CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by magicalhippo » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 8:59 AM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #66

magicalhippo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are those who wants to go larger, by building a submerged collider[1] in the area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico which could do 500 TeV. Using established technology from offshore industry it's supposedly not as crazy nor costly as one might first imagine. There was a nice and fairly accessible talk[2] given at Perimeter Institute, which gave some background and went into this and the FCC. [1]: https://ar…

The link mentions 100 meters depth. Without being an expert that sounds deep enough to withstand hurricanes and such. However 100m depth? For a structure _that_ size, which I think might contain high vacuum, let alone systems that might need humans to service when they break? What is the feasibility of that problem?

As mentioned in the linked presentation, they envision using interconnected 300m (1000ft) long segments that can be changed using ROVs, using technology that's already available for underwater pipelines.

Also mentioned is that the LHC cryostats, some nice illustrations here[1], are very nearly neutrally buoyant. Given these would be built similarly, they wouldn't need significant infrastructure to keep them in place.

So no humans would need to go down there, if something breaks they could just replace the broken segment(s) and fix the broken one(s) on the surface.

[1]: https://cas.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/lectures/bilbao-...

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

#72

Post by Jabbles » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 9:08 AM UTC

gr_norm wrote: post #42

ks2048 wrote: 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…

But one of her points is that many of the jobs of current physicists depend on the status quo. That seems almost tautological. She then alleges that that clouds their judgement on the best use of research funding.

I'm sure that if you asked a range of physicists if _their_ area of research should receive more funding instead of the FCC, you would see less support for the FCC.

So we, as outsiders, are stuck not knowing what to believe - and ultimately an outsider, a politician, must make the decision for funding.

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

#73

Post by Jabbles » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 9:21 AM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #8

gadflyinyoureye wrote: post #5

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…

[1] Sabine says "It’s a two-phase project, the first one, called the FCC-ee would collide electrons and specifically measure the properties of the Higgs boson." approximately 20 seconds into the video.

It's unfair to merely critique the headline. If you do not wish to watch the video, here is a transcript: https://www.youtube-transcript.io/videos/elvEcWc7U7c

"This is very important work." is just an opinion.

"The more precise you nail down these uncertainties, the more theorists can do to verify their work, allowing the experimentalists to know where to look for new stuff, if any." Sabine's point is that there are countless theories and parameters that can be changed to fit any measurement. New results will eliminate some, but it will not reduce the total number of possible theories, as others will be constructed to fit the results without having any reason to think one is more true than another.

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

#74

Post by Ygg2 » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 9:23 AM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #68

Ygg2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Claim: $A made false claims $B and $C to support conclusion $D. Your claim, IIUC, please correct me: Not all who conclude $D make false claims. I can agree with that for sure

My argument is that more people agree with statement X the likelier it will be. Even more if they are from a field that is closely related.

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

#75

Post by Ygg2 » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 9:47 AM UTC

MadnessASAP wrote: post #32

T-A wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There hasn't been a significant new particle discovery, but none was expected other than Higgs The word "expected" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. At least one kind of Higgs had to be found unless the mass generation mechanism of the Standard Model and all its proposed extensions (MSSM etc) was categorically wrong; the LHC was designed to cover the entire mass range where it had to be. In that sense, the H…

I'm not much of a particles guy but isn't the lack of "expected" discoveries itself a discovery?

It invalidated some flavors of string theory, but my understanding is that you have almost infinite numbers of free params you can tweak.

In other words super symmetry wasn't excluded, just excluded for XeV where X is what LHC is able to produce.

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

#76

Post by Ygg2 » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 10:00 AM UTC

77pt77 wrote: post #52

pclmulqdq wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care about Sabine and I'm not defending her. There are lots of other people who think this is a bad idea, and Nature has quoted "dozens" of them. The error they saw isn't interesting unless it leads to something. There aren't even good theories about what it might lead to, other than some extra significant figures on some constants that nobody uses. Surely you can see there is a problem with doing science thi…

> Theory precedes experiment. It always has This is laughably false, even in fundamental physics. No one saw neutrinos coming for example.

> No one saw neutrinos coming for example.

Other than Pauli, you mean? It was hypothesized around 1930. Discovered in 1934.

The basis of scientific method is following:

1. You notice something.

2. You ask a question.

3. Form a hypothesis.

4. Experiment.

5. Analyze.

6. Draw conclusions.

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

#77

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 10:03 AM UTC

magicalhippo wrote: post #71

mjevans wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link mentions 100 meters depth. Without being an expert that sounds deep enough to withstand hurricanes and such. However 100m depth? For a structure _that_ size, which I think might contain high vacuum, let alone systems that might need humans to service when they break? What is the feasibility of that problem?

As mentioned in the linked presentation, they envision using interconnected 300m (1000ft) long segments that can be changed using ROVs, using technology that's already available for underwater pipelines. Also mentioned is that the LHC cryostats, some nice illustrations here[1], are very nearly neutrally buoyant. Given these would be built similarly, they wouldn't need significant infrastructure to keep them in place.…

[deleted]

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

#78

Post by tiborsaas » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 10:08 AM UTC

neals wrote: 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?

Yes, but it needs some rebranding / reframing. We should declare a global war on the universe and spend all the military budget on research and development to exploit its secrets.

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

#79

Post by 9dev » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 10:33 AM UTC

magicalhippo wrote: post #57

kristianp wrote: post #26

It doesn't feel ambitious enough to me. Spend 10s of billions to get a less than 10x energy about 40 years after LHC reached its peak. Also planning of the next one should have happened while the last one was being commissioned to avoid the huge gap between them.

There are those who wants to go larger, by building a submerged collider[1] in the area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico which could do 500 TeV. Using established technology from offshore industry it's supposedly not as crazy nor costly as one might first imagine. There was a nice and fairly accessible talk[2] given at Perimeter Institute, which gave some background and went into this and the FCC. [1]: https://ar…

[flagged]

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

#80

Post by mike_hearn » Sun, Apr 13, 2025, 10:36 AM UTC

gr_norm wrote: post #42

ks2048 wrote: 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…

These days she's independent of the field financially, and has been pretty forthright about condemning bad behavior within it. It's inevitable that insiders will turn on her, because she turned on them. They being angry about it doesn't mean anything by itself, you'd need to decide if her points are legitimate or not without reference to those she's criticising.