<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/science/09PHYS.html> February 9, 2001 Single-Page Format Tiniest of Particles Pokes Big Hole in Physics Theory By JAMES GLANZ
UPTON, N.Y., Feb. 8 — New observations of subatomic particles do not appear to fit into the standard theories explaining the matter and forces that shape the universe, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory reported today.
The unexpected findings, made with a particle accelerator at the laboratory, may be the first glimpse of a previously unseen kind of matter. If the findings are confirmed, the heart of subatomic theory, called the Standard Model, will be "insufficient to describe our universe," said Dr. Thomas B. Kirk, Brookhaven's associate director for high energy and nuclear physics.
Though the results announced today throw cherished ideas into question, particle physicists have been waiting for such a development for years because it opens a door into new worlds of theory and experimentation.
The scientists, from a dozen institutions in Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States, cautioned in interviews and at a news conference here today that there was a slim chance the results were a statistical fluke and that the Standard Model, which has held up for 30 years, would remain unchallenged.
But they said the experiments, which involved painstaking measurements of about a billion rare particles called muons (pronounced MEW-ons), had so far determined with 99 percent probability that the accepted theory had been breached. They said they were already gathering and analyzing more data that could eliminate the one chance in a hundred that their results were a fluke. [Snip]