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Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

economist.com

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Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#81

Post by MiroF »

djaque wrote: post #70

My personal opinion (and I might be biased since I'm not a collider guy) is that it's time to take a break from the energy frontier and put our efforts into other kinds of physics. There's a whole world out there besides "fixing" the standard model. I'm having a hard time finding it, but there's a quote from a famous physicist along the lines of "we already have a theory of everything we encounter in daily life, it's…

> we still have no idea how unconventional superconductors work. Of course, they're completely described by plain old quantum mechanics without even using field theory

News to me - I thought that study of non-conventional superconductors relied heavily on effective field theories.

Also, I think this is a bit of a strawman - there's a ton of money and effort going into condensed matter physics right now.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#82

Post by djaque »

yummypaint wrote: post #77
djaque wrote: post #70

My personal opinion (and I might be biased since I'm not a collider guy) is that it's time to take a break from the energy frontier and put our efforts into other kinds of physics. There's a whole world out there besides "fixing" the standard model. I'm having a hard time finding it, but there's a quote from a famous physicist along the lines of "we already have a theory of everything we encounter in daily life, it's…

My perception is that this is closer to the direction the field has been moving for the last half decade or so. Pushing the "energy frontier" was needed to experimentally find the higs and test supersymmetric theories. The higs was measured, and literally hundreds of proposed theories and particles, including very well-liked theories, have been eliminated. This is a big success. However, it turns out that some of the…

Oh, that's right. I wasn't really placing the electron ion collider (EIC) under the energy frontier umbrella, because they're moving in a different direction. I'm actually sort of involved with them too, but from a distance. I'm pretty sure it will happen, it's just a question of which of two proposals will succeed (more of a political question to be honest).

My own interest isn't in colliders at all, but in building atomic probes like x-ray light sources and fast electron diffraction apparatus, but at a scale accessible to universities instead of large facilities.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#84

Post by sandworm101 »

achillesheels wrote: post #72
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.…

Can you please elaborate on QM being necessary for the transistor? Was it necessary for its invention in Bell Labs?

It isn't that we wouldn't have transistors but that we wouldn't understand them. We wouldn't have the good transistors necessary for modern technology.

There is a similar debate around Newtonian physics. How far might the industrial revolution have gone without a perfect understanding of how things move? You don't need newton to build complex machines. Look at any early windmill or waterwheel. You need newton to understand machines well enough to build and run them efficiently. You don't always need theory before practical, but theory always makes practical better.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#85

Post by MiroF »

buzzkillington wrote: post #38
kd5bjo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a maximum price tag for potentially knowing more about the universe? Yes. On the extreme end, there’s a finite amount of useful work that can be done before the heat death of the universe. An energy budget the size of the combined output of all power stations on the planet is much smaller than that, but also too much. At a more realistic scale, human knowledge is only valuable in so far as it improves the…

>Or maybe we need to raise the global literacy rate so that we have more scientists available. Or maybe we start paying scientists living wages so anyone who can wipe their ass doesn't end up as a quant. Speaking as a quant with a physics phd working with another 400 phds in an hft firm.

The financial incentives are seriously so misaligned. Likewise as a physics undergrad who considered going into academia and is now doing tech.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#86

Post by achillesheels »

achillesheels wrote: post #72
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.…

Can you please elaborate on QM being necessary for the transistor? Was it necessary for its invention in Bell Labs?

I found a Physics Stackexchange thread addressing this.[1] The science of quantum mechanics was not necessary for its invention. I’m still uncertain of its direct application other than “at [1]https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/112615/why-is-it...

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#87

Post by scottlocklin »

At some point, elementary particle physics will actually die as a field and the people who persist in building particle accelerators as if there is some new electroweak theory right around the corner will have to find something else to do. Of course, they'll probably continue with their pyramid building for decades after the subject has actually died.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#88

Post by MiroF »

culturestate wrote: post #36
rubidium wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These don’t get built by countries. They get built in countries. The home country matters and they’ll need to put up funding, but it’s an international workforce.

> The home country matters...but it’s an international workforce. Given the current state of the world and the trajectory of the West's relationship with the Chinese government, it may have to be built by China if it's going to be built in China.

China has a lot of STEM expertise, I'm confident they could probably figure it out.

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#89

Post by MiroF »

djaque wrote: post #82
yummypaint wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My perception is that this is closer to the direction the field has been moving for the last half decade or so. Pushing the "energy frontier" was needed to experimentally find the higs and test supersymmetric theories. The higs was measured, and literally hundreds of proposed theories and particles, including very well-liked theories, have been eliminated. This is a big success. However, it turns out that some of the…

Oh, that's right. I wasn't really placing the electron ion collider (EIC) under the energy frontier umbrella, because they're moving in a different direction. I'm actually sort of involved with them too, but from a distance. I'm pretty sure it will happen, it's just a question of which of two proposals will succeed (more of a political question to be honest). My own interest isn't in colliders at all, but in building…

like cheap RHEED?

Re: Finding new physics will require a new particle collider

#90

Post by willis936 »

MiroF wrote: post #88
culturestate wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The home country matters...but it’s an international workforce. Given the current state of the world and the trajectory of the West's relationship with the Chinese government, it may have to be built by China if it's going to be built in China.

China has a lot of STEM expertise, I'm confident they could probably figure it out.

Then it should be easy to demonstrate with smaller scale projects. Where are those demonstrations?
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