Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
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Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#2James Clerk Maxwell united electricity and magnetism with a pen and paper. Einstein discovered special and general relativity in the same way.
Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over, and the only way to continue making progress is to dedicate an ever larger share of the global economy's productive capacity to building larger and more expensive experiments?
What if we build a $200 billion collider that finds nothing?
What if a $1 trillion collider is needed to continue making progress?
That could be a line out of Asimov. "And so eventually the entire economy was exclusively focused on the construction of larger and larger particle accelerators. There was no room for anything else. Medical research was stopped. Movies stopped being made.Improving the lot of mortals was abandoned as a policy. The only thing that mattered to the 30 billion humans alive was to build and pay for the next accelerator."
Obviously an extreme extrapolation. But what if? Should we just ... give up on particle physics?
Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#3[deleted]
Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#4I think "nightmare" is a bit sensational. The LHC's purpose is not to "find X" it is to take measurements over a novel range of conditions. The new data is what we're after.
Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#5James Clerk Maxwell united electricity and magnetism with a pen and paper. Einstein discovered special and general relativity in the same way. Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over, and the only way to continue making progress is to dedicate an ever larger share of the global economy's productive capacity to building larger and more expensive experiments? Wha…
Well, we also blow up billions in missiles that achieve nothing. So, why not smash some particles instead?
Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#6I only have an amateur interest in physics, so I'm sorry if this sounds dumb, but I often think about what if we've reached as far as we can go within the current framework of physics? This is more meta-science than actual science, but what if we made some decisions very early in the development of physics and mathematics and we need to revisit those?
Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#7James Clerk Maxwell united electricity and magnetism with a pen and paper. Einstein discovered special and general relativity in the same way. Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over, and the only way to continue making progress is to dedicate an ever larger share of the global economy's productive capacity to building larger and more expensive experiments? Wha…
If building and paying for bigger and bigger accelerators would be the only things that matters for humanity, it wouldn't be that bad. First, servicing the accelerator is a major source of employment to the economy. I think it is a much better way to spend money than maintaining all the militaries in the world. Second, such a project will require a lot of highly educated personnel to run it, so it'll require a considerable investment in education.
Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#8James Clerk Maxwell united electricity and magnetism with a pen and paper. Einstein discovered special and general relativity in the same way. Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over, and the only way to continue making progress is to dedicate an ever larger share of the global economy's productive capacity to building larger and more expensive experiments? Wha…
The Higgs itself was conceived on paper and proven in the LHC.
Do we lack theories that can be conceived on pen and paper just the ability to test any of them?
Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#9James Clerk Maxwell united electricity and magnetism with a pen and paper. Einstein discovered special and general relativity in the same way. Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over, and the only way to continue making progress is to dedicate an ever larger share of the global economy's productive capacity to building larger and more expensive experiments? Wha…
Well, we also blow up billions in missiles that achieve nothing. So, why not smash some particles instead?
Missiles advance rocketry, electronics, composite materials, fuel chemistry, and precision guidance, all technologies we'll need more of in the future.
Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
#10James Clerk Maxwell united electricity and magnetism with a pen and paper. Einstein discovered special and general relativity in the same way. Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over, and the only way to continue making progress is to dedicate an ever larger share of the global economy's productive capacity to building larger and more expensive experiments? Wha…
> James Clerk Maxwell united electricity and magnetism with a pen and paper. Einstein discovered special and general relativity in the same way.
> Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over, and the only way to continue making progress is to dedicate an ever larger share of the global economy's productive capacity to building larger and more expensive experiments?
That's a bit disingenuous. At the time, GR was an unconfirmed theory not unlike, say, String Theory is today. Except it only took a couple of years to confirm by experiment.
Particle theorists and cosmologists have plenty of theories. But deciding which one describes reality best can only be done by data, no two ways about it. And yes, since most low hanging fruits have been found, experiments become harder and harder. Not to say more and more expensive.
Your conclusion is correct though, that at some point a society has to decide whether they can afford further progress.
Perhaps we also haven't found a theory as convincing as Einstein's GR because the math isn't there yet. GR was discovered shortly after differential geometry was formulated, and without it it would have been impossible. Similarly with Newton's theory and calculus.
So maybe what we need is the right breakthrough in math?