Comment by Fh_
Comment by Fh_ a day ago
These projects are extremely expensive and the findings can alter humanity itself. That's why private donors sounds a bit sketchy
Comment by Fh_ a day ago
These projects are extremely expensive and the findings can alter humanity itself. That's why private donors sounds a bit sketchy
A collider produces far more than new particles or explanations. They produce papers and phds. In effect, thier primary goal is to produce stem careers. The new particles are just the public announcements. The collider doesnt even need to be functional. Much/most of the work occures before first light, before anyone turns it on. The design of the ring and its innumerable detectors and subsystems takes decades. So a great many people want the next collider to be funded regardless of its potential for scientific discovery.
The same discussion can happen re the ISS. Its primary purpose was not science. It existed to give shuttle a parking spot, to keep the US manned space program ticking along and to keep a thousand russian rocket people from going to work for rando countries. The ISS will soon end. Are we going to put up a new one? A place to park starliner and dragon? Or are we going to shut down low earth orbit spaceflight? The decision will not turn on the potential for new science, rather it will be about supporting and maintaining a flagship industry.
>The same discussion can happen re the ISS. Its primary purpose was not science.
But it's worth noting that many experiments took place on ISS covering few domains, examples being AMS (cosmology), CAL (quantum physics), SAFFIRE (combustion), and Veggie (botany/sustainability).
And the LHC did science too. But, in both cases, the amount of science generated was not worth the money and/or the same could have been acomplished at far lower cost via other means.
> thousand russian rocket people from going to work for bad people.
Just like for the Germans before!
I agree with you that it is an educational tool, but if that's all it is, there are cheaper ways to educate that might also have a higher likelihood for scientific discoveries. To build a new collider, we should have some things we're trying to do/find.
> Higgs boson was predicted in theory in 1964, and found in LHC in CERN in 2012-2013. With this, all elementary particles in the standard model of particle physics have been found.
Before LHC Large Hardron Collider (CERN), there were other experiments with lower raw and final recorded data rates: SppS (CERN; MB/s; 1-10 Hz), SLC (SLAC (Stanford); 50 MB/s; 2 Hz), LEP (CERN; 100 MB/s; 1-5 Hz), Tevatron (Fermilab (Chicago); 250 GB/s, 100-400 Hz), HERA (DESY; 500 MB/s; 5-20 Hz), LHC CMS/ATLAS (CERN; 40 TB/s; 1000 Hz).
HL-LHC (CERN; 10X LHC;)
FCC-ee (CERN), FCC-hh (CERN)
Non-confirmed non-elementary particles of or not of the Standard Model?
What about Superfluids and Supersolids (like spin-nematic liquid crystals)? Are those just phases? Is the phase chart for all particles complete?
How can they alter humanity? What's the difference for humanity since CERN found Higgs particle? In what ways could the potential dark matter particle detection alter humanity?
It’s a place where extremely skilled people work highly motivated on humanities hardest problems at scale.
CERN pushed distributed computing and storage before anyone else hat problems on that scale.
CERN pushed edge computing for massive data analysis before anyone else even generated data at that rate.
CERN is currently pushing the physical boundaries of device synchronisation ( Check „ White Rabbit“ ), same for data transmission. CERNS accelerator cooling tech paves the way for industrial super cooling, magnet coils push super conduction…
Companies are always late in the game, they come once there is money to be had: No one founded a fusion startup until we were close enough to the relevant tripple product.
Seems these are all positive things and it’s good that private donors are adding some money.
that's like building an API with no customers -- rarely a good idea
You are perfectly right, this has been similar to the "space industry" (which includes 'ballistic nukes' knowhow maintainance). The thing with a bigger collider is it seems there are, not that honnest, scientists retro-fitting models in order to reach 'appropriate for this new collider' energy ranges where 'new physics' could be found.
What does that even mean? The FCC is essentially the next plausible energy range we can probe with a collider.
Going larger would cost more, and add risk.
So like, yes? The obvious thing to do is to analyze our models and come up with experiments to do within energy ranges which are plausibly accessible with near future technology.
In what way would studying black body radiation alter humanity? Oh just the basis for quantum mechanics and thus transistors, lasers, MRIs, photovoltaics, and more.
The point is, you don't know in advance. I admit it's a bit more far fetched with these experiments that are so far removed from everyday life, but they're still worthwhile.
Cancer treatment goes back to particle physics research at CERN, the Web was born there, cloud was previously known as Grid Computing at CERN,
Three examples of how humanity would not be as we know it today without CERN.
As Alumni, there are many other changes that trace back to CERN.
We don't sit only on the H1 beer garden and go skiing.
I understand how linacs and even small compact syncrotrons can have practical medical and industrial applications, and I understand that in the past CERN has developed technology and produced research which is relevant to hardon therapy.
What I don't understand, and maybe you can clarify, is how the very largest gargantuan accelerators can ever have practical relevance. How can effects and products which can only be studied with accelerators that are many miles large ever have application in hospitals unless those hospitals are also many miles large? Not going to lie, I get "NASA invented Tang" vibes whenever this subject comes up; like the medical applications of small accelerators are obvious and parsable to the public, so they are used to sell the public on accelerators the size of small countries.
Because of the engineering effort required to build such systems, that no one has built before, means there is a gigantic amount of R&D discoveries that can be eventually applied in other fields outside particle physics.
Mechanical, electronic, informatics, chemistry, physics,...
Hence why CERN eventually created an industry collaboration office, responsible for finding business partners that would like to make a business out of such discoveries.
https://knowledgetransfer.web.cern.ch/activities-services/co...
> the Web was born there
The internet existed, hypertext existed, it was just happenstance that it was put together there. It would have happened somewhere, maybe not exactly the same protocol but the same end result.
> Cancer treatment goes back to particle physics
Are you speaking about proton therapy? I don’t think there’s any evidence that works better than alternatives
What matters is that exists, and is another possibility for treatments.
What do you mean by 'any evidence that works better Than alternatives'?
It can deliver radiations to the brain that will peak at the exact position of the cancer, and reduce irradiation in sane tissues. The 'better' is 'less irradiation to sane tissues' that in turn reduces the risk for new cancers.
Note: I'm not expert on the matter, but I had technical visits to IBA and know several PhDs that work there
Less that and more "we built a really complex machine and we can apply those skills elsewhere".
> can alter humanity
or at least keep some of it warm:
https://home.cern/news/news/cern/heating-homes-worlds-larges...
> findings can alter humanity itself
Higgs boson was predicted in theory in 1964, and found in LHC in CERN in 2012-2013. With this, all elementary particles in the standard model of particle physics have been found.
From the 1970s to 2010s, physicists believed in a theory called supersymmetry, which predicted supersymmetric partner particles for the known elementary particles. But these should have been already found in the energies used in LHC.
For the first time, there is no mainstream theory that would predict any new findings. Maybe the next bigger particle collider will find no new particles at all?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlixMNBlQos