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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

#201

Post by Georgelemental »

orbifold wrote: post #121
mhh__ wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that they are physicists and no one has actually been able to properly find an alternative to string theory isn't that what they're supposed to be doing? Isn't the main alternative LQG which is apparently a dead end?

In any case this is not how science works, you do theoretical physics by publishing in peer reviewed journals and your peers decide whether what you are doing is worthwhile or not. Both Smolin and Hossenfelder have been somewhat successful in doing so themselves, but Hossenfelder specifically didn’t manage to secure a professorship for various reasons and I am sure she has some axe to grind (again probably partially…

> you do theoretical physics by publishing in peer-reviewed journals and your peers decide whether what you are doing is worthwhile or not

No, science is not the act of publishing in a peer-reviewed journals, science is using past observations to make models that predict future observations, and then evaluating those models after making the future observations. Peer review is just the industry standard quality control mechanism.

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

#202

Post by PietdeVries »

concordDance wrote: post #137
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…

What's it currently doing with that money? I guess we could get rid of funding healthcare and trying to help people out of poverty so that a small number of people get to use a very expensive toy... You know what would be an awesome big science project that would immeasurably improve future people's lives? Sequencing all genes and using that data provide free embryo selection services to everyone who wants to be a pa…

Well... The US Defense budget for 2021 alone is 7 times the money needed to build a new LHC (705 billion [1] for the US defense in 2021). Germany will spend a similar 100 billion dollars on weapons in the coming years. So while 100 billion looks like an amazing amount of money, the military spends this in the blink of an eye and without the slightest promise of a RoI...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

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

#203

Post by moonchrome »

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…

Money is just one small aspect of it - getting into that kind of research probably requires >2σ IQ, then there's the affinity and motivation - you are left with a small pool of people who can do this work.

By funding toy projects and pipe dreams you are crowding out useful research - and there's plenty of fundamental work in material sciences, superconductivity, etc. that could actually improve the lives of everyone

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

#204

Post by Aerroon »

krageon wrote: post #117
cm2187 wrote: post #115

I am all for spending money on scientific research but to justify large investments, it needs to yield something useful in practice. Otherwise it’s a form of philosophy, minus the societal impact. XX century science has delivered plenty of practical applications. But is there any practical application to expect from another large Hadron collider? Wouldn’t that money be better used in bio science or something else?

> to justify large investment it needs to yield something useful in practice The really important scientific work doesn't follow this rule and demanding it does is short-sighted. Perhaps worse, it's refusing to learn from plenty of historical examples where you can see the work yielded nothing of immediate use but was still very important (that is to say, society would look vastly different without it). In a sense, i…

How many of those historical examples cost so much though? With $100 billion you could give $10000 to 10 million people. Or spend it on retraining or some other education.

Most previous science discoveries weren't throwing around oodles of money.

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

#205

Post by pfortuny »

mhh__ wrote: post #101
pfortuny wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the same way that String Theorists are paying their bills from the taxpayers, mostly by pushing that theory as Physics.

Given that they are physicists and no one has actually been able to properly find an alternative to string theory isn't that what they're supposed to be doing? Isn't the main alternative LQG which is apparently a dead end?

There can be lots of new alternatives. Why not fund those instead, by creating “moonshine physics departments”? (That is just a comment, not a suggestion).

The problem with String Theory is it unfalsifiability and that it has not even grown to explain 3D phenomena AT ALL. 40 years later.

Quantum Mechanics and Relativity (both special and general) gave results in a single decade.

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

#206

Post by dane-pgp »

martin_a wrote: post #193
rendall wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrifying but intriguing idea. China's one-child policy led to widespread female infanticide and a generation of missing girls. What would prevent some similar unintended consequence in Europe?

> What would prevent some similar unintended consequence in Europe? We're not some fucked up dictatorship state?!?

Yeah, we'd only kill the disabled and mediocre children standing in the way of our Utopia, nothing immoral like those awful Chinese people do.

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

#207

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

sinenomine wrote: post #194
concordDance wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's it currently doing with that money? I guess we could get rid of funding healthcare and trying to help people out of poverty so that a small number of people get to use a very expensive toy... You know what would be an awesome big science project that would immeasurably improve future people's lives? Sequencing all genes and using that data provide free embryo selection services to everyone who wants to be a pa…

Embryo selection[1] is criminally underrated. It is a method to permanently enhance the genetic potential of a child of any given couple. It is already live and there are living children, the only remaining issue is scaling[2]. 1. https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection 2. https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/first-...

IVF carries risks of damaging the child's genome and so is fundamentally dysgenic.

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

#208

Post by Georgelemental »

martin_a wrote: post #193
rendall wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrifying but intriguing idea. China's one-child policy led to widespread female infanticide and a generation of missing girls. What would prevent some similar unintended consequence in Europe?

> What would prevent some similar unintended consequence in Europe? We're not some fucked up dictatorship state?!?

> No, that could never happen here, are you crazy? We're a prosperous and civilized nation!

- Every prosperous and civilized nation's last words

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

#210

Post by blablabla123 »

> The hypothetical machine could not truly test string theory

Interesting point, there was a time where it wasn't even clear whether string theory should be considered part of Physics or rather Mathematics or even Metaphysics. That said, the LHC has continuously given additional insights into existing theories and also it's not the only collider in the world although probably there's no other where so many countries collaborate. Also an interesting read about the early history of CERN: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1955503

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