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Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

#241

Post by davrosthedalek »

gary_0 wrote: post #162
jacquesm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing practical has been create based on those theories. Ever used GPS? A CD player? A laser? Semiconductors?

Einstein laid the theoretical foundations for lasers in 1917, and it took over 40 years of "impractical" scientific work before the first functioning laser was built. It took decades more for them to become a cheap, ubiquitous technological building-block. The research is still continuing, and there's no reason to assume it will stop eventually bearing fruit (for the societies that haven't decimated their scientific…

In addition, lasers were long believed to be a scientific novelty without any real world use.

Re: Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

#243

Post by ajam1507 »

toast0 wrote: post #237
sashank_1509 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the cost of the “next machine” be? Is it going to be tens of billions or can we make progress with lesser money. If it is going to be tens of billions, then maybe we need to invest in engineering to reduce this cost, because it’s not sustainable to suspend thirty years, tens of billions for every incremental improvement.

Spending tens of billions every thirty years is pretty sustainable actually. "Fundamental Research" may or may not pan out, but the things that happen along the way are often valuable... I don't think there's any practical applications related to generating Higgs Bosons, but it's interesting (at least for particle physicists) and there's a bunch of practical stuff you have to figure out to confirm them. That practica…

You could say the same thing about the world wars or porn. Any human pursuit taken to an extreme can produce knock-on effects, that isn't an argument in a vacuum to continue to fund any one area.

Re: Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

#244

Post by gosub100 »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #167
sashank_1509 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the cost of the “next machine” be? Is it going to be tens of billions or can we make progress with lesser money. If it is going to be tens of billions, then maybe we need to invest in engineering to reduce this cost, because it’s not sustainable to suspend thirty years, tens of billions for every incremental improvement.

This kind of slow, incremental improvement that costs tens of billions of dollars and takes decades gave us the microchips that ultimately enabled you to type this comment on your phone/computer. The return on that investment is obvious. But it is not just about making money: The entire field of radiation therapy for cancer exists and continues to improve because people figured out ways to control particle beams with…

Why can't some of these trillion dollar companies invest back in the quantum tech that got them there, if it's so certain there will be benefits? Why not Apple and Nvidia fund the next particle collider, and give something back to society instead of letting tax payers fund it so billionaires can privatize the profits?

Re: Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

#245

Post by danparsonson »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #234
hugh-avherald wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does targeting research towards 'more promising' fields actually produce greater economic returns?

The field of Elon Musk has been promising shit for years, what do you think?

Well we definitely have a lot more Elon Musk now

Re: Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

#246

Post by api »

ForgotIdAgain wrote: post #226
sashank_1509 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the cost of the “next machine” be? Is it going to be tens of billions or can we make progress with lesser money. If it is going to be tens of billions, then maybe we need to invest in engineering to reduce this cost, because it’s not sustainable to suspend thirty years, tens of billions for every incremental improvement.

I think that engineering progress made while building those machines are maybe more relevant for practical technical development than the discovery they make.

Better superconductors here. Would you like a $20 MRI down at your local drug store to detect cancer at early stage 1?

Re: Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

#247

Post by pjmlp »

alt227 wrote: post #236
pjmlp wrote: post #159

As CERN Alumni, this isn't easy, the data is endless, processing it takes take, usually everything is new technology, and also needs to be validated before being put into use. Thousands of people have worked on bringing LHC up during a few decades before, Higgs came to be, across all engineering branches. This stuff is hard, and there is no roadmap on how to get there.

> Higgs came to be Did it? I thought the whole point was that the data that came from LHC showed that it was inconclusive and needed a bigger more powerful machine to prove it. Happy to be proved wrong.

I am out of CERN since 2004, and only return there during Alumni related events, not keeping up with has happened with Higgs during the last years.

Re: Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

#249

Post by elfly »

Paracompact wrote: post #21
tasty_freeze wrote: post #15

Here is one fact that seems, to me, pretty convincing that there is another layer underneath what we know. The charge of electrons is -1 and protons +1. It has been experimentally measured out to 12 digits or so to be the same magnitude, just opposite charge. However, there are no theories why this is -- they are simply measured and that is it. It beggars belief that these just happen to be exactly (as far as we can…

Technically, the charge of a proton can be derived from its constituent 2 up quarks and 1 down quark, which have charges 2/3 and -1/3 respectively. I'm not aware of any deeper reason why these should be simple fractional ratios of the charge of the electron, however, I'm not sure there needs to be one. If you believe the stack of turtles ends somewhere, you have to accept there will eventually be (hopefully simple) c…

Well yes, but the coincidence that Quarks have charges of multiples of another particle, that is not made up of quarks, should rise your brow, shouldn't it?

Like we could accept coincidences if at the bottom is all turtles, but here we see a stack of turtles and a stack of crocodiles and we are asking why they have similar characteristics even if they are so different.

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