Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center • Hacker News Board

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#41

Post by luckylion » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #27

luckylion wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Road maintenance" shouldn't be done by private companies that are given contracts by the government? Why not?

It really depends on where responsibility begins and ends. It might make a lot more sense, financially, for the government to manage maintenance using supplies and equipments purchased from private companies, with the people working on the roads being government employees instead of employees of the contractors. However, for specific jobs - say building a new bridge, etc. - it might make sense to have that be a compl…

I think there's a good reason to have anti-corruption measures and bring down the hammer hard on everyone in the administration that tries to circumvent them, but I do believe that government is just too inefficient when it comes to doing things.

I'd rather risk that every tenth contract is fraudulent than have every contract cost twice as much with the government doing it themselves. There's just zero incentive for government employees to work quickly and efficiently.

Check private contractor's work to make sure they're not cutting any corners, make corruption harder and incentivize whistle-blowers, but letting the government do things is not something I want as a taxpayer.

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#42

Post by yummypaint » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

My Fermilab story: when I was designing my dissertation experiment it became clear that i would need ~$100k in silicon strip charged particle detectors, and that no company would ever microbond the thousands of connections for me due to the low volume. Fermilab gave me detectors that had been QC rejects from the outer barrel of the CMS detector at CERN for free, and bonded them to my boards for essentially materials cost. For my purposes they worked perfectly. The microbonding machines and the wonderful people associated with them are still to the best of my knowledge the only viable place in the US to have 9x9 cm silicon autobonded in small volume.

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#43

Post by dugmartin » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

One of my favorite memories from thirty years ago in college was having small group breakfast with a few other students through the honor's program with Leon Lederman, the Nobel winning physicist that was the then Director of Fermilab. He had a lot of great stories about how big government funded research worked and was very charismatic.

I toured Fermilab later in college while we where near there for an ACM programming competition. The one thing I remember from the tour was a big red button labeled "Start" next to some huge experiment. The tour guide saw us looking at it and said something like "You don't want to touch that". I've often wondered if that was real or just a prop they used for tours.

Btw, I'll never forget what Leon said when asked by a physics student about what the most important thing to learn or study as an undergrad. He said, "learn to write".

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#44

Post by spacecircle » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

borkt wrote: post #38

bagels wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government should operate in secret?

Statement should read no civil service government employee should talk to the media about their work or workplace unless the authority to speak on the topic on which they are speaking is in their formal job description, or they have been approved to speak to the media by someone who’s formal job description gives them authority to approve that they do so. I am all for radical transparency in the public sector, but pa…

How does those instances compare to the number of times things that would be in the public interest were not shared, because the trained communicators knew it was bad for the bureaucracy?

I say this as a federal scientist myself.

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#45

Post by spacecircle » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #26

1letterunixname wrote: post #14

Some categories shouldn't be privatized like medicine, military arms, basic science, road maintenance, and emergency rescue operations. Elon isn't going to work on particle physics without a direct commercial purpose.

Who decides what “basic science” is?

[dead]

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#46

Post by alangibson » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

pa7x1 wrote: post #37

alangibson wrote: post #23

The real problem is that theoretical particle physics had hit a local optimum that they can't break out of. String theory hasn't panned out, quantum gravity hasn't panned out, and no one really knows where to go next.

This is a complete misunderstanding of the state of physics. The problem is not theoretical physics, if anything, the problem lies in our technological/engineering prowess that has not been able to follow our advances in physics. The Standard Model has some issues but it's, in principle, a valid effective description of all the fundamental forces minus gravity. The issue is that quantum effects of gravity are negligi…

> The problem is not theoretical physics, if anything, the problem lies in our technological/engineering prowess that has not been able to follow our advances in physics.

That used to be my view, but it turns I was wrong. The standard model was complete in the 1970's, and everything beyond it since then has been fruitless. Axions excluded, the other kind of axion excluded, sterile neutrinos excluded to make just a few.

Even Roger Penrose thinks we're on the wrong track with quantum gravity.

Check out Sabine Hofstetter's voluminous output on this issue for a better breakdown than I can give.

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#47

Post by cronix » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #4

DeathArrow wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One man's junk is another man's treasure.

I have a bunch of stuff in my house that I know there are people who would be happy to have it and maybe pay a few dollars but I live in a fairly small town and I'm certainly not about to go to the trouble of boxing things up and shipping them. I can get rid of some things by just leaving them at the end of the driveway with a free sign but doesn't work for everything.

ebay is your friend. People buy entire boxes of unknown old electronic equipment junk that may or may not be working. "As is." You don't even have to really list the contents, just a big picture of everything. I think a lot are scrapping the gold and components, something I got into for awhile. I got almost 4 oz of solid gold from crushed cpu's, memory, old IC's, cable connectors, etc., using nitric acid, a hammer and a jar. Also recovered silver. At current gold prices (about $1950/oz) those little bits add up. Old tantalum capacitors sell for quite a bit as well. They used to be huge and if recycled, many smaller modern surface mount caps could be made. There are several channels on youtube showing the process. It can be a fun hobby. Instead of taking my old gear to a recycling center, I throw it in acid (lol).

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#48

Post by jackcosgrove » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

alangibson wrote: post #46

pa7x1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a complete misunderstanding of the state of physics. The problem is not theoretical physics, if anything, the problem lies in our technological/engineering prowess that has not been able to follow our advances in physics. The Standard Model has some issues but it's, in principle, a valid effective description of all the fundamental forces minus gravity. The issue is that quantum effects of gravity are negligi…

> The problem is not theoretical physics, if anything, the problem lies in our technological/engineering prowess that has not been able to follow our advances in physics. That used to be my view, but it turns I was wrong. The standard model was complete in the 1970's, and everything beyond it since then has been fruitless. Axions excluded, the other kind of axion excluded, sterile neutrinos excluded to make just a fe…

I think her name is Sabine Hossenfelder.

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#49

Post by ntsipina » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

peteradio wrote: post #30

dt23 wrote: post #28

Back in 2015 when I still thought I'd be a physicist, I was a summer intern at Fermilab on the MicroBooNE experiment. The sense of excitement and teamwork on the 10th floor was something I dearly missed when I went to CERN the year after. Every day at 3pm was "coffee and cookies", and my colleagues and I would join the line filled with physicists of all ages and from across the lab, to grab a cookie or maybe two. On…

Yea well cern had beer on tap ... For lunch!

It still does!

Source: Currently at CERN.

Re: Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center

#50

Post by nukeman » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

dt23 wrote: post #28

Back in 2015 when I still thought I'd be a physicist, I was a summer intern at Fermilab on the MicroBooNE experiment. The sense of excitement and teamwork on the 10th floor was something I dearly missed when I went to CERN the year after. Every day at 3pm was "coffee and cookies", and my colleagues and I would join the line filled with physicists of all ages and from across the lab, to grab a cookie or maybe two. On…

Perks of a stand-alone national lab I guess! My workplace (Savannah River Site) has a strict no-booze policy. Although people frequently bring donuts!