Finding a new apartment in any major European city will require 40-50% of a person's income.
But let's go for new particle colliders with pretty multicultural pictures.
Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
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Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#12Finding a new apartment in any major European city will require 40-50% of a person's income. But let's go for new particle colliders with pretty multicultural pictures.
So you propose we just stop trying to discover new things until all issues with government policies are resolved?
Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#13A counter point by Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/opinion/particle-physics-...
> I still believe that slamming particles into one another is the most promising route to understanding what matter is made of and how it holds together. But $10 billion is a hefty price tag. And I’m not sure it’s worth it. When is it worth it? They tested many theories, and many of them were proven wrong, and some were proven right. What price can you attach to having this knowledge? Is there a maximum price tag for…
The question is, what kind of other interesting knowledge might we acquire with ten billion?
Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#14Finding a new apartment in any major European city will require 40-50% of a person's income. But let's go for new particle colliders with pretty multicultural pictures.
Please don't post flamebait here. It never leads anyplace new.
Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#15Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#16Finding a new apartment in any major European city will require 40-50% of a person's income. But let's go for new particle colliders with pretty multicultural pictures.
So you propose we just stop trying to discover new things until all issues with government policies are resolved?
"So, what you are saying ..." is rarely correct. Prioritizing issues that benefit humans does not mean that research ceases.
By the way, Edward Teller is on record saying that throwing money at technology produces results, whereas throwing money at science does not.
He was obviously biased by living in the golden age of Physics, but indeed the golden age has cost practically nothing.
Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#17A counter point by Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/opinion/particle-physics-...
> I still believe that slamming particles into one another is the most promising route to understanding what matter is made of and how it holds together. But $10 billion is a hefty price tag. And I’m not sure it’s worth it. When is it worth it? They tested many theories, and many of them were proven wrong, and some were proven right. What price can you attach to having this knowledge? Is there a maximum price tag for…
> Is there a maximum price tag for potentially knowing more about the universe?
Yes. On the extreme end, there’s a finite amount of useful work that can be done before the heat death of the universe. An energy budget the size of the combined output of all power stations on the planet is much smaller than that, but also too much. At a more realistic scale, human knowledge is only valuable in so far as it improves the human condition in some way, now or in the future. Other research areas could be more important to progress right now and we only have so many scientists available to do the work. Allocating those scientists to research areas is an incredibly hard task, but it’s a necessary one.
Even if we accept that pure physics knowledge is a worthy goal in itself, diving straight into another megaproject isn’t necessarily the best way forward. Maybe it’s more valuable right now to find uses for the great theoretical leaps we’ve already made, for instance. Or maybe we should be focussing on training theorists so that we can have a better idea of what the next piece of giant scientific equipment needs to be. Or maybe we need to raise the global literacy rate so that we have more scientists available.
Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#18More likely than not the next collider will be build in China, quite a few particle physicist luminaries have already made their case there. I for one am glad that I stayed clear of the siren call to join the 3000+ grad student workforce at CERN. Sifting through the heap of data that was assigned to you is about as fun as it sounds I think. You get to look for the J/Psi, Pomeron, Dark Matter how exciting! In reality…
That’s just the nature of the machines. You spend so much effort to get to the nuggets, but you still get the nuggets.
Does China have experience making particle colliders? I’ve seen their magnetic confinement fusion research devices. Even in the design stage, there are lessons yet to be learned that are well documented in other machines. That doesn’t mean the people working on them are dumb, or that all fields of large-magnetic-confinement-machine-building physicists are in the same position, but I think we should be pretty sure whoever builds the next big particle collider is actually up to the task.
Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#19Finding a new apartment in any major European city will require 40-50% of a person's income. But let's go for new particle colliders with pretty multicultural pictures.
Please don't post flamebait here. It never leads anyplace new. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
One cannot leave smooth articles or headlines un-contradicted, for the unfortunate reason that if humans read something often enough, it tends to become the truth.
Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
#20I was surprised by the possibility (raised by the article) that the Higgs could turn out to not actually be the Higgs, but just another particle with the right mass. Is that a real possibility?
Sure, it's not like the particle stuck around long enough for us to test any of its other properties. We just know that its decay products add up to a plausible energy level. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/12/rolling-the-dice-und...