of this multimillion-dollar
project.
As you analyze the data, you discover a new particle at a certain mass,
which is something totally unexpected and doesn't fit into the current
model and theory of particle physics.
So, you run the test again, with the same results. You're totally
baffled. Your colleagues won't believe you've discovered a new particle
at that mass, when someone else should have seen it before.
Two other teams have been working on this same research for the past 15
years. They have published results of searches for this particle and have
not found it at that level. You know and respect the expertise of those team
members, and you don't understand why they didn't discover the particle.
Is this a mistake or a discovery?
If it's a mistake, you obviously don't want to publish a report
on it. You're new at this project, and you're slowly
building a reputation for yourself. You don't want to do anything to
destroy that. Then again, this may be a new particle that you've discovered.
This could be your one big chance for recognition.
You're working with a team of 300 physicists, and with that many people
working together, rumors have a way of leaking out. What if your peers hear
the rumor, go searching for the particle, and then claim your discovery for
their own?
"What usually gets done is, you ask two or three more people to independently
try to reproduce the same scientific analysis, only not talking to the person
who did the original one, and see if they come up with the same unusual and
unexpected results. Every once in a while they do," says Janis McKenna, a
particle physicist.
So, you ask three people to independently try to reproduce your results.
They do.
What do you do next?