Interesting. Quick, what's the correct response to the statement: "the standard model is wrong"? Generally, it's "it's not". Maybe it will be some day wrong, but glad to know it still holds.
So if the standard model is wrong, long live the right standard model. At least, perhaps until it takes a completely new paradigm to go further.
People say stupid things. It’s a bit silly to blame that on the model.
Ask five random physics professors, insist on an answer while declining to answer questions for clarification. I guarantee you get at least two answers, maybe three (that's assuming you manage to get an answer from each...). See also people giving various possible answers on physics stack exchange...
SM is not fully developed. And we know where it is wrong or painfully silent, e.g. neutrinos and gravity. But it’s a rigorous theory, possibly the most rigorous our species has ever developed, with central tenets that have held to ridiculous levels of precision. Of course there are conflicting hypotheses at its frontier. That’s sort of what defines the frontier. But at its core, the SM is robust. So robust that we mostly don’t talk about it, obsessing—as science should—with the parts where it doesn’t fit together as perfectly.
Maybe it can evolve forever to accommodate new results (e.g. by adding new fields), likely it can't (it's hard to imagine a reasonable modification for breaking CPT symmetry, not that this is the best example). If at any point noone can figure out how to evolve it before a radically different theory emerges to explain current discrepancies, we'll have what Kuhn might call a "paradigm shift", say "the standard model is falsified", and invent a different name for the new theory. I even included this possibility in my original comment, so I'm not sure what gave you offense...
That's completely unrelated to any given instance of this evolution being falsifiable. Each of them is, they stick around for a while and there aren't that many. All very proper, Popper is happy.
Meanwhile, string theory hasn't produced a single prediction that was later observed experimentally and one can even argue whether it has produced any predictions at all...
The standard model per se is not materially evolving. We're bolting extensions onto it. And there is disagreement over what those extensions mean, whether they're true, and what free parameters they may add.
> Maybe it can evolve forever to accommodate new results (e.g. by adding new fields)
The Higgs field was the last field to have been "added" to the model. Its existence wasn't prompted by experimentation, but vice versa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_formulation_of_th...
I'm not sure what you mean... I'm not asking anyone to focus on anything?!
The answers I linked suggest several different numbers, e.g. 19, 25, 26, I've heard people suggest adding even more "non-Higgs caused masses" since "neutrinos have those and you should add all parameters you can't find theoretical reasons to rule out"...)
But there is no actual ambiguity. 19 in the original formulation. 26 with the PMNS bolt-on. Other numbers with other bolt-ons. The argument is over the extensions.
I still think my original comment, which seems to have given you offense for some reason, was completely appropriate. "The standard model" means "state of the art particle physics without highly speculative stuff", at least until we have a paradigm shift.
Why? The last time we got relativity and quantum mechanics which completely upended our standard of living and technological progress in the 20th century. Wouldn’t you be excited for finding out exactly how the current model is wrong and a better more accurate explanation for the workings of the universe?
But sure, a replacement model has to account for a lot of observations we know do hold for the SM, but I think it'll be closer to how the heliocentric simplified and improved on the Ptolemaic model by providing a simpler perspective that also simplified the math & got rid of various math constructs as "illusions". Similarly, it took time for the heliocentric model to be developed enough to make predictions of higher accuracy because for a long time the Ptolemaic model had much finer prediction powers because the math & supporting data to tune constants was more mature.
I think the SM of particle physics is more likely to follow that path to fix the known problems than how special relativity degrades to Newtonian equations at non-relativistic speeds.
or
Granted, but good luck trying to find a new model that matches the tested predictions QM/SM makes, AND reveals new physics you can hope to test.