In this article, Nikhef researchers Sijbrand de Jong and Eric Laenen are interviewed about the Standard Model:
It is the most successful theory in physics, but after fifty years, the Standard Model needs to be shaken up. Physicists don’t know how yet. ‘As if we have to solve a crime where the murder weapon is missing.’
These are exciting times, says Sijbrand de Jong. For half a century, his branch of physics seemed little more than a fill-in-the-blank exercise, says the professor of experimental physics at Radboud University in Nijmegen. “In the late 1960s, the theory, the so-called Standard Model, was put in place. Theorists predicted the existence of new particles and we were allowed to confirm that. That’s different now. We know the Model teeters, but we have no idea where to look for the answer. We are completely in the dark. Now physics is getting fun again.”