[cabinpark]

I'd love to see new physics! Every physicist I know loves new physics.

But if you claim to violate the conversation of momentum, everyone is going to be skeptical and not believe it. We have hundreds of years of experiments and observations that support the law and have looked in many places from small to large and not seen violations. This is what makes people not believe it and thus physicists are going to assume you are wrong and not physics. It's not so much a negative concern, but more of a practical one. But should it be tested in a rigorous manner and reproduced, then physicists will believe it. It's just it hasn't and thus we are going to stick with the established very well understood and tested theory. Like are you sure you have properly counted all the initial momentum? Are you 100% you are not introducing energy to the system? The possible explanations is long and a good experiment will eliminate as many of these as possible.

As an example, look at the OPERA experiment which found to have superluminal signals. New physics? Nope, just a faulty piece of equipment. BICEP showing gravitational waves? Nope, just poor data interpretation and neglecting interstellar dust. So if you want to claim new physics, be damned sure you have ironclad proof.

[ttctciyf]

> Every physicist I know loves new physics.

If physicists don't want new physics, they should stop doing research!

[javert]

Only as long as the new physics is in your little sphere of influence so you can keep the grant money gravy train flowing. Presumably.

[javert]

That makes sense, but that's not how I interpret "nobody wants to see new physics" in the ancestor comment. (But who knows.)

I mean, wouldn't it be really frustrating to find out the law of conservation of momentum is not universal? Exciting, but also frustrating? Maybe even embarassing for physics? It would be like someone proving P=NP.