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Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

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Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#181

Post by marcosdumay »

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #135

There is an existential angst amongst particle physicists because they all understand that they are the thoroughbred pets of the scientific world. Even if they find something, it doesn't matter, because they are working in energy regimes that are not reachable in the ordinary physics of the universe as it exists today. Even the discovery that the Higgs Boson as a lighter mass than predicted, while intellectually intr…

> Even if they find something, it doesn't matter

Yeah, that's a general attitude. I highly doubt that it's true, but most people seem to believe it.

Just because you found the problem on a very high energy setting, it doesn't mean that the changes in theory you will get only impact very high energies. It may also impact low energy events that are naturally rare or events that have some consequence you can take out of the accelerator.

All that you know is that the immediate consequence of the finding won't matter. But new findings often have more consequences than the immediate ones.

If a new accelerator had a good chance of determining something unknown, it could be a worthwhile investment.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#183

Post by SkyBelow »

jerf wrote: post #174
SkyBelow wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the alternatives? Better weapons, better ad targeting systems, better gambling hidden behind a veneer of gaming on mobile? We can look at where our government and our society currently allocates money and find that the allocations looks bad enough that even building a bigger particle accelerator that might not find anything is an improvement overall. As a singular species, I think we would be better for goin…

Sorry, are you seriously proposing that either we fund new particle accelerators or we're just going to build weapons/ads/gambling systems, and there are no other choices? I want to be clear that this is your claim before I spend any more time on it.

No. I'm pointing out that our current system is already spending money on far more wasteful things, thus it should be possible to fund accelerators by taking away from the things that are an outright detriment to humanity than the things that are, at worst, only useless.

I even point out that the reality is likely if we fund particle accelerators, it will likely be diverted from places we don't want it to be diverted from, like other research spending.

>even if we get funding it'll likely be diverted from the areas we least want it diverted from

Note I even end by saying the poster is probably right, for as much as I don't like that they are (not meant as a negative to the poster, but to how humanity currently allocates our resources).

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#184

Post by AnimalMuppet »

XorNot wrote: post #88
survirtual wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s build a particle accelerator on the moon. Make it go around the circumference of the entire moon.

For the effort it would be easier to build one around the Earth. Double it up as a driveable highway, rail and electrical infrastructure (and then you can use solar power sold on a global market where one side is always in daylight).

Um... doesn't it produce synchrotron radiation while operating? I'm not sure that you want to be driving on that...

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#185

Post by PaulHoule »

This NYT article from 2 days ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/13/science/cern-hadron-colli...

spins it the other way. Personally I am amused by this old scandal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_ano...

because there is some precedent for superluminal neutrinos (I saw an experiment at Los Alamos National Labs that was trying to measure the neutrino mass by observing tritium decay and their best fit estimate for the mass was imaginary, although consistent with zero.) Also if "SERN" was like it is in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate_(TV_series)

superluminal neutrinos would be something they'd definitely cover up.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#187

Post by SkyBelow »

weego wrote: post #148
SkyBelow wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the alternatives? Better weapons, better ad targeting systems, better gambling hidden behind a veneer of gaming on mobile? We can look at where our government and our society currently allocates money and find that the allocations looks bad enough that even building a bigger particle accelerator that might not find anything is an improvement overall. As a singular species, I think we would be better for goin…

That feels like a false dichotomy. This is pushing forward research into theory, even with highly positive results it's completely unknown whether any of those results actually result in any progress for the human race other than knowledge, and at a base cost of €21 billion that knowledge comes with a huge opportunity cost. We face so many tangible risks right now that €21 billion invested elsewhere into things that…

Isn't the false dichotomy that if we spend €21 billion on a particle accelerator then we must take it from other research into advancing humanity instead of taking it from other areas that don't provide benefit to humanity as a whole (though they do provide benefit to some groups at equal or greater cost to others).

>'is spending this much money disproving philosophical arguments justifiable right now?' should rightly be being asked.

In light of all the expenditures we are already making elsewhere, I don't see how many of those can be justified but this one not.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#188

Post by blueplanet200 »

SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #4

I think "nightmare" is a bit sensational. The LHC's purpose is not to "find X" it is to take measurements over a novel range of conditions. The new data is what we're after.

The new data is what we're after ... to make discoveries! It's not just new data for new data's sake.

The LHC in that regard has fell short.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#189

Post by AnimalMuppet »

burmanm wrote: post #5
Victerius wrote: post #2

James Clerk Maxwell united electricity and magnetism with a pen and paper. Einstein discovered special and general relativity in the same way. Has theoretical physics advanced enough now that such pen and paper discoveries are all but over, and the only way to continue making progress is to dedicate an ever larger share of the global economy's productive capacity to building larger and more expensive experiments? Wha…

Well, we also blow up billions in missiles that achieve nothing. So, why not smash some particles instead?

I would absolutely prefer smashing particles over smashing missiles.

Re: Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

#190

Post by strbean »

dlsa wrote: post #27

At least they are finding nothing and confirming they are finding nothing. Less scrupulous operators might be always finding something even if its not there. So that's a sign of good science. Maybe there's something they haven't found because there's so much data? Mix things up and look again? Change assumptions? Or as someone I know likes to say to various smaller humans: have you looked around the couch? Really? Ar…

> Or as someone I know likes to say to various smaller humans: have you looked around the couch? Really? Are you sure? Have you had a good look? this is how the tv remote usually subsequently reappears as there is a difference between just looking and having a good look.

Dealing with larger humans in a social setting - the only method I've found that works for finding the remote is addressing one of them on the couch and saying "The remote is UNDER YOU!"

Then they *actually look*.

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