NATURALLY SPEAKING: The Naturalness Criterion and Physics at the LHC

Almost every branch of science has its own version of the “naturalness criterion”. In environmental sciences, it refers to the degree to which an area is pristine, free from human influence, and characterized by native species [2]. In mathematics, its meaning is associated with the intuitiveness of certain fundamental concepts, viewed as an intrinsic part of our thinking [3]. One can find the use of naturalness criterions in computer science (as a measure of adaptability), in agriculture (as an acceptable level of product manipulation), in linguistics (as translation quality assessment of sentences that do not reflect the natural and idiomatic forms of the receptor language). But certainly nowhere else but in particle physics has the mutable concept of naturalness taken a form which has become so influential in the development of the field.