Reasons to Panic about the Hierarchy Problem

This is intended to be kind of a sequel to one of my previous posts, which attempted to convey the vibes surrounding renormalization: the systematic ignorance of physics at small scales.

If you read the thing, you may recall that I justified renormalization with the argument that physics at different scales mostly don’t effect each other. Galileo’s pendulum wasn’t effected by quantum mechanics or the gravitational pull of Jupiter.

There is an outstanding problem in particle physics at the moment that, if not resolved, may send that whole philosophy down the toilet. The problem has been around for a while, but it has got a lot worse in the last two or three years, sending particle physics into a bit of a crisis.

A Little Patch of Spacetime

Recently there’s been a lot of buzz around the idea that the universe is a big simulation. The idea is pretty out there, right?

What if I was to tell you that us humans have been creating universes on computers, taking into account the most fundamental of physics, detailed to some of the smallest length scales that we understand? They’re not quite the size of our universe, or even something smaller like a planet, current computers would struggle somewhat. They’re only about 10 femtometers across, smaller than an atom. But it’s a start!

They’re called Lattice simulations, and belong to a subgenre of particle physics called Lattice Gauge Theory.