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

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

#51
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminded me of a Youtube documentary about "the missing American particle collider"[0]. The documentary touches on some Fermilab drama, but most of the content is aimed at politics (and in particular, how presidential politics is unfortunately intertwined with funding for science mega-projects in the US). [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivVzGpznw1U&list=PLAB-wWbHL7...

This may be an interesting example of a “zombie” organization. Fermilab exists to push the boundaries of particle physics. We stopped wanting to do that, or at the very least outlay the capital to do that. We likewise don’t want people at fermilab doing other things with their time. Meaning that they don’t have much to do but go through the motions. We have a few of these in science, it would arguably be better in th…

There's a further subtlety -- the US would like to retain the capability to do this work without funding the entirety of the work itself. A lot of the expertise and infrastructure is unique and world-class.

In my view, the entire field is on pause awaiting the development of truly transformative accelerator technology, then it's off to the races again.

"In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending." -- Wilson.

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

#52
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…

Roger Penrose is a remarkable mathematician and has made profound contributions to mathematics and its application to General Relativity. But his opinions on Quantum Mechanics, (e.g., its relationship with conscience) are very fringe, when not outright quack-material. Nobody takes him seriously on this topic and he has made no recognizable contribution or proved anything that would grant any credibility to the idea.

Sabine Hossenfelder is a peculiar character. She raises some good points regarding the futility of a lot of the phenomenological models that are published, in my mind they are little more than busy-work to have something to publish and survive the publish or perish attrition that researchers must endue. And she is right that is not the way to do science. It's a form of overfitting and throwing things to the wall in the hope something sticks. But this is mostly due to publish or perish. Discovering something deep is very difficult and if you have to have several publications per year to renew your contract you have strong incentives to build a silly toy model with little chances of being right. But the problem lies in the incentives that have been set up in academia. Remove them and most of those silly publications will disappear. But then it's hard to establish a different set of incentives that ensure those that most deserve funding get it. Beyond that fair criticism it's hard to understand what she proposes as an alternative. She doesn't bring anything constructive to the table. Pack it up and de-fund physics until our technical means allows us to probe the Planck scale?

There is certainly an argument to be made on how much funding different sciences should receive given their potential contribution to society. And I see a lot of low hanging fruits in other sciences that would grant most funding going there. But theoretical physicists cost pennies to our society; they are few, poorly paid, and require little more than pen and paper. At the same time, theoretical physicists have contributed to this date immensely valuable contributions that make our developed world possible. It's my perhaps biased opinion that they have had the most outsized impact into our progress. It's sensible capital allocation to keep some funding in the chance they keep changing our lives for the better as profoundly as they have done in the past.

There is this apocryphal quote that summarizes it quite well, it is said that William Gladston (british minister of finance) asked Michael Faraday what was the usefulness of this electromagnetic field he was researching. To which Faraday purportedly answered, "I don't know, sir, but one day you may be able to tax it". Even if this particular exchange didn't happen, it contains a very valuable truth, when you are researching the frontiers of science the practical application is not always obvious but that shouldn't deter us from doing it.

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

#54
post #51
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be an interesting example of a “zombie” organization. Fermilab exists to push the boundaries of particle physics. We stopped wanting to do that, or at the very least outlay the capital to do that. We likewise don’t want people at fermilab doing other things with their time. Meaning that they don’t have much to do but go through the motions. We have a few of these in science, it would arguably be better in th…

There's a further subtlety -- the US would like to retain the capability to do this work without funding the entirety of the work itself. A lot of the expertise and infrastructure is unique and world-class. In my view, the entire field is on pause awaiting the development of truly transformative accelerator technology, then it's off to the races again. " In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and…

Plasma Wakefield and “accelerator in a chip” are those breakthroughs that are expected to mature soon, though accelerator on a chip would be pointing more towards new applications

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

#55
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!

"beer"...

/ducks

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

#57
post #11

Fermilab has been in trouble for a while. They did not diversify enough at the tail end of Tevatron and (I think) are mostly working on DUNE, which isn’t going great. You can’t have a lab that big with mostly a singular focus which is being executed poorly.

I guess the Holometer doesn't count as diversification. >.>

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

#59
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the adage goes but sometimes one man's junk just becomes another person's hoarding.

What would be the fine difference between hoarding and collecting?

Well, one test if it is causing nevative impacts in other parts of your life.

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

#60
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"beer"... /ducks

Ok now I’m curious what beer is served at CERN. I am not familiar with any Swiss beer and only a handful of unspectacular French beers.
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