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Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

bigthink.com

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Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#21

Post by yieldcrv »

mehrdada wrote: post #11

Cannot disagree more. "Making a car is expensive, so let's not do that to explore 1000 miles out. Let's just have 1000 people walk one mile and explore." Simply ridiculous comparison. But sure, let's find a way to build/experiment LHC++ less expensively. What's concerning to me, however, is the attitude towards curiosity that this article exhibits. They should rename their domain to smallthink.com.

My immediate skepticism is whether there is a dollar limit to your perspective

$100,000,000,000 with afterthought of “sure lets see if we can do it less expensively *since its sooo annoying to some people”? Where is the line for you currently?

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#22

Post by Ekaros »

rvieira wrote: post #9

Driven by this post, out of curiosity I started looking at the price tag of some mega-projects around the world. Interestingly, the most expensive ones are almost always highway systems. Can someone briefly explain why? I'm my naive view it's mostly asphalt and terrain work.

These projects are also big in length and width. So just volume and area is considerable compared to buildings.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#23

Post by bjornsing »

I fully agree. I’d even go one step further: don’t spend that 100 billion on physics at all. That’s taxpayer money that actually can be spent on feeding the hungry. That’s the humane thing to do, and I bet a much better investment in science too, since those hungry will have a chance to become scientists.

PS. I have a masters in engineering physics and several friends who are physicists. I’m also a science nerd. But I still think this is the right thing to do.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#24

Post by popinman322 »

The LHC's development produced a number of new technologies (e.g. radiation resistant microcontrollers, and gas electron multipliers). Could the next generation produce more, valuable tech?

I also don't have the expertise to tell whether the article is being overly reductive with the project's goals: are there other questions (besides new particles) that can only be answered with a larger collider? The summary of the FCC (Future Circular Collider) project's goals indicates that yes, there are unresolved questions that the FCC will address[0].

[0]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-019-69...

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#26

Post by moonchrome »

mehrdada wrote: post #11

Cannot disagree more. "Making a car is expensive, so let's not do that to explore 1000 miles out. Let's just have 1000 people walk one mile and explore." Simply ridiculous comparison. But sure, let's find a way to build/experiment LHC++ less expensively. What's concerning to me, however, is the attitude towards curiosity that this article exhibits. They should rename their domain to smallthink.com.

Your analogy is fundamentally flawed.

More realistically : we can only build one car in the entire world, where a tiny minority of people can even understand the potential benefit, and anything they see will be completely useless for everyone else in day to day life because we need a civilisation level effort to even detect the implications of their theory. If their theory had some real world implications - you wouldn't need this car.

And this is expected to be funded by everyone. It's the modern equivalent of building pyramids.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#27

Post by black_puppydog »

popinman322 wrote: post #24

The LHC's development produced a number of new technologies (e.g. radiation resistant microcontrollers, and gas electron multipliers). Could the next generation produce more, valuable tech? I also don't have the expertise to tell whether the article is being overly reductive with the project's goals: are there other questions (besides new particles) that can only be answered with a larger collider? The summary of the…

I see the same argument (secondary innovations) being made for war-time/military research. But I don't buy it there, and I don't buy it here.

Investing the same money in something that has a known and positive primary effect will produce the same amount of secondary benefits. So if you can think of something more fruitful to do with these 100B, do that; the secondary benefits will keep coming anyhow.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#28

Post by rlpb »

My understanding is that most (or at least many) very significant scientific discoveries were serendipitous. They were discovered while looking for something else. So statements like "When you don’t have much to go on, and limited resources, it’s better to aim at problems that you know are out there. Those things will lead you to new discoveries." don't make sense to me.

I'd find this article and its opinion more credible if it could point out how this didn't apply to the LHC. Was every discovery and technology that came out of the LHC predicted in advance? If not, then this argument fails.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#29

Post by Avalaxy »

bsnal wrote: post #18
mschuster91 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim that we need to "invest into science" is outright bullshit. We don't need more investment into climate change science - we already know what to do to mitigate climate change and we have known it for decades (hell there is an article from over a hundred years ago that warns of the dangers of CO2 emissions [2]): ban ICE vehicles and coal power plants, promote public transit, massively restrict other uses of f…

Ban ICE vehicles, coal power plants and get rid of mass animal farming? And then we do what, go back to the caves?

There are good alternatives to all these things.

Re: Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

#30

Post by rvieira »

julienreszka wrote: post #12
rvieira wrote: post #9

Driven by this post, out of curiosity I started looking at the price tag of some mega-projects around the world. Interestingly, the most expensive ones are almost always highway systems. Can someone briefly explain why? I'm my naive view it's mostly asphalt and terrain work.

Highway systems are expensive projects because they require a lot of land, they are very labor intensive, and they require a lot of materials.

Ah, yes. I forgot the "detail" of land purchasing/compensations...
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