Finding new physics will require a new particle collider • Hacker News Board

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#171

Post by ganzuul » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

Random_ernest wrote: post #139

ganzuul wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll excuse you trying to make this personal and focus on the tangibles... Losses in a waveguide are miniscule because plasma is almost as good a conductor as a superconductor. Most of the energy is carried in the dielectric anyway. Technology is already being developed as ASIC PHYs for commercial applications as THz MIMO radios for the next generation of mobile networks. No doubt the next generation of accelerators…

It's a little hard to discuss when you don't actually read my comments and just skim over them. > Technology is already being developed as ASIC PHYs for commercial applications as THz MIMO radios Cool, unfortunately that has nothing to do with the discussed topic: accelerators for high energy physics experiments... > No doubt the next generation of accelerators will rely heavily on beam-forming, perhaps already in wa…

Yes, I will excuse you. You are the one again with the ad-hominems and have no reason to act so arrogant.

The ASIC is needed for channel sounding and beamforming in realtime. The power stage can be separate. This is exactly what a wakefield accelerator needs, although the tech is being developed for another purpose. This is why ASICs and beamforming are important; because they have the potential to provide the missing orders of magnitude of gain.

You can see how this can make up the technology gap in the case of wakefield.

I have no idea why some charged particles could be accelerated with electromagnetic fields but not others. The idea seems preposterous.

Gamma-ray lasers is an old idea but it still represents the pinnacle of what we can consider building. That the idea is old doesn't mean it has been tried and and found inadequate. As usual it is a matter of material science. In the past few years materials which can bend gamma-rays have been developed. Progress is slow, but not halted.

It does seem I have been mistaken about one thing; apparently once dismissed theories WIMPs and super-partners have been dusted off. I suppose that is what is required to justify building a new accelerator, but I seriously doubt it has any purpose but job security.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#172

Post by jjdredd » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

xref wrote: post #147

tobbykop wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have quantum computers, at this point that’s not new physics it’s engineering. And if the well established frameworks don’t settle your thirst for understanding quantum mechanics, thats about philosophy not physics.

That’s as silly as saying “we already have particle colliders, at this point they’re just an engineering problem”. It completely misses the forest for the trees.

Yes, quantum computing is not a problem in modern fundamental physics. Yes, collider construction is not a problem in modern fundamental physics.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#173

Post by battery_cowboy » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

eigenspace wrote: post #151

battery_cowboy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're solving problems that matter less and less, and are increasingly less likely to be useful in any way Can you expand on why you think this? I'm not a physicist, but I feel like one shouldn't discount the possibility of useful discoveries. I'd love to hear if there are reasons that's not true.

The problem is that the effects they're looking at are confined to such high energy and small length scales that they're utterly invisible to things even on the scale of a single proton. It's very difficult to imagine how (or even why) one would ever build a device that takes advantage of a TeV scale effect to do something useful, given that these effects are meaningless to the sorts of matter we care about and inter…

That makes sense, thanks for the reply. At those energies, I guess you'd be hard pressed to make a useful 'finding' that could be utilized outside of a huge collider.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#174

Post by AnimalMuppet » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

jjdredd wrote: post #170

hpcjoe wrote: post #108

As a (non-practicing) physicist, I've always disliked the penchant of some in the HEP community to say what this article says. They (the HEP community) tends to equate physics with HEP physics. It's not. When this is pointed out to the people espousing this odd viewpoint, they usually respond with some passive aggressive comment. I've seen/experienced much of this during my time in research. New physics not requiring…

SM/beyond SM is the only field in fundamental physics though. Everything else is either a consequence of those models or applied physics.

It depends on whether you regard quantum gravity as SM/beyond SM or not.

Even if you don't, though, there's still cosmology and black hole physics.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#175

Post by fsflover » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

eigenspace wrote: post #151

battery_cowboy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're solving problems that matter less and less, and are increasingly less likely to be useful in any way Can you expand on why you think this? I'm not a physicist, but I feel like one shouldn't discount the possibility of useful discoveries. I'd love to hear if there are reasons that's not true.

The problem is that the effects they're looking at are confined to such high energy and small length scales that they're utterly invisible to things even on the scale of a single proton. It's very difficult to imagine how (or even why) one would ever build a device that takes advantage of a TeV scale effect to do something useful, given that these effects are meaningless to the sorts of matter we care about and inter…

You could say the same during invention of quantum mechanics: "They are looking at the effects on the scale of single atom/electron, hardly ever useful in our everyday life." Or about going to the space. You can never know what new discoveries bring.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#176

Post by lokimedes » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

buzzkillington wrote: post #38

kd5bjo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>Or maybe we need to raise the global literacy rate so that we have more scientists available. Or maybe we start paying scientists living wages so anyone who can wipe their ass doesn't end up as a quant. Speaking as a quant with a physics phd working with another 400 phds in an hft firm.

I don’t have a day go by without thinking about doing something worthwhile with my (particle) physics phd. But that ridiculous combination of publish or perish, lousy pay and teaching not to mention the competition to stay in the field. Nah, I’ll choose living instead. But oh how I dream of a real career in physics with a higher goal than second-order marketing revenue.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#177

Post by fsflover » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #149

hpcjoe wrote: post #108

As a (non-practicing) physicist, I've always disliked the penchant of some in the HEP community to say what this article says. They (the HEP community) tends to equate physics with HEP physics. It's not. When this is pointed out to the people espousing this odd viewpoint, they usually respond with some passive aggressive comment. I've seen/experienced much of this during my time in research. New physics not requiring…

So, what other types of physics is not well understood and requires funding to further research. We know F=ma, things in motion stay in motion, blah, and so on. We know a current flowing down a path will generate a magnetic field. We electrons moving to a lower energy path will release energy. We know light bends in a lens, and how to make that useful. Essentially, the funding for pure research and discovery is going…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-electron_laser

These things allow to create warm-dense matter in a laboratory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm_dense_matter

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#178

Post by ganzuul » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

jcims wrote: post #169

Complete physics moron here, is there no way to use particle/anti-particle annihilation to drive collision energy up? Also, i think if we invested the money for a new collider into an effort to develop what we've learned so far into a useful technology that inspires the general public, the funding for the next collider would take care of itself.

That's what the LEP did. It was replaced with the LHC.

Strange as it might sound, I think technology being developed for the next generation of mobile networks could be what opens up a new regime (with likely candidate theories) of high energy physics. - Terahertz beamforming for wakefield accelerators, to throw some lingo at you.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#179

Post by knzhou » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

jcims wrote: post #169

Complete physics moron here, is there no way to use particle/anti-particle annihilation to drive collision energy up? Also, i think if we invested the money for a new collider into an effort to develop what we've learned so far into a useful technology that inspires the general public, the funding for the next collider would take care of itself.

Perhaps counterintuitively, it makes little difference. At the energies we're considering, the mass-energy of the particles being collided is completely negligible. Switching to colliding protons and antiprotons does change the details of what you get out, but not the energy scales.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#180

Post by ves » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #175

eigenspace wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the effects they're looking at are confined to such high energy and small length scales that they're utterly invisible to things even on the scale of a single proton. It's very difficult to imagine how (or even why) one would ever build a device that takes advantage of a TeV scale effect to do something useful, given that these effects are meaningless to the sorts of matter we care about and inter…

You could say the same during invention of quantum mechanics: "They are looking at the effects on the scale of single atom/electron, hardly ever useful in our everyday life." Or about going to the space. You can never know what new discoveries bring.

Yeah, but discovery costs resources, and on the margin a new accelerator is a less cost-effective means of producing productive new discoveries, sounds like.