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CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

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Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#11
post #2

Sabine is skeptical [0]. Is it really true that there a no theories that are proven or dicarded with this experiment, and that the Chinese have plans to do it much faster? Her video is pretty damning. [0] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2025/04/why-cerns-new-coll...

Sabine is something other-than a good source on how physicists actually think about things at this point, unfortunately. It's not true at all. I'll come back and write some up over the next 20 minutes.

Sabine also have wasn't the only physicist that thinks FCC would be dead on arrival.

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The utter lack of significant discoveries at the LHC after the Higgs (2012!) is a pretty telling sign. Any bigger collider is riding purely on the hope that something will make the effort worth while.

I'm not a physicist, but if I understand correctly there's likely new-ish physics to be found in Higgs-Higgs interactions.

There is a _hope_ that there's new physics there. But so far, nothing indicates that the next collider will find something.

There is definitely new physics to be discovered, but it might need a collider the size of the Solar system for the discovery.

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#13
post #2

Sabine is skeptical [0]. Is it really true that there a no theories that are proven or dicarded with this experiment, and that the Chinese have plans to do it much faster? Her video is pretty damning. [0] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2025/04/why-cerns-new-coll...

Sabine is something other-than a good source on how physicists actually think about things at this point, unfortunately. It's not true at all. I'll come back and write some up over the next 20 minutes.

Not sure who you are and why would your opinion matter here but I'll take you on your comment. Looking forward to your write up.

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#14
post #7

Before discussions go into some generic direction about the field. This is a huge feasibility study contain different aspects done by hundreds of people. People who are mostly interested about the physics case of FCC should read/skim at least through the first volume [1], second chapter (Specificities of the FCC physics case) the first four sections. This is about 35 pages with somehow accessible language to people w…

[dead]

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sabine is something other-than a good source on how physicists actually think about things at this point, unfortunately. It's not true at all. I'll come back and write some up over the next 20 minutes.

Not sure who you are and why would your opinion matter here but I'll take you on your comment. Looking forward to your write up.

It's already here by the time you wrote - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43668292.

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#16
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sabine is something other-than a good source on how physicists actually think about things at this point, unfortunately. It's not true at all. I'll come back and write some up over the next 20 minutes.

Sabine also have wasn't the only physicist that thinks FCC would be dead on arrival.

[deleted]

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look forward to it. I listened to her a lot recently because YouTube decided ever “next video” bump while I drove should be her.

Blissfully, I found an IEEE article that collects the stuff I'm aware of in one neat package. https://spectrum.ieee.org/supercolliders The shell games are: 1. claiming it is a proton collider[^1 source] designed to look for new particles [^2 comment]. 2. false equivalence between China putting in their latest 5 year plan to make a plan to make something that will transition to being a proton collider. And it's worse…

Why is this work important? To me it just feels so distant from my reality. At the core of this, is there an answer to the "who cares?" attitude?

Because if the answer is that we might incidentally create new useful technology in the build up of a new collider, why not just diversify the investment and put that money into a bunch of smaller projects? Hedge your bets sort of thing.

Why support this and not allocate more into high temperature superconductivity for example? I don't understand what is the justification that entitles such a large amount of money to a singular project.

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look forward to it. I listened to her a lot recently because YouTube decided ever “next video” bump while I drove should be her.

Blissfully, I found an IEEE article that collects the stuff I'm aware of in one neat package. https://spectrum.ieee.org/supercolliders The shell games are: 1. claiming it is a proton collider[^1 source] designed to look for new particles [^2 comment]. 2. false equivalence between China putting in their latest 5 year plan to make a plan to make something that will transition to being a proton collider. And it's worse…

As far as I know, there isn't much theory behind the "important work" being done here, just "let's smash stuff at higher energy and see what shakes out." Science is supposed to go the other way. You are supposed to have a theory or a set of theories and then use experiments to test them. If this experiment can falsify the standard model in a meaningful way, that's cool, but it's a lot better if it can actually prove something else. Still, it's not clear that the something else is worth the massive expense and effort.

Do we have $X00 billion worth of theories to test here?

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blissfully, I found an IEEE article that collects the stuff I'm aware of in one neat package. https://spectrum.ieee.org/supercolliders The shell games are: 1. claiming it is a proton collider[^1 source] designed to look for new particles [^2 comment]. 2. false equivalence between China putting in their latest 5 year plan to make a plan to make something that will transition to being a proton collider. And it's worse…

Why is this work important? To me it just feels so distant from my reality. At the core of this, is there an answer to the "who cares?" attitude? Because if the answer is that we might incidentally create new useful technology in the build up of a new collider, why not just diversify the investment and put that money into a bunch of smaller projects? Hedge your bets sort of thing. Why support this and not allocate mo…

First thought: I'm not the greatest at coming up with a stirring polemic justifying pushing out boundary science.

Next thought that come to my head is, how do I boundary-test this. ex. work my way backwards, what was the last collider worth building?

It's perfectly rational and intellectually honest to say "whichever one gave us something that got commercialized / helped people / etc."

As far as high-temperature superconductivity, I'm virtually certain if there was consensus a $XXB facility would concretely advance that, I assume it'd get funded.

I'm not certain, but I believe someone with more wherewithal / had skin in the game would argue that there's no reason to think this isn't that facility. (in that, advancing the boundary of physics tends to bring breakthroughs down the pipeline)

Re: CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sabine is something other-than a good source on how physicists actually think about things at this point, unfortunately. It's not true at all. I'll come back and write some up over the next 20 minutes.

I look forward to it. I listened to her a lot recently because YouTube decided ever “next video” bump while I drove should be her.

> I listened to her a lot recently because YouTube decided ever “next video” bump while I drove should be her.

I hope there was _any other criteria_ at play here? Why would I not be surprised that the answer is "NO" for 99.9% of the population? The world is really doomed...

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