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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

#121

Post by vidarh »

dgellow wrote: post #20
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…

> That same money could possibly be pumped into more immediately useful "hard" applied problems like fusion reactors Interesting, I just checked the number for ITER (i.e: Europe's main fusion project), the project has been estimated at around €20-30 billion (with some pessimistic estimates from the US at around €60 billion for the completion of the reactor). And that's considered a VERY HIGH cost and has been the mai…

ITER's successor, DEMO is in planning, with a similar planned timeframe as this new collider... If we wanted to assign them to "generations", ITER should be compared against LHC.

ITER is considered very expensive exactly because nobody wants to spend all their money on one type of project, but in fact are concerned about ensuring their science funding is well rounded.

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

#122

Post by foxyv »

erk__ wrote: post #64
rubidium wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is CERN. They approved a study into building one. They exist to study these things. Take away the toys and the institution has a hard time justifying itself. This is mostly self preservation. In my opinion we should give the Lhc a 25 year leash and then give the whole super-high energy colliders thing a rest. Put the funding into other research areas in physics; the reductionists have had their turn :)

You should problably note that this collider is first planned to begin building around 30 years after the LHC was in put into operation. And it will probably take longer to build as well so put around 10 more years on that and you have 40 years after the LHC was put into operation.

So $23 billion over 40 years that would make it about 50 million a year. Just a few million more than what the US military spends on viagra.

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

#123

Post by techphys_91 »

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…

> If there is new physics to study let us keep the experiment going as is to study that for a generation or two.

The LHC was built between 1998 and 2008, but its design started in the 1980's. Many of the people who worked on the LHC at its early stages have either already retired, or will be expected to retire relatively soon. The FCC is still in its very early stages and similarly long timescales are predicted for its completion. Building and operating a huge, complex machine like this isn't something we can just stop for a generation or two and pick up where we left off. In my view, if we want to maintain the skills required to build these facilities we need to invest in new, large projects now.

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

#124

Post by at_a_remove »

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.

I recently posted a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_particle_discoveri... in another thread.

Go on and look at it. Cross off composite particles like Antihelium-4 and antihydrogen, just look for the timeline of newly verified particles by decade. Note that each was predicted far in advance of the actual verification. (As a side question, ask "What newly predicted fundamental particles are we attempting to verify the existence of here?" You will largely hear crickets.)

Now, examine each particle and ask if we use them in industry. We have had forty-five years for the tau lepton, just as an example. We're not using it. We're not going to use it.

I majored in physics. I say this not by way of lending authority to my argument, but to highlight that I "ought" to be one of the very people slavering for more high-energy physics. But I am not. I just do not think we are going to get more interesting physics out of slamming particles together at ever nearer approaches to c.

We might get some interesting engineering out of it, but we can get that by doing other things that have more application. We cannot spend a dollar twice; let's pursue multiple approaches to fusion. Or, if one is of a pure research bent, we ought to be looking for more clever ways to break our known models, rather than just scaling our current methods up into Bigger Baryon Bashers.

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

#125

Post by davrosthedalek »

mrfusion wrote: post #115
davrosthedalek wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly can, see AMS :)

What’s that?

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer: https://home.cern/science/experiments/ams https://ams.nasa.gov/

It's essentially a HEP-style(ish) particle detector, mounted on the ISS, to study cosmic rays.

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

#127

Post by davrosthedalek »

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…

That's the headliner so far, but LHC has produced an enormous amount of data. There are also some quite interesting findings for example from LHCb: Tetraquarks: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.11952 Lepton flavor violation: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.07287.pdf

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

#129

Post by chadcmulligan »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #50
mrfusion wrote: post #45

Has anyone considered a collider in space? It seems like you could have huge distances. And just let the particles fly in the vacuum between acceleration points?

If you want to store the beam, you need a ring. And the size of the ring is given by the minimum bending radius, which is given by maximum field strength you can achieve, and energy loss from bremsstrahlung in the bends, which you have to put back. So space doesn't really help: You'll still need a circle of magnets. Approximating the circle with a polygon means you split up a smaller circle with straight segments. Bu…

Could you bounce the beam backwards and forwards (in space) like a laser to build up the beam strength? It wouldn't weaken in a vacuum like on earth

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

#130

Post by rossvor »

aronpye wrote: post #86
sgift wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since LHC isn't a vanity project your whole argument breaks down. Also, climate change is largely not a topic for science, but for politics. Politicians know what to do, they just don't want to. No amount of science can fix this.

My point is, if it isn’t clear, is that scientists who think the world is being put in danger by climate change shouldn’t be requesting or otherwise accept money that would be better spent combatting said existential threat. To accept money on huge projects with no clear benefit to humanity when there are much more pressing matters at hand is either to deny those problems don’t exist or act with hypocrisy. P.S. spend…

Following your logic we should just give up spending any money on any non climate science. Science is what enabled us to lift billions out of poverty in the first place.
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