Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard?
The Large Hadron Collider hasn’t found any new physics.
大型强子对撞机尚未发现任何新的物理现象。
Now what?
现在怎么办？
Kristina Armitage/ Quanta Magazine
克里斯蒂娜·阿米蒂奇/广达杂志
I n July 2012, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe triumphantly announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, the long-sought linchpin of the subatomic world.
2012 年 7 月，欧洲大型强子对撞机 (LHC) 的物理学家胜利地宣布发现了希格斯玻色子，这是人们长期寻求的亚原子世界的关键。
Interacting with Higgs bosons imbues other elementary particles with mass, making them slow down enough to assemble into atoms, which then clump together to make everything else.
与希格斯玻色子的相互作用使其他基本粒子具有质量，使它们减速到足以组装成原子，然后原子聚集在一起形成其他一切。
A couple of months later, I took a job as the first staff reporter at the nascent science magazine that would become Quanta .
几个月后，我在一家新兴的科学杂志（后来成为《Quanta》）找到了第一位记者的工作。
Turns out I was starting on the physics beat just as the drama was picking up.
事实证明，当戏剧开始时，我就开始物理节拍了。
Columnist Natalie Wolchover asks particle physicists whether the field is facing a profound crisis.
专栏作家娜塔莉·沃尔乔弗询问粒子物理学家，该领域是否正面临深刻的危机。
The drama wasn’t about the Higgs particle; by the time it materialized at the LHC there was already little doubt about its existence.
这部戏剧与希格斯粒子无关，而是关于希格斯粒子。当它在大型强子对撞机上实现时，人们已经对它的存在毫无疑问了。
The Higgs was the last piece of the Standard Model of particle physics , the 1970s-era set of equations governing the 25 known elementary particles and their interactions.
希格斯粒子是粒子物理学标准模型的最后一个部分，该模型是 25 世纪 70 年代控制 25 种已知基本粒子及其相互作用的方程组。
More striking was what did not emerge from the data.
更引人注目的是数据中没有出现的内容。
Physicists had spent billions of euros building the 27-kilometer supercollider not only to confirm the Standard Model but also to supersede it by uncovering components of a more complete theory of nature.
物理学家花费数十亿欧元建造了这座 27 公里长的超级对撞机，不仅是为了证实标准模型，也是为了通过揭示更完整的自然理论的组成部分来取代它。
The Standard Model doesn’t include particles that could comprise dark matter, for instance.
例如，标准模型不包括可能构成暗物质的粒子。
It doesn’t explain why matter dominates over antimatter in the universe, or why the Big Bang happened in the first place.
它没有解释为什么宇宙中物质比反物质占主导地位，也没有解释为什么大爆炸首先发生。
Then there’s the inexplicably enormous disparity between the Higgs boson’s mass (which sets the physical scale of atoms) and the far higher mass-energy scale associated with quantum gravity, known as the Planck scale.
然后，希格斯玻色子的质量（决定原子的物理尺度）和与量子引力相关的更高的质能尺度（称为普朗克尺度）之间存在着难以解释的巨大差异。
The chasm between physical scales — atoms are vastly larger than the Planck scale — seems unstable and unnatural.
物理尺度之间的鸿沟——原子比普朗克尺度大得多——似乎不稳定且不自然。
In 1981, the great theorist Edward Witten thought of a solution for this “hierarchy problem”: Balance would be restored by the existence of additional elementary particles only slightly heavier than the Higgs boson.
1981年，伟大的理论家爱德华·维滕（Edward Witten）想到了解决这个“等级问题”的方法：通过存在仅比希格斯玻色子稍重的额外基本粒子来恢复平衡。
The LHC’s collisions should have been energetic enough to conjure them.
大型强子对撞机的碰撞应该有足够的能量来召唤它们。
But when protons raced both ways around the tunnel and crashed head-on, spraying debris into surrounding detectors, only the 25 particles of the Standard Model were observed.
但当质子绕着隧道双向奔跑并迎头相撞，将碎片喷射到周围的探测器中时，只观察到了标准模型中的 25 个粒子。
Nothing else showed up.
没有其他东西出现。
I n philosophy, “qualia” refers to the subjective qualities of our experience: what it’s like for Alice to see blue or for Bob to feel delighted.
在哲学中，“感受性”指的是我们体验的主观品质：爱丽丝看到蓝色或鲍勃感到高兴是什么感觉。
Qualia are “the ways things seem to us,” as the late philosopher Daniel Dennett put it.
正如已故哲学家丹尼尔·丹尼特所说，感受性是“事物在我们看来的方式”。
In these essays, our columnists follow their curiosity, and explore important but not necessarily answerable scientific questions.
在这些文章中，我们的专栏作家追随他们的好奇心，探索重要但不一定可以回答的科学问题。
The absence of any “new physics” — particles or forces beyond the known ones — fomented a crisis.
任何“新物理学”——超出已知粒子或力量的缺失——引发了一场危机。
“Of course, it is disappointing,” the particle physicist Mikhail Shifman told me that fall of 2012.
“当然，这令人失望，”粒子物理学家米哈伊尔·希夫曼 (Mikhail Shifman) 2012 年秋天告诉我。
“We’re not gods.
“我们不是神。
We’re not prophets.
我们不是先知。
In the absence of some guidance from experimental data, how do you guess something about nature?”
在没有实验数据指导的情况下，你如何猜测自然的某些事情？”
Once the standard reasoning about the hierarchy problem had been shown to be wrong, there was no telling where new physics might be found.
一旦关于层次结构问题的标准推理被证明是错误的，就无法知道在哪里可以找到新的物理学。
It could easily lie beyond the reach of experiments.
它很容易超出实验的范围。
The particle physicist Adam Falkowski predicted to me at the time that, without a way to search for heavier particles, the field would undergo a slow decay: “The number of jobs in particle physics will steadily decrease, and particle physicists will die out naturally.”
粒子物理学家 Adam Falkowski 当时向我预测，如果没有办法寻找更重的粒子，该领域将经历缓慢的衰退：“粒子物理学的工作数量将稳步减少，粒子物理学家将自然消亡。”
The crisis and its fallout made for years of interesting reporting , but sure enough, the frequency of news stories related to particle physics diminished.
这场危机及其后果多年来引起了有趣的报道，但可以肯定的是，与粒子物理相关的新闻报道的频率减少了。
I fell out of touch with sources.
我与消息来源失去了联系。
More than 13 years on, in this first column for Qualia, a new series of essays in Quanta Magazine , I’m taking stock.
13 年多过去了，在 Quanta 杂志的新系列文章 Qualia 的第一篇专栏中，我正在进行盘点。
Is particle physics dying, as Falkowski predicted?
正如法尔科夫斯基预测的那样，粒子物理学正在消亡吗？
Can new physics still be found?
新物理学还能被发现吗？
What’s the future for particle physicists?
粒子物理学家的未来是什么？
Will artificial intelligence help?
人工智能会有帮助吗？
How much hope is left in the search for answers to the many remaining mysteries of the universe?
寻找宇宙中许多未解之谜的答案还有多少希望？
Some particle physicists act as if there’s no crisis at all.
一些粒子物理学家表现得好像根本不存在危机。
The LHC is still running and will for at least another decade, and its operators are finding new sources of enthusiasm.
大型强子对撞机仍在运行，并将至少再运行十年，其运营商正在寻找新的热情来源。
In the last couple of years, data handling at the collider has improved with the use of AI.
在过去几年中，随着人工智能的使用，对撞机的数据处理得到了改善。
Pattern recognizers can sort through the outgoing debris of proton collisions and classify collision events more accurately than human-made algorithms can.
模式识别器可以对质子碰撞的输出碎片进行分类，并比人造算法更准确地对碰撞事件进行分类。
This helps the physicists to more accurately measure the “scattering amplitude,” essentially the probability that different particle interactions will occur.
这有助于物理学家更准确地测量“散射幅度”，本质上是不同粒子相互作用发生的概率。
For instance, AI systems can determine more precisely how many top quarks arise in the aftermath of collisions versus the number of bottom quarks.
例如，人工智能系统可以更准确地确定碰撞后产生的顶夸克数量与底夸克的数量。
Any statistical deviations from the predictions of the Standard Model could signify the involvement of unknown elementary particles.
任何与标准模型预测的统计偏差都可能意味着未知基本粒子的参与。
A proton-proton collision documented by the Compact Muon Solenoid at CERN in 2012 shows evidence of the decay of the Higgs boson.
2012 年欧洲核子研究中心的紧凑型介子螺线管记录的一次质子-质子碰撞显示了希格斯玻色子衰变的证据。
CMS Collaboration; Mc Cauley, Thomas
内容管理系统协作；托马斯·麦考利
Novel particles as hefty as Higgs bosons would not be so subtle; they would have shown up already as pronounced bumps on data plots.
像希格斯玻色子这样的新粒子不会那么微妙。它们已经在数据图上显示为明显的凸起。
But as Matt Strassler, a particle physicist affiliated with Harvard University, explained to me, the traces of lighter novel particles could still lie in so-called hidden valleys in the data.
但正如哈佛大学粒子物理学家马特·斯特拉斯勒（Matt Strassler）向我解释的那样，较轻的新粒子的痕迹仍然可能位于数据中所谓的隐藏山谷中。
“There’s a huge amount of unexplored territory there,” he said.
“那里有大量未开发的领域，”他说。
There might exist, for instance, an unstable type of dark matter particle that leaves its mark by occasionally arising and immediately decaying into an excessive number of muon-antimuon pairs.
例如，可能存在一种不稳定的暗物质粒子，它偶尔会产生并立即衰变成过多的μ子-反μ子对，从而留下痕迹。
Detecting such an excess would point indirectly to the unstable particle’s existence.
检测到这种过量将间接表明不稳定粒子的存在。
“For people who thought all the new physics is at high energies — they’re very disappointed right now,” Strassler said.
“对于那些认为所有新物理学都处于高能的人来说，他们现在非常失望，”斯特拉斯勒说。
“I don’t share that view.
“我不同意这种观点。
There are many opportunities for nature to provide clues at low energies.”
大自然有很多机会在低能量下提供线索。”
So far, though, no such indirect evidence of new physics has been detected.
但到目前为止，尚未发现新物理学的此类间接证据。
The more accurate the statistics have become at the LHC, the better they match the Standard Model.
大型强子对撞机的统计数据越准确，它们就越符合标准模型。
Michelangelo Mangano, a particle physicist at CERN, the laboratory that houses the LHC, said the collider today is like a tool for exploring the Standard Model’s predictions, and he considers this exploration worthwhile because not all consequences of the equations are easy to calculate.
大型强子对撞机所在实验室欧洲核子研究中心的粒子物理学家米开朗基罗·曼加诺表示，今天的对撞机就像是探索标准模型预测的工具，他认为这种探索是值得的，因为并非所有方程的结果都很容易计算。
The search for new physics beyond the Standard Model is ongoing, Mangano said, but “the fact that it’s not giving positive results does not mean we are stuck, dead, or wasting our time.”
曼加诺说，对标准模型之外的新物理学的探索仍在继续，但“它没有给出积极结果的事实并不意味着我们陷入困境、死亡或浪费时间。”
These questions are so fundamental that of course it’s worth nailing down every amplitude and checking every hidden valley, since we have the tool for the job.
这些问题是如此基本，当然值得确定每个振幅并检查每个隐藏的山谷，因为我们拥有完成这项工作的工具。
But for hunters of new physics, does the game end there?
但对于新物理的探索者来说，游戏就到此结束了吗？
The community wants to go bigger.
社区想要变得更大。
CERN physicists want to build a Future Circular Collider, tripling the circumference of the LHC with a 91-kilometer tunnel beneath the Franco-Swiss border, to both probe higher energies and look for subtler signals.
CERN 物理学家希望建造一台未来的圆形对撞机，将大型强子对撞机的周长增加三倍，并在法国和瑞士边境下方修建一条 91 公里长的隧道，以探测更高的能量并寻找更微妙的信号。
This FCC would initially collide electrons, which, unlike protons, are themselves elementary particles, with no substructure.
这种 FCC 最初会碰撞电子，与质子不同，电子本身就是基本粒子，没有子结构。
Their clean collisions would allow more precise measurements of scattering amplitudes, making the FCC ultrasensitive to indirect signs of new physics.
它们的干净碰撞将允许更精确地测量散射幅度，从而使 FCC 对新物理的间接迹象超级敏感。
By the end of the century, the mega-collider would be upgraded to collide protons, as the LHC does now.
到本世纪末，大型对撞机将升级为对撞质子，就像大型强子对撞机现在所做的那样。
Proton collisions are messier, but at the FCC they would achieve unprecedented energies — about seven times higher than the LHC can currently muster — so they have a chance, however slim, of revealing heavy particles beyond the LHC’s reach.
质子碰撞更加混乱，但在 FCC，它们将获得前所未有的能量——大约比大型强子对撞机目前所能聚集的能量高出七倍——因此它们有机会揭示大型强子对撞机无法触及的重粒子，无论多么渺茫。
(In theory, particle masses could range up to a million billion times greater than what the LHC energy scale can produce directly, so there’s no reason to expect them around the next bend.)
（从理论上讲，粒子质量的范围可能比大型强子对撞机能量尺度可以直接产生的粒子质量大一百万亿倍，因此没有理由期望它们会出现在下一个弯曲处。）
We’re not gods.
我们不是神。
We’re not prophets.
我们不是先知。
In the absence of some guidance from experimental data, how do you guess something about nature?
在缺乏实验数据指导的情况下，你如何猜测自然？
As of now, the FCC’s fate is unknown; formal approval and funding commitments by member countries won’t come before 2028.
截至目前，FCC 的命运仍不得而知。成员国不会在 2028 年之前获得正式批准和资金承诺。
Meanwhile, U.S. particle physicists are aiming to complement the European strategy by constructing a brand-new type of machine: a muon collider.
与此同时，美国粒子物理学家的目标是通过建造一种全新类型的机器：μ子对撞机来补充欧洲的战略。
Muons are elementary like electrons, but they’re 200 times heavier, so their collisions would be both clean and energetic (albeit not reaching the collision energies of the LHC).
μ 子与电子一样是基本元素，但它们的重量是电子的 200 倍，因此它们的碰撞既干净又充满能量（尽管没有达到大型强子对撞机的碰撞能量）。
Both the selling point and the challenge of this newfangled type of machine is that it will require major technical innovations (with all the spin-off potential that can bring), because muons are highly unstable.
这种新型机器的卖点和挑战都在于，它需要重大的技术创新（以及可能带来的所有副产品潜力），因为μ介子高度不稳定。
They must be accelerated and collided mere microseconds after they’re created.
它们必须在创建后仅仅几微秒内加速并碰撞。
Demonstrating the technology and then constructing the collider would take roughly 30 years, and that’s with federal funding.
展示这项技术然后建造对撞机大约需要 30 年的时间，而且这还是在联邦资助的情况下。
“We have to figure out how to do it in between 10 and 20 billion [dollars],” said Maria Spiropulu, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology and co-chair of the committee behind a national report endorsing a muon collider program that came out in June 2025.
“我们必须弄清楚如何在 10 到 200 亿美元之间做到这一点，”加州理工学院物理学教授、2025 年 6 月发布的支持介子对撞机计划的国家报告委员会联合主席玛丽亚·斯皮罗普鲁 (Maria Spiropulu) 说。
Over the coming years, the Department of Energy will weigh whether to fund the proposal rather than competing science projects.
未来几年，能源部将权衡是否资助该提案而不是竞争的科学项目。
What hurts its case is the lack of a “discovery guarantee,” which the LHC had with the Higgs boson.
对其案子不利的是缺乏大型强子对撞机对希格斯玻色子的“发现保证”。
Scientists and technicians inspected and upgraded systems at the Large Hadron Collider during the Long Shutdown 2, which began in 2018.
科学家和技术人员在 2018 年开始的 2 号长期停机期间检查并升级了大型强子对撞机的系统。
Then again, as the mathematical physicist Peter Woit mused on his blog , “Perhaps in our new world order where everything is controlled by trillionaire tech bros, the financing won’t be a problem.”
然而，正如数学物理学家彼得·沃伊特在他的博客上沉思的那样，“也许在我们的新世界秩序中，一切都由万亿富翁科技兄弟控制，融资不会成为问题。”
Deliberations about a Chinese supercollider have come to naught, I’m told.
有人告诉我，关于中国超级对撞机的讨论已经化为泡影。
Instead, China has decided to pursue a “super-tau-charm facility”: a lower-energy particle scattering experiment that would cost mere hundreds of millions of dollars instead of tens of billions.
相反，中国决定寻求“超级 tau 魅力设施”：一项低能粒子散射实验，成本仅为数亿美元，而不是数百亿美元。
The facility will produce a lot of tau particles and charm quarks, partly to study whether taus ever shape-shift into muons or electrons.
该设施将产生大量 tau 粒子和粲夸克，部分目的是研究 tau 是否会变形为 μ 子或电子。
This kind of switching isn’t predicted by the Standard Model, but it does happen in some theoretical extensions of it.
标准模型并未预测这种转换，但它确实在其某些理论扩展中发生。
Okay, we might as well check.
好吧，我们不妨检查一下。
We’re desperate for new physics, and the price is good.
我们迫切需要新的物理学，而且价格也不错。
But by definition it’s very difficult to know which shots in the dark are worth taking.
但根据定义，很难知道哪些在黑暗中拍摄值得拍摄。
Adam Falkowski, who sounded the death knell for particle physics back in 2012, used to be known for the sharp commentary he supplied on his blog Résonaances .
Adam Falkowski 早在 2012 年就敲响了粒子物理学的丧钟，他曾因其在博客 Résonaances 上提供的尖锐评论而闻名。
But the Paris-based particle physicist hasn’t posted anything since 2022.
但这位巴黎粒子物理学家自 2022 年以来就没有发布过任何内容。
He said that’s partly because he’s been tied up with fatherhood and partly because there hasn’t been much to say.
他说，部分是因为他一直与父亲的身份息息相关，部分是因为没什么可说的。
When we caught up on a video call, Falkowski told me, “I am very skeptical about future colliders.
当我们进行视频通话时，法尔科夫斯基告诉我，“我对未来的对撞机非常怀疑。
For me it’s very difficult to get excited about it.” He sees momentum behind CERN’s FCC campaign, but personally he worries about the huge costs and timescales, and the fact that “there are absolutely no hints that something is there within the reach of the next collider.”
对我来说，很难对此感到兴奋。”他看到了 CERN FCC 行动背后的动力，但他个人担心巨大的成本和时间跨度，以及“绝对没有任何迹象表明下一个对撞机的范围内有什么东西”。
For his part, Falkowski has turned to the theoretical study of scattering amplitudes, a growing research area focused on the geometric patterns underlying particle interaction statistics , patterns that could point toward a truer perspective on the quantum world.
就法尔科夫斯基而言，他转向了散射振幅的理论研究，这是一个不断发展的研究领域，重点关注粒子相互作用统计背后的几何模式，这些模式可能为量子世界提供更真实的视角。
The field seeks to reformulate the equations of particle physics in a different mathematical language in hopes that this language might extend to quantum gravity.
该领域试图用不同的数学语言重新表述粒子物理方程，希望这种语言可以扩展到量子引力。
“There is a very vibrant program in trying to understand the structure of the physical theories,” Falkowski said.
“有一个非常活跃的项目试图理解物理理论的结构，”法尔科夫斯基说。
“The hope is that with the help of machine learning, that there can be very fast progress in the coming years.
“希望在机器学习的帮助下，未来几年能够取得非常快的进展。
I think that’s where the best things have happened.”
我认为这就是最好的事情发生的地方。”
But amplitudeology, as this field is known, is abstract — it’s no atom-smashing experiment.
但振幅学，正如这个领域所熟知的那样，是抽象的——它不是原子粉碎实验。
Falkowski said he does think experimental particle physics is dying.
法尔科夫斯基说，他确实认为实验粒子物理学正在消亡。
He has watched talented postdocs switch to other research areas or take data science jobs.
他目睹了才华横溢的博士后转向其他研究领域或从事数据科学工作。
“I’m not sure they are getting the best of the best as they used to,” he said, “because the prospects of returns are so distant.
“我不确定他们是否能像以前那样获得最好的回报，”他说，“因为回报的前景是如此遥远。
If you want to change the world now, you will do AI; you will do something different from particle physics.”
如果你现在想改变世界，你就做AI；你会做一些与粒子物理学不同的事情。”
The ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector at the Large Hadron Collider was designed to study quark-gluon plasma.
大型强子对撞机的 ALICE（大型离子对撞机实验）探测器旨在研究夸克-胶子等离子体。
CERN, Julien Marius Ordan/Science Source
欧洲核子研究中心 (CERN)，朱利安·马吕斯·奥尔丹 (Julien Marius Ordan)/科学来源
This brain drain appears to be real.
这种人才流失似乎是真实存在的。
I spoke to Jared Kaplan, co-founder of Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude.
我采访了 Anthropic 的联合创始人 Jared Kaplan，该公司是聊天机器人 Claude 背后的公司。
He was a physicist the last time we spoke.
我们上次谈话时他是一位物理学家。
As a grad student at Harvard in the 2000s, he worked with the renowned theorist Nima Arkani-Hamed to open up the new directions in amplitude research that are being actively pursued today.
2000 年代，作为哈佛大学的研究生，他与著名理论家 Nima Arkani-Hamed 合作，开辟了当今正在积极追求的振幅研究的新方向。
But Kaplan left the field in 2019.
但卡普兰于 2019 年离开了这个领域。
“I started working on AI because it seemed plausible to me that …
“我开始研究人工智能，因为在我看来，......
AI was going to make progress faster than almost any field in science historically,” he said.
人工智能将比历史上几乎所有科学领域取得更快的进步，”他说。
AI would be “the most important thing to happen while we’re alive, maybe one of the most important things to happen in the history of science.
人工智能将是“我们活着时发生的最重要的事情，也许是科学史上发生的最重要的事情之一。
And so it seemed obvious that I should work on it.”
因此，我显然应该为此努力。”
As for the future of particle physics, AI makes worrying about it now rather pointless, in Kaplan’s view.
在卡普兰看来，至于粒子物理学的未来，人工智能让现在担心它变得毫无意义。
“I think that it’s kind of irrelevant what we plan on a 10-year timescale, because if we’re building a collider in 10 years, AI will be building the collider; humans won’t be building it.
“我认为这与我们 10 年的计划无关，因为如果我们在 10 年内建造一座对撞机，人工智能将建造对撞机；人类不会建造它。
I would give like a 50% chance that in two or three years, theoretical physicists will mostly be replaced with AI.
我认为在两三年内，理论物理学家将有 50% 的机会被人工智能取代。
Brilliant people like Nima Arkani-Hamed or Ed Witten, AI will be generating papers that are as good as their papers pretty autonomously.
像尼玛·阿卡尼·哈米德 (Nima Arkani-Hamed) 或埃德·维滕 (Ed Witten) 这样的杰出人士，人工智能将自主地生成与他们的论文一样好的论文。
…
……
So planning beyond this couple-year timescale isn’t really something I think about very much.”
因此，超出这几年时间范围的计划并不是我真正考虑的事情。”
Cari Cesarotti, a postdoctoral fellow in the theory group at CERN, is skeptical about that future.
欧洲核子研究组织理论小组的博士后研究员卡里·切萨罗蒂 (Cari Cesarotti) 对这一未来持怀疑态度。
She notices chatbots’ mistakes, and how they’ve become too much of a crutch for physics students.
她注意到聊天机器人的错误，以及它们如何成为物理学生的拐杖。
“AI is making people worse at physics,” she said.
“人工智能正在让人们在物理方面变得更差，”她说。
“What we need is humans to read textbooks and sit down and think of new solutions to the hierarchy problem.”
“我们需要的是人类阅读教科书，坐下来思考等级问题的新解决方案。”
Cesarotti was a high school junior when the Higgs boson was discovered.
希格斯玻色子被发现时，塞萨罗蒂还是一名高中生。
She grew up near Fermilab, the U.S. national lab in Illinois that houses the Tevatron, which was the world’s highest-energy particle collider before the LHC.
她在费米实验室附近长大，费米实验室是位于伊利诺伊州的美国国家实验室，里面设有 Tevatron，这是大型强子对撞机之前世界上能量最高的粒子对撞机。
(The top quark was discovered there in 1995.) This proximity taught her that a particle physicist was a thing you could be.
（1995 年在那里发现了顶夸克。）这种接近让她知道粒子物理学家是可以成为的。
Later, it turned out to be her thing.
后来发现，这就是她的事了。
“What are the fundamental building blocks of the universe — those were the questions that I was most interested in knowing the answer to,” she told me.
“宇宙的基本组成部分是什么——这些是我最想知道答案的问题，”她告诉我。
“But what people said was, ‘Particle physics is dead.
“但人们说的是，‘粒子物理学已经死了。
Don’t do this.’”
不要这样做。’”
It may have been a fair warning; Cesarotti has yet to land a permanent job as a rising particle physicist.
这可能是一个公平的警告；但事实并非如此。作为一名冉冉升起的粒子物理学家，塞萨罗蒂尚未找到一份永久工作。
The subfield has continued to shrink, she and others said, as faculty hiring committees and grad students go in other directions.
她和其他人表示，随着教师招聘委员会和研究生走向其他方向，这个子领域继续缩小。
“Definitely all this rhetoric that there was nothing to be found and you should give up on it — people listened,” she said.
“毫无疑问，所有这些说辞都没有找到，你应该放弃它——人们都听了，”她说。
“And of course that means there are fewer people.
“当然，这意味着人更少了。
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
它成为一个自我实现的预言。
If you’re pushing all these talented people out of trying to solve these problems into a field that it’s easier to make an impact on, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.”
如果你把所有这些有才华的人从试图解决这些问题的努力中赶出去，进入一个更容易产生影响的领域，那么你就注定会失败。”
Cesarotti echoed a sentiment I’d heard from others, which sounds correct to me as well: “Particle physics isn’t dead; it’s just hard.” It’s hard to know what to think about or look for.
塞萨罗蒂回应了我从其他人那里听到的一种观点，这对我来说也是正确的：“粒子物理学并没有消亡；它只是很难。”很难知道要思考什么或寻找什么。
But the most devoted particle physicists are thinking and looking all the same.
但最虔诚的粒子物理学家的想法和看法都是一样的。
“It was easy for 125 years,” Strassler said.
“这 125 年很容易，”斯特拉斯勒说。
“One thing led to the next.
“一件事导致了下一件事。
That lucky century has, for now, at least in the medium term, come to an end.
就目前而言，至少从中期来看，那个幸运的世纪已经结束。
That could change tomorrow, or next century, or who knows.”
这可能会在明天、下个世纪发生改变，谁知道呢。”
A hint of a new lightweight particle could, in theory, show up at the LHC, or in some other experiment.
理论上，大型强子对撞机或其他一些实验中可能会出现一种新的轻质粒子的迹象。
Strassler is particularly excited about the study of radioactive thorium-229 decay , which could reveal variations in the fundamental constants.
Strassler 对放射性钍 229 衰变的研究特别感兴趣，这可以揭示基本常数的变化。
I’m slightly partial to experiments looking for “axions,” dark matter candidates that are so lightweight that they can act a little like light itself.
我稍微偏向于寻找“轴子”的实验，这种暗物质候选物非常轻，以至于它们的行为有点像光本身。
On the theory side, an obvious solution to the hierarchy problem could drop naturally out of the geometry behind scattering amplitudes.
从理论上讲，层次问题的明显解决方案可以自然地脱离散射幅度背后的几何结构。
Or, if Kaplan is right, AI systems might someday suggest powerful new ideas for how the 25 particles of the Standard Model fit into a more comprehensive pattern — a possibility I didn’t foresee back when the crisis began.
或者，如果卡普兰是对的，人工智能系统有一天可能会提出强有力的新想法，说明标准模型的 25 个粒子如何适应更全面的模式——这种可能性是我在危机开始时没有预见到的。
Clearly, further progress toward the truth remains possible in particle physics.
显然，粒子物理学仍有可能朝着真理取得进一步进展。
But there’s no discovery guarantee.
但没有发现保证。
I’ve had more than 13 years to think about it, and it remains a disturbing prospect: All the empirical clues we can glean about nature’s fundamental laws and building blocks might already be in hand.
我已经用了超过 13 年的时间来思考这个问题，但它仍然是一个令人不安的前景：我们可以收集到的有关自然基本定律和构建模块的所有经验线索可能已经掌握在手。
The universe may plan on keeping the rest of its secrets.
宇宙可能计划保守其余的秘密。
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