---
title: "Physicists Explain Puzzling Particle Collisions"
description: "An anomaly spotted at the Large Hadron Collider has prompted scientists to reconsider a mathematical description of the underlying physics."
date: "2014-12-11"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Christine Doan"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/christine_doan"
url: "https://futurism.com/physicists-explain-puzzling-particle-collisions"
categories:
  - "Physics"
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "physics"
---

# Physicists Explain Puzzling Particle Collisions

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/lhcbexperime.jpg>)

- Composite subatomic structures created by powerful collisions of protons have fallen apart in unexpected ways within a detector in the Large Hadron Collider called LHCb
- Experiments using the LHCb detector see a skewed muon-to-electron decay ratio lower than expected by 25 percent. Anomalies of this kind point to "new physics," details of the fundamental forces of nature that remain to be worked out
- These are extremely rare events; just one in 100 million beauty mesons decay in this way, though the collider produces billions. Only this one detector has seen the anomaly.