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Please, don't build another Large Hadron Collider

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

#161

Post by threeseed »

samwillis wrote: post #15
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.

Anything that involves digging holes in the ground is enormously expensive. If you take house building as an example, 25-30% of the cost is the foundations - digging it out then filling them with concrete. It’s labour, fuel, and material, intensive work.

Also there is the wonderful element of surprise.

Sometimes when they dig into the ground they find something unpredictable e.g. contaminated soil which can result in a major cost blowout, a legal fight between government and contractor and then unplanned delays which further increases costs.

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

#162

Post by ChrisLomont »

black_puppydog wrote: post #27
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.

>Investing the same money in something that has a known and positive primary effect will produce the same amount of secondary benefits.

Except in reality you don't just get to take something like military money and just invest wherever you want. Military is something that can be funded politically for large sums. So the more likely choice is you get to fund military, with all the associated research and benefits, or you don't get those tax dollars to do anything with, or maybe just spend them on not science.

If it were possible to simply pour money into science/invention politically, then the budgets of NIH, NASA, etc., would not be as small as they are.

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

#163

Post by ncmncm »

waqf wrote: post #78
throw457 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we solve physics we solve everything if we solve fusion we have solved fusion.

If we solve fusion, surely we have a lot of cheap energy (and attendant economic output) to throw at solving physics?

No. It would cost far, far more to extract useful energy from fusion than using well-understood renewables.

And, we control plenty of energy. The project is to concentrate it in one spot.

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

#164

Post by kelnos »

Havoc wrote: post #100
gonzo41 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the cost though, you should probably fund a lot of other science. Climate change mitigation perhaps?

Doesn’t need to be either or. Money printers seem to work just fine

Current levels of inflation seem to suggest otherwise.

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

#165

Post by throwaway14356 »

The "who should decide" question i find the most interesting.

It's one of the rare setups where i lack thé arrogance to think my opinion would be relevant. (That said, if the goal was to burn the funds with minimal progress I couldn't imagine a better tool than the LHC BWANDO corporation.)

If the tax payer is to fund the effort perhaps their opinion should have some non-zero influence on the choice?

Im not entirely against theoretical efforts (which is like my opinion) but to alienate clearly productive effort under some "let industries do it" banner seems several bridges to far. Maybe the other way around: let industries decide. would be less sensless.

useful things like wind solar wave tidal energy, clean water, agriculture etc all directly compete for the funds.

Wait, i know. Lets spend an insane amount of money to research what we should be funding. Im sure we can figure out howmany apples an orange is worth.

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

#166

Post by fnands »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #114
japanuspus wrote: post #73

As a low-energy quantum physicist, I completely agree: Experimental high-energy physics has become primarily an industrial subsidy scheme[1], and if we want the highest chance of reaching a grand unified theory, it seems the money would be much better spent elsewhere (cosmology, space-based observatories, research positions for young physicists without publish-or-perish incentives to run for the latest fad). The shor…

> Today we have detectors and computing power that let us observe the natural experiment of the universe with a precision and diligence that would be impossible when LHC was commissioned. Couldn't the LHC be upgraded then to take advantage of this? Sounds like a much cheaper option. But I'm not a physicist at all so I'm sure I'm oversimplifying.

The detectors on the LHC get upgraded regularly, between every run some part gets updated. Computing-wise as well, better computing resources are there.

The fundamental limitations isn't the detectors or computers, it's the energies you can reach with a collider of that size. Yes you can completely retool the LHC, which will probably allow you to do slightly better precision measurements, but won't strongly affect the energies you can probe.

To get to really high energies you need to build bigger. As a (former) particle physicist, I am also a bit sceptical if going bigger is better; the LHC was a calculated risk, with the goal of finding SUSY, which was a very plausible theory at the time.

The FCC seems to be a shot in the dark.

There is the argument that if we don't build a bigger one now we'll lose a lot of expertise, but that feels like a knee-jerk reaction from the community.

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

#167

Post by ncmncm »

xcambar wrote: post #55
moonchrome wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 would…

With this logic, I assume you'd call the ISS a useless project.

It is, really. At one time, it was the only place the shuttle could get to; and the shuttle was the only thing that could get people to it.

Literally the only thing they can do at ISS, not better done with robots, is study how human bodies are affected by exposure to high radiation and long-term weightlessness. Which we care about only because people would be so exposed in ISS-like cans.

Now they are pushing the "lunar gateway", that likewise has exactly one reason to exist: SLS could get there. And, it will be a place for SLS to get to. And, even more useless. A thing in high orbit around the moon is absolutely useless for any other purpose, whether you are heading for the moon or beyond it.

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

#168

Post by levi_n »

japanuspus wrote: post #73

As a low-energy quantum physicist, I completely agree: Experimental high-energy physics has become primarily an industrial subsidy scheme[1], and if we want the highest chance of reaching a grand unified theory, it seems the money would be much better spent elsewhere (cosmology, space-based observatories, research positions for young physicists without publish-or-perish incentives to run for the latest fad). The shor…

> ...than by handing that money to the old guard which has produced nothing of significance for the last two generations.

Genuine question from an ignorant layperson: was confirming the existence of the Higgs boson not significant?

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

#169

Post by xiphias2 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #123
musha68k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is so rich it can easily afford all of the great project ideas outlined in the article in addition to a new LHC (and then some). Let's think big indeed, the author unfortunately has a very reductive vision for the future. Instead how about: A renaissance of funding - BIG SCIENCE - education, jobs. That was basically the promise of the EU - peace through wealth - let's create some more. Let's bring back the exc…

I feel like the last renaissance of funding (BIG SCIENCE) was the space race. Let's do that again. It was at least a lot more multi-disciplinary than an atom-smasher.

The Human Genome Project was a huge success. Being able to read the DNA cheaply got us a revolution in biotech (cancer therapies, gene therapies, mRNA delivery, and my favourite: partial / full cell reprogramming)

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

#170

Post by orbifold »

musha68k wrote: post #67
moonchrome wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 would…

Europe is so rich it can easily afford all of the great project ideas outlined in the article in addition to a new LHC (and then some). Let's think big indeed, the author unfortunately has a very reductive vision for the future. Instead how about: A renaissance of funding - BIG SCIENCE - education, jobs. That was basically the promise of the EU - peace through wealth - let's create some more. Let's bring back the exc…

Europe has an aging population, which is obese, smokes and has heart problems. It is a dying continent whose boomer generation has decided to transfer large amounts of IP to China for a short term profit, while refusing to have children, protesting against the establishment and being generally useless in their youth.

The millennials and gen-z is royally screwed, the writing has been on the walls for years.

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