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

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#51

Post by Koshkin » Sun, May 10, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

EastLondonCoder wrote: post #48

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #8

A counter point by Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/opinion/particle-physics-...

In the late 19th century people that went into science where actively discourage to study physics since many believed there was nothing left to find out. Without quantum mechanics we would not have the transistor, there would be no computers. The immense economic value delivered by fundamental research makes a 10 billion usd investment look like a microscopic peanut crumb compared to the potential value it can give.…

Difference is, the discovery of quantum mechanics did not require billion-dollar investment in equipment and manpower (not until work began on nuclear weapon, anyway). Besides, current research in high-energy physics, while being expensive, only brings scientific value and not much at all in the way of practical application (except, perhaps, as a side-effect of building more and more sophisticated equipment - but that would be like saying that wars are good for medicine, because obviously direct investment in medicine would be more efficient than investment in war).

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#52

Post by lowdose » Sun, May 10, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

EastLondonCoder wrote: post #48

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #8

A counter point by Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/opinion/particle-physics-...

In the late 19th century people that went into science where actively discourage to study physics since many believed there was nothing left to find out. Without quantum mechanics we would not have the transistor, there would be no computers. The immense economic value delivered by fundamental research makes a 10 billion usd investment look like a microscopic peanut crumb compared to the potential value it can give.…

I agree and the enormous amount of knowledge build up is lost overtime when not actively used. Not investing in the next project is like no more space travel after we went to the moon. We should always push these projects further for the sake progress. Especially when you see it in the light of the defense budget.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#53

Post by rwallace » Sun, May 10, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

mlag10 wrote: post #11

Finding a new apartment in any major European city will require 40-50% of a person's income. But let's go for new particle colliders with pretty multicultural pictures.

Look, I completely agree with you that the housing crisis is terrible and needs to be fixed, but sniping at proposals for particle accelerators is not the way to express that view! Let's make political comments in contexts where they are appropriate.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#54

Post by ganzuul » Sun, May 10, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

Random_ernest wrote: post #50

orbifold wrote: post #5

More likely than not the next collider will be build in China, quite a few particle physicist luminaries have already made their case there. I for one am glad that I stayed clear of the siren call to join the 3000+ grad student workforce at CERN. Sifting through the heap of data that was assigned to you is about as fun as it sounds I think. You get to look for the J/Psi, Pomeron, Dark Matter how exciting! In reality…

I think people severely underestimate the scale, complexity, and time it takes to build large scale accelerators. There wont be some magical new accelerator popping up. Building them takes years, sometimes decades. Additionally you need a lot of experience in building, operating and designing those. Having worked in accelerator physics for quite some time my opinion is that China does not have the skills to do this.…

> There wont be some magical new accelerator popping up.

There will and it will come from photonics research.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#55

Post by Koshkin » Sun, May 10, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #35

beojan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other research areas could be more important to progress right now and we only have so many scientists available to do the work. Allocating those scientists to research areas is an incredibly hard task, but it’s a necessary one. That's not really how it works. People work on things they're interested in, not what they get assigned to.

> That's not really how it works. People work on things they're interested in, not what they get assigned to. You have no idea how management and funding of large-scale research projects works.

Indeed, government-funded national labs are highly bureaucratic institutions.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#56

Post by yters » Sun, May 10, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

Used to be breakthroughs could be made by a lens maker accidentally discovering micro biology or the president of the treasury thinking through the mathematics behind his observations and discovering the law of gravity or a patent clerk resolving contradictions between data and theory in his spare time to discover relativity or a barely employed artist describing in detail inventing concepts that would not be created until centuries after his death.

Now we need billions of dollars and all the best minds to even hypothetically make progress.

Maybe something is wrong in the state of scientific research.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#57

Post by djaque » Sun, May 10, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #8

A counter point by Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/opinion/particle-physics-...

I post this every time someone links to Hossenfelder, but please take her opinions with a grain of salt.

She seems more interested in attacking the "physics establishment" than in giving people a picture of the reality of our situation. Take a look at her articles on LIGO [1] for instance where she makes conspiracy theory level claims saying that the group is lying about their data and that "big physics" is in on it.

My opinion happens to be similar to hers on building the next big collider, but I'm not a high energy physics expert. Given how dishonest she was on the subjects I am familiar with, there's no way that I trust her to give an accurate portrayal of the ones I'm not.

[1] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/09/whats-up-with-ligo...

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#58

Post by 0xTJ » Sun, May 10, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

yters wrote: post #56

Used to be breakthroughs could be made by a lens maker accidentally discovering micro biology or the president of the treasury thinking through the mathematics behind his observations and discovering the law of gravity or a patent clerk resolving contradictions between data and theory in his spare time to discover relativity or a barely employed artist describing in detail inventing concepts that would not be created…

What you've said makes no sense. Why shouldn't new tech be required? You're not even comparing similar science topics to modern physics. When you're pushing the boundaries of our knowledge of the universe, there's no human perception that can itself detect anything new.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#59

Post by whaaswijk » Sun, May 10, 2020, 2:10 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #51

EastLondonCoder wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the late 19th century people that went into science where actively discourage to study physics since many believed there was nothing left to find out. Without quantum mechanics we would not have the transistor, there would be no computers. The immense economic value delivered by fundamental research makes a 10 billion usd investment look like a microscopic peanut crumb compared to the potential value it can give.…

Difference is, the discovery of quantum mechanics did not require billion-dollar investment in equipment and manpower (not until work began on nuclear weapon, anyway). Besides, current research in high-energy physics, while being expensive, only brings scientific value and not much at all in the way of practical application (except, perhaps, as a side-effect of building more and more sophisticated equipment - but tha…

How can you be sure that the new science won't have any practical applications?

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#60

Post by gsht » Sun, May 10, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

rwallace wrote: post #53

mlag10 wrote: post #11

Finding a new apartment in any major European city will require 40-50% of a person's income. But let's go for new particle colliders with pretty multicultural pictures.

Look, I completely agree with you that the housing crisis is terrible and needs to be fixed, but sniping at proposals for particle accelerators is not the way to express that view! Let's make political comments in contexts where they are appropriate .

Building a new particle accelerator is inherently political, asking why there is money for X and not for Y is legitimate for every political discourse.

Being weary of the media framing every issue as a multicultural one could have been left out, but is a human reaction.