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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

#51

Post by Certhas »

piokoch wrote: post #49

This is bollocks. Typical clickbait title. There is still a lot of unsolved problems in physics, both experimental and theoretical. Particle physics is just one branch of science (and rather boring, if you ask me), popularized by CERN marketing, so people think new physics equals finding some new particle. There is a lot of interesting problems waiting for exploration. I will not even try to list them "unsolved physi…

That's a very uncharitable reading of the headline. I think it's pretty clear that it's talking about particle physics, not physics as a whole. At any rate the article makes this clear in the first line:

> Unless Europe’s Large Hadron Collider coughs up a surprise, the field of particle physics may wheeze to its end

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#52

Post by vanderZwan »

dlsa wrote: post #27

At least they are finding nothing and confirming they are finding nothing. Less scrupulous operators might be always finding something even if its not there. So that's a sign of good science. Maybe there's something they haven't found because there's so much data? Mix things up and look again? Change assumptions? Or as someone I know likes to say to various smaller humans: have you looked around the couch? Really? Ar…

> Have you had a good look?

Are you aware of how hilarious it is in the context of high energy physicists verifying the standard model to ask if they had "good look"? I don't think a collective effort to look any harder has ever existed in the history of humankind.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#53

Post by Grimburger »

highwaylights wrote: post #47
Grimburger wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd put that amortised cost at about $1000 upfront in 2022 dollars for my high quality internet comment and many others like it. If you need high energy, pure vacuums and ultra low temps, surely space is where such experiments should be conducted on bigger scales in future to push it further?

I can't speak to whether it would cost less to do these experiments in space, I'm no expert on the colliding of particles and the implications thereof. In any case - how much of that $1000 is attributed to the research and development of the wheel in Ancient Mesopotamia? How much is attributed to the discovery of electricity, and to General Relativity? If we weren't attempting to get answers to fundamental questions…

Fair chunk of the cost is people working for slave wages in Asia and has nothing to do with with ancient Mesopotamia, let's be honest and not disingenuous here.

Are you actually interested in discussing the topic at hand?

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#54

Post by quickthrower2 »

Grimburger wrote: post #30
sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #28

Oh jesus christ, the constant whining! This is science. This is how it works. Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't know, that's why it's called research.

> Maybe there's nothing else to discover, maybe it will take us 100 years, we don't know, that's why it's called research. At what price?

Cheaper than not doing it

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#55

Post by alienozi »

throw93232 wrote: post #15
Victerius wrote: post #2

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? Wha…

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#56

Post by alex_sf »

onionisafruit wrote: post #24
tejohnso wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps one such decision is that matter is fundamental. There are increasingly substantial cases being made that this is now holding us back in physics, and that we need to consider that consciousness is fundamental, and matter is only a consequence of it. See, for example Hoffman's The Case Against Reality.

What does fundamental mean in this case?

Nothing. It’s pseudoscientific nonsense.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#57

Post by denton-scratch »

onionisafruit wrote: post #24
tejohnso wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps one such decision is that matter is fundamental. There are increasingly substantial cases being made that this is now holding us back in physics, and that we need to consider that consciousness is fundamental, and matter is only a consequence of it. See, for example Hoffman's The Case Against Reality.

What does fundamental mean in this case?

I'm not a physicist; but the GP mentioned consciousness as an alternative to matter as the fundamental "substance".

Well, I've come across that idea before; in certain kinds of Buddhism, consciousness is considered fundamental, the senses are created by consciousness, and the material world is projected by consciousness through the senses.

Well, this was explained to me in the context of a particular type of tantric Buddhism; but actually the basic idea is common across most mainstream Buddhism. Most schools teach that the universe is cyclical, and is completely destroyed at the end of an era, before being recreated ex-nihilo. The creation process is started with the appearance of Brahma, who then hallucinates the rest of the universe into existence.

So in that model, it is consciousness, not matter that is fundamental, because the material world cannot come into existence without consciousness.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#58

Post by quickthrower2 »

lmm wrote: post #45
bamboozled wrote: post #19

Why would this be a nightmare, isn't this good? They know they're going down the wrong path and can probably correct?

The prospect of actually "finishing" physics could be a nightmare for those working in it. I had a friend who was a brilliant pure mathematician, his teachers and friends agreed he fully deserved to do a PhD in complex analysis - but complex analysis was essentially done in the 19th century, there's just not a lot of research opportunities there.

?? maths creates new problems to solve. Pick another field within it.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#59

Post by macspoofing »

Victerius wrote: post #2

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? Wha…

>Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over

There are plenty of theories generated by theoretical physicists using pen and paper. The problem is that we can't reach the energy scales necessary to test those theories.

>What if a $1 trillion collider is needed to continue making progress?

That's the problem with colliders now. We don't actually know if there are any interesting physics happening at energy scales that are within human reach. Maybe the next 'interesting' threshold can only come about from a galaxy-size collider - so $1 trillion collider isn't going to do squat for you.

>Should we just ... give up on particle physics?

I think we did. There was an article recently about how a next-gen collider to replace the LHC will cost on the order of $100 billion. No one is going to spend that kind of money, so we're done with collider physics for the next few decades.

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