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CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

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Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#91

Post by 9OzUIvDwF4LvfUM »

Faaak wrote: post #74
blueblisters wrote: post #4

> It could be a hard sell, especially as the new collider wouldn’t have as clear a goal as the LHC did. However, particle physics and the Standard Model are at a place where the application of science is needed to validate theories. I mean I understand the need to keep pushing the boundaries of fundamental physics, but how long do you justify such spending on a single project? That same money could possibly be pumped…

Meanwhile, US's DOD budget in 2020 is 718 billion dollars.. So yeah..

That isn't relevant. CERN isn't a US government project and the US doesn't provide funding. The cumulative budgets of the EDA member states €223 billion in 2018[1].

[1] https://www.eda.europa.eu/docs/default-source/brochures/eda-...

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#92

Post by jojobas »

kashyapc wrote: post #77

I'd guess Prof. Sabine Hossenfelder (herself a physicist, and a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies) must be pretty annoyed, to put it politely. She posits that a lot of current physicists are working with outdated notions of "beauty": (quote) But if it’s clear that putting forward new hypotheses just because they are beautiful doesn’t mean they’re likely to be right, then why do theorists…

>has demonstrably not worked for 40 years

The beauty of Standard Model was affirmed with finding Higgs Boson mere 8 years ago, what is she getting at?

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#93

Post by BurnGpuBurn »

cosmic_quanta wrote: post #44
f00zz wrote: post #17

Honest question, what are some engineering spin-offs that could come out of this? I'm asking because I'm reminded of a Peter Thiel interview where it's mentioned that, despite changing our view of the universe, no "real world" applications came out of the quark model discovered in the 1960s. This is different from a project like ITER, which is also hugely expensive but could be a game changer.

Here's a concrete example. Some of CERN detector technology has been spun-off as Quantum Detectors [ https://quantumdetectors.com/ ], which makes detectors for electron microscopy, x-ray scattering , and neutron detection I think. I've personally beta-tested their MerlinEM and it's pretty damn cool. It's very different from other technologies that already exist (e.g. Gatan detectors). You can read out images at extre…

Understandably if you build a 15B$ machine, your engineers will come up with some clever stuff. The tech you mention is likewise tech that was developed to build the detector. I think he means to ask about actual physics we learned doing LHC experiments, that actually have a tangible real world application.

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#94

Post by nix23 »

kashyapc wrote: post #77

I'd guess Prof. Sabine Hossenfelder (herself a physicist, and a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies) must be pretty annoyed, to put it politely. She posits that a lot of current physicists are working with outdated notions of "beauty": (quote) But if it’s clear that putting forward new hypotheses just because they are beautiful doesn’t mean they’re likely to be right, then why do theorists…

I know her book, and i think quantum theory is NOT beautiful nor is the string/M-Theory beautiful, she's for sure is partially right because everyone want's to find a Einstein equation, but she also has a big blind spot for the dirty stuff that is the quantum-theory.

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#95

Post by jrvidal »

sandworm101 wrote: post #49
yiyus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The LHC has not been a failure. First you complain about the lack of experimentation, then you complain when they perform experiments. It is normal in science to formulate a theory, design an experiment, and then having to discard the theory in view of the experimental results. That's the scientific method, and that's what has happened with SUSY (kind of). You also claim the goal of new collider is to validate SUSY,…

The goal of every top-tier collider is new physics, that greater understanding that progresses mankind. What did the previous collider discover? It certainly validated current theories, but did it create anything new? If it did, why do we yet need a new one? If there is new physics to study let us keep the experiment going as is to study that for a generation or two. If there is no new physics from the last experimen…

> The goal of every top-tier collider is new physics

I would argue that the goal of a top-tier collider is to go to new energy ranges, plain and simple. Absence of new phenomena is gained knowledge, albeit a bit boring, but still.

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#97

Post by cygx »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #88
Faaak wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, US's DOD budget in 2020 is 718 billion dollars.. So yeah..

The fact that a huge amount of money is wasted in one area doesn't justify wasting a smaller amount somewhere else.

But it puts things into perspective. Humanity blows crazy amounts of money on war, entertainment, advertising and the financial industry, within a system where something like two dozen individuals can (collectively) amass trillions of dollars of personal wealth. But $20 billion for fundamental science, spread out among 23 comparatively wealthy nations is too much?

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#98

Post by aronpye »

simion314 wrote: post #78
aronpye wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m well aware of the differences between particle physics and climatology. My point, which you have just made the logical fallacy of straw manning, still stands. Scientists of all fields have commented on climate change, Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox, Neil Degrasse Tyson have all opined in climate change, yet also advocate for vanity projects such as the large hadron collider.

Do you think that some scientist if you give him a ton of money can invent a cheap way of removing Carbon from air? The solution is much more simple, stop putting Carbon in the atmosphere, this is something society needs to solve not scientists. Think it live Bob is throwing shit in the river and you blame scientists that they can't invent something to clean the water that is cheap. We could build modern nuclear reac…

In order to stop pollution we need to invest money in an alternative, you simply can’t stop the economy to prevent pollution, Covid-19 style, forever and expect society not to regress to pre-industrial revolution. Hence, in order to fund an alternative you need the funds to fund an alternative, which necessitates not spending limited tax payer dollars on limited impact science experiments.

From my comment elsewhere: spending 20bn+ on lifting people out of poverty or combatting climate change is a much more worthy recipient of tax payer dollars

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#99

Post by BurnGpuBurn »

cygx wrote: post #70
GordonS wrote: post #51

Is someone able to ELI5 what the previous LHC actually achieved? (not a loaded question, I genuinely don't know)

The big one was the discovery of the Higgs boson, a missing piece of the so-called 'standard model' of particle physics, plus a bunch of other stuff (lack of evidence for super-symmetry so far, discovery of some tetra- and pentaquarks states, potentially some hints of physics beyond the standard model from B-meson decays, ...). In large part, it 'merely' confirmed our current theories, disappointing people hoping for…

I must say, that is a pretty weak result given the humongous amount of money sunk into it. And all those new understandings have no real world implications except for how some smart people think reality works. I'd say, let's not repeat this massively expensive debacle and fund some more promising fields that may actually solve some of the worlds problems.

I know this is not a popular opinion and I'm quite sure they'll build a bigger collider anyway. And after that, they'll build an even bigger one. And still a bigger one after that.

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#100

Post by simion314 »

aronpye wrote: post #98
simion314 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that some scientist if you give him a ton of money can invent a cheap way of removing Carbon from air? The solution is much more simple, stop putting Carbon in the atmosphere, this is something society needs to solve not scientists. Think it live Bob is throwing shit in the river and you blame scientists that they can't invent something to clean the water that is cheap. We could build modern nuclear reac…

In order to stop pollution we need to invest money in an alternative, you simply can’t stop the economy to prevent pollution, Covid-19 style, forever and expect society not to regress to pre-industrial revolution. Hence, in order to fund an alternative you need the funds to fund an alternative, which necessitates not spending limited tax payer dollars on limited impact science experiments. From my comment elsewhere:…

CERN invented the WWW, WWW lifted people from poverty like me that I work from a village in a third world country as a developer.

Maybe the super magnets,detectors, software, mathematics and who knows anti-mater or black holdes could also have a similar effect as WWW. There is a lot of money in he world that is pent in entertainment industry so make a carbon tax or invent some economic mumbo-jumbo to grab a percent from there and force electric car investments or fusion reactors. Take Apple money and should be enough

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