Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard? • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by SAI_Peregrinus » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

Legend2440 wrote: post #45

klipt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that imply our theories are "good enough" for all practical purposes? If they're impossible to empirically disprove?

Typically whenever you look closely at an object with complex behavior, there is a system inside made of smaller, simpler objects interacting to produce the complexity. You'd expect that at the bottom, the smallest objects would be extremely simple and would follow some single physical law. But the smallest objects we know of still have pretty complex behavior! So there's probably another layer underneath that we don…

> You'd expect that at the bottom, the smallest objects would be extremely simple and would follow some single physical law.

That presupposes that there's a bottom, and that each subsequent layer gets simpler. Neither proposition is guaranteed, indeed the latter seems incorrect since quantum chromodynamics governing the internal structure of the proton is much more complex than the interactions governing its external behavior.

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

#272

Post by Uehreka » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

sashank_1509 wrote: post #158

mattlangston wrote: post #71

Experimental particle physicist here. It's just hard. I measured the electron's vector coupling to the Z boson at SLAC in the late 1990s, and the answer from that measurement is: we don't know yet - and that's the point. Thirty years later, the discrepancy between my experiment and LEP's hasn't been resolved. It might be nothing. It might be the first whisper of dark matter or a new force. And the only way to find ou…

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.

There are people in this thread saying tens of billions isn't that much in the long term (I'd agree) but there's a bigger point that comes into play whatever the price: The universe doesn't care if exploring it is expensive. You can't make a "that's not sustainable" argument to the universe and have it meet you half way. And that's who you're arguing against: not the scientists, the universe. The scientists don't decide how expensive future discoveries will be.

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

#273

Post by sigmoid10 » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

gosub100 wrote: post #244

sigmoid10 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Fundamental physics research has an extremely profitable returns ratio, but it takes decades to amortize. This does not work with capitalist corporations who only care about immediate profits. Even for governments this is a difficult sell, but at least they don't have to soothe shareholders every quarter. Generational projects take a different kind of economic thinking.

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

#274

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #267

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.

In the scope of international cooperation, tens of billions of dollars is not very much money. For context, the U.S. economy generates $10 billion every ~3 hours. One private company, Google, spends $10 billion in about 2 weeks. So look at it this way. Let’s take a bunch of the smartest people alive, train them for decades, give them a month of Google money, and they’ll spend 30 years advancing engineering to probe t…

> Let’s take a bunch of the smartest people alive, train them for decades, give them a month of Google money

Unpopular opinion: Google makes an insane amount of money, so they can afford this salary. The CERN (or whatever your favourite research institute is), on the other hand, is no money-printing machine.

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

#275

Post by padjo » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

tariky wrote: post #115

To my uneducated eye it looks like they are stuck in limbo for 120 years. Nothing practical has been create based on those theories. It is just words and calculations spinning in circles. I wish those people focus on practical real world physics. So we all can enjoy new innovations.

You should probably invest in your education so.

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

#276

Post by alphawhisky » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #274

snowwrestler wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the scope of international cooperation, tens of billions of dollars is not very much money. For context, the U.S. economy generates $10 billion every ~3 hours. One private company, Google, spends $10 billion in about 2 weeks. So look at it this way. Let’s take a bunch of the smartest people alive, train them for decades, give them a month of Google money, and they’ll spend 30 years advancing engineering to probe t…

> Let’s take a bunch of the smartest people alive, train them for decades, give them a month of Google money Unpopular opinion: Google makes an insane amount of money, so they can afford this salary. The CERN (or whatever your favourite research institute is), on the other hand, is no money-printing machine.

Every step towards understanding subatomic physics is a step towards cold fusion. The second we're able to understand and capture this energy, money literally doesn't exist. Infinite energy means infinite free energy, which would also abolish money from a fundamental market value perspective. I'll continually preach that we need to plan for this economically as a species because none of our current government or economic systems will survive the death of scarcity.

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

#277

Post by kachapopopow » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #250

kachapopopow wrote: post #242

None of the comments seem to mention that it's also really really really really really expensive.

That depends on what you compare it to.

"quite literally everything else", well you got iter etc but those are on the same spectrum. It's rare that military projects in the US get that kind of funding.

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

#278

Post by bloggie » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:52 PM UTC

kdavis wrote: post #255

layer8 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on what you compare it to.

Almost anything, i.e. the next generation accelerator[1] at CERN is about 15B CHF which is about 20B USD. [1] https://home.cern/science/accelerators/future-circular-colli...

About a third of Madoff's fund, a little over a month of Google AI spend, about nine months of Ozempic sales. Fun!

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

#279

Post by cvoss » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

throw_m239339 wrote: post #31

bananaflag wrote: post #7

It's basically the opposite situation from 150 years ago. Back then, we thought our theory was more or less complete while having experimental data which disproved it (Michelson-Morley experiment, Mercury perihelion, I am sure there are others). Right now, we know our theories are incomplete (since GR and QFT are incompatible) while having no experimental data which contradicts them.

I find the idea that reality might be quantized fascinating, so that all information that exists could be stored in a storage medium big enough. It's also kind of interesting how causality allegedly has a speed limit and it's rather slow all things considered. Anyway, in 150 years we absolutely came a long way, we'll figure it that out eventually, but as always, figuring it out might lead even bigger questions and my…

> all information that exists could be stored in a storage medium big enough

Why is quantization necessary for information storage? If you're speculating about a storage device external to our universe, it need not be constrained by any of our physical laws and their consequences, such as by being made up of finitely many atoms or whatever. It might have components like arbitrary precision real number registers.

And if you're speculating about a storage device that lives within our universe, you have a contradiction because it's maximum information capacity can't exceed the information content of its own description.

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

#280

Post by aleph_minus_one » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

alphawhisky wrote: post #276

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let’s take a bunch of the smartest people alive, train them for decades, give them a month of Google money Unpopular opinion: Google makes an insane amount of money, so they can afford this salary. The CERN (or whatever your favourite research institute is), on the other hand, is no money-printing machine.

Every step towards understanding subatomic physics is a step towards cold fusion. The second we're able to understand and capture this energy, money literally doesn't exist. Infinite energy means infinite free energy, which would also abolish money from a fundamental market value perspective. I'll continually preach that we need to plan for this economically as a species because none of our current government or econ…

> The second we're able to understand and capture this energy, money literally doesn't exist. Infinite energy means infinite free energy[.]

Similar statements were already claimed about nuclear fission power plants in the 70s.