I’ll start with the disclaimer that my knowledge of Particle Physics is pretty limited and there are many great threads, blogs, and articles on Twitter and elsewhere from folks who have lived this field for decades.

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The only point I want to make is that the Standard Model of Particle Physics which you might find quoted as being violated or insufficient has always been an ad hoc model in search of a unifying theory.

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These results bring us no closer to the unifying theory.

However, it’s surprising that such a simple model has survived for so long. At its very essence the SM is a way of classifying particles.

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The next layer added to it is how they interact. There are so many questions which the SM doesn’t answer, nor does it claim to.

Like, why do neutrinos have mass? Why can neutrinos switch flavors?

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Answering those questions will not negate the SM. It will augment.

Be careful about the terminology that you’ll come across when you read articles on the probable detection of the fifth force.

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