...Cristina Lazzeroni of the University of Birmingham in the UK and her colleagues have now established, experimentally observed, and measured the decay of a charged kaon particle into a charged pion and a neutrino-antineutrino pair.

Feel free to actually read the article if more clarification is needed.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

experimentally observed - yes this is the crux of the philosophical issue that makes me unable to sleep. Real or an illusion of something else altogether

Do the things we measure are real or are just the symptoms

[–] just_another_person 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

When you're dealing with particle physics, unless I'm mistaken, the term "experimentally observed" means "non-wild" or "controlled environment observation" and is interchangeable with "observed" as in non-particle physics.

Humans can't physically observe subatomic particles, nor can we (at current) capture real-time video or anything of them. We observe the measurements and math from designed and run experientns, and present the finding we make on those events. I'm not sure we'll have any kind of technology to catch an observation in the wild in our lifetimes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So… are these things real?

[–] just_another_person 1 points 2 months ago

Well the things themselves are real. What they e just observed about them changing states is the new part. They will present their findings, wait for peer review, and we'll see if what they observed checks out.