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CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

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Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#131

Post by ganzuul »

techphys_91 wrote: post #123
sandworm101 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of every top-tier collider is new physics, that greater understanding that progresses mankind. What did the previous collider discover? It certainly validated current theories, but did it create anything new? If it did, why do we yet need a new one? If there is new physics to study let us keep the experiment going as is to study that for a generation or two. If there is no new physics from the last experimen…

> If there is new physics to study let us keep the experiment going as is to study that for a generation or two. The LHC was built between 1998 and 2008, but its design started in the 1980's. Many of the people who worked on the LHC at its early stages have either already retired, or will be expected to retire relatively soon. The FCC is still in its very early stages and similarly long timescales are predicted for i…

An important insight. Akin to budget not used will never return.

However, honesty about the situation should be rewarded; not punished.

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#132

Post by jgalt212 »

noobermin wrote: post #38

Made this comment below but spending billions on another collider in an attempt to essentially validate SUSY is irresponsible. A few years ago, a bunch of physical philosophers tried to justify this turn of particle physics in general away from experiment, particularly suggesting the search of symmetries and mathematical beauty (I guess) was enough of a justification for the work even though it essentially is contrar…

> Honestly, this money could be spent on myriad other projects,

I used to feel the same way about The Big Dig, or many other Big projects. At the end of the day, they're all pork. It just depends whether you like this particular kind of pork. Pork, however, will always be with us. And given the choice of a pork-free society or a pork-laden society, I think the latter is more fair and easier to exist in.

Would you rather the Fed/ECB print money to "give" to the investor class, or would you rather the government borrow money to build stuff (even if not built in the most efficient manner).

https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#133

Post by vidarh »

cygx wrote: post #97
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that a huge amount of money is wasted in one area doesn't justify wasting a smaller amount somewhere else.

But it puts things into perspective. Humanity blows crazy amounts of money on war, entertainment, advertising and the financial industry, within a system where something like two dozen individuals can (collectively) amass trillions of dollars of personal wealth. But $20 billion for fundamental science, spread out among 23 comparatively wealthy nations is too much?

To expand on your point to illustrate how relatively little this is:

Norway alone spends about $6bn on research and development a year for a population of ~5m people... This project will take ~30 years to complete. Norway alone could fund it.

But there's as you say 23 members (and more associate members), and as a CERN member, Norway contributes ~$30m/year to CERN. That's 0.5% of the R&D budget, or about $6/year per person.

This is the highest per capita amount of any CERN member, since funding is determined based on GDP. E.g. the UK pays less than half as much per capita as Norway. As such, it's reasonable to assume that for most members of CERN, funding to CERN takes up less than a percent of their R&D budgets.

It is likely member states would have to pay more for this, but amortized over the project period, we're talking at most double even without an international (beyond the member states) consortium.

And of course it's not only the 23 member states that benefits from this. Overall in terms of worldwide science funding, CERN is a rounding error.

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#134

Post by davrosthedalek »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #129
davrosthedalek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to store the beam, you need a ring. And the size of the ring is given by the minimum bending radius, which is given by maximum field strength you can achieve, and energy loss from bremsstrahlung in the bends, which you have to put back. So space doesn't really help: You'll still need a circle of magnets. Approximating the circle with a polygon means you split up a smaller circle with straight segments. Bu…

Could you bounce the beam backwards and forwards (in space) like a laser to build up the beam strength? It wouldn't weaken in a vacuum like on earth

You can't easily reflect the beam, you can only bend it "with a small radius", but then you loose a lot of the energy via synchrotron radiation. You would also need /very/ strong fields.

But the basic idea in everything but linear accelerators is the same: You want to reuse the accelerating structure multiple times be recirculating the beam through it many times. Either in a ring/closed loop, like LHC, or in some form of wound up (open) path (Race track mictrotrons, for example)

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#135

Post by avar »

vidarh wrote: post #118
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it also is an umbrella to fund a large number of smaller projects Then justify the spending on those merits. Spending for the sake of spending isn’t a great argument. Why is a new supercollider a better use of resources than, say, a new telescope? Or a suite of gravitational wave or neutrino detectors? A host of fusion research reactors? The opportunity cost of spending shouldn’t be ignored just because it isn’t en…

It's not either or. E.g. ITER cost more than LHC, and the successor to ITER is in the works with construction expected to start years before this new collider would. $23bn is a lot of money, but it also is a pittance when you're planning a project that will take ~30 years to be operational. E.g. for comparison the EU is planning ~$100bn for its science programs for the next 7 years; on top of that all the member stat…

It's really not low single digit. Firstly it's a proposal for ~€100bn (not ~$100bn), the current program is ~€80bn. Secondly if you look at the spending[1] more than 50% of it by any reasonable measure is "soft" science funding (such as reinvesting in high-tech industry).

I'm happy CERN is doing it's thing, but let's not hide the ball here, any way you look at it it's a huge portion of the EU's fundamental science research budget.

1. https://www.fch.europa.eu/sites/default/files/Horizon%20Euro...

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#137

Post by midrus »

noobermin wrote: post #38

Made this comment below but spending billions on another collider in an attempt to essentially validate SUSY is irresponsible. A few years ago, a bunch of physical philosophers tried to justify this turn of particle physics in general away from experiment, particularly suggesting the search of symmetries and mathematical beauty (I guess) was enough of a justification for the work even though it essentially is contrar…

Who is susy and why do we need to validate her?

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#138

Post by privong »

privong wrote: post #72
sandworm101 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of every top-tier collider is new physics, that greater understanding that progresses mankind. What did the previous collider discover? It certainly validated current theories, but did it create anything new? If it did, why do we yet need a new one? If there is new physics to study let us keep the experiment going as is to study that for a generation or two. If there is no new physics from the last experimen…

> If there is new physics to study let us keep the experiment going as is to study that for a generation or two. If there is no new physics from the last experiment, why do we think that building a bigger microscope will be any different? The LHC likely would keep running for a generation, even if this new collider is constructed. The article notes that construction wouldn't begin until 2038. It doesn't say how long…

Correction:

> In the case of a particle accelerator, that means doubling the amount of time.

This should say: "means quadrupling the amount of time" [to double the S/N].

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#139

Post by jeanvalmarc »

noobermin wrote: post #38

Made this comment below but spending billions on another collider in an attempt to essentially validate SUSY is irresponsible. A few years ago, a bunch of physical philosophers tried to justify this turn of particle physics in general away from experiment, particularly suggesting the search of symmetries and mathematical beauty (I guess) was enough of a justification for the work even though it essentially is contrar…

> failure of the LHC

They detected the Higgs boson and incidentally invented the internet? https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cern-searches-for-1st-web...

Re: CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider

#140

Post by davrosthedalek »

asib wrote: post #114
noobermin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. The experiment has already been done, it was called the LHC. It found no evidence for SUSY, but instead of re-evaluating SUSY since it's needed for all modern particle phenomology as well as many unification theories, the argument is to "keep looking." Fine, keep looking, if you want, but it certainly won't be with a larger collider, especially since the last search failed. That failure demands a re-assess…

> Fine, keep looking, if you want, but it certainly won't be with a larger collider, especially since the last search failed. Just out of interest, why do you believe this to be true? There existed particle colliders before the LHC, none were able to experimentally verify the Higgs.

The Tevatron indeed saw something at the right mass, just after the first hints from LHC came in: https://news.fnal.gov/2012/03/tevatron-experiments-report-la...

It's unclear to me if it could have ever pushed this to enough sigmas to claim discovery.

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