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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

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 supe…

> 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."

It seems like the LHC wouldn't pass this test? In which case, continuing down the path wouldn't make sense under this criteria.

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

#42
post #21
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...

She seems to base her content on how good of a Mr-beast-style thumbnail she can make to get clicks.

I have repeatedly heard from people who work in physics research that she's optimized her content for maximum rage/anger/emotional response rather than accuracy, particularly as of late. The tidbits of truth and warranted skepticism lend the rest of it undue credibility. Sadly, good science reporting doesn't get the advertising revenue that manufactured-scandal tabloid-style reporting does. I think her critical perspective can be useful, but it's important to keep in mind while considering it that you're being presented a warped telling of reality.

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

#43
post #35

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.

My view- she, like many, has been conditioned by social media to optimize for clicks by having contrarian and anti-establishment views. She's not positioned to have a particularly well-researched opinion on 95%+ of the topics she covers (which is understandable considering how many hundreds of videos she has made). I watched her for a bit, but stopped when I researched a topic deeper and found her analysis very super…

Every time I tried to listen to her she was peddling a book. Her stick is it to criticize current research, first in her field (where the mainstream seem to disagree with her), but now in more and more fields of physics/science. She clearly has an agenda.

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

#44
This makes me think of The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), I remember a scientist working there in an interview right after the first discovery telling the reporter how back in the day he was dissuaded by his teacher to go into the field because "there's nothing there, it's not a serious field of research" or something along those lines.

Maybe a bigger collider is exactly what we need, and if it fails that's also useful as a confirmation to go in other directions. To build it right now instead of other things is the difficult question because that's politics.

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

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this doesn't seem abrupt, and when/if it does, that it comes across as coming from a place inviting further discussion and appreciating your curiosity. That's one of the effects of the pitch framing by Sabine: the design intent is not about smashing stuff at higher energy , despite the basis of the critique requiring that it is . My comment above is really long, but tl;dr the impetus for both facilities is sma…

Electrons and positrons have been smashed together before. It has been done at CERN before, too. The premise of this experiment is to do it at higher energy than has been done before. The scientific goals of that experiment are somewhat more unclear, though. The LHC had a landmark scientific purpose, finding the last particle in the standard model. There is, as far as I can tell, no specific experiment that can be th…

No, not quite. The electron-positron collision will allow more precise measurements. The goal is precision, not higher energy range, where a proton-proton machine would be much better. The goal is not to go beyond LHC in energy to see if something new shows up because of moar energy. The goal is to go to high energy with electron/positrons to measure stuff more precisely.

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

#46
post #35

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.

My view- she, like many, has been conditioned by social media to optimize for clicks by having contrarian and anti-establishment views. She's not positioned to have a particularly well-researched opinion on 95%+ of the topics she covers (which is understandable considering how many hundreds of videos she has made). I watched her for a bit, but stopped when I researched a topic deeper and found her analysis very super…

I'm not sure that is fair. I've been reading her blog for over a decade, and she has always taken a contrarian view.

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

#48
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

[deleted]

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

#49
post #47

I feel like with all the silly things humans do, every remotely feasible physics experiment should be top priority on getting funding and attention. Isn't finding out how the universe works, by far, the only thing that matters?

i’d imagine food shelter and dignified employment rank just a little higher.

in terms of higher-order needs, meaningful connection and love are quite a bit more important to me.

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

#50
post #42
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She seems to base her content on how good of a Mr-beast-style thumbnail she can make to get clicks.

I have repeatedly heard from people who work in physics research that she's optimized her content for maximum rage/anger/emotional response rather than accuracy, particularly as of late. The tidbits of truth and warranted skepticism lend the rest of it undue credibility. Sadly, good science reporting doesn't get the advertising revenue that manufactured-scandal tabloid-style reporting does. I think her critical persp…

> her content for maximum rage/anger/emotional response rather than accuracy

Yes. The content mirrors the thumbnail style.

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