by khaled_ismaeel on 6/7/22, 7:51 AM with 457 comments
by japanuspus on 6/7/22, 8:55 AM
The short history of physics in TFA is spot on: Einstein and the quantum pioneers added abstractions to build physical theories with prediction power, whereas current high-energy physics theory seems to be mostly a mathematical exercise. This has been confirmed by numerous insiders, including by Hossenfelder as mentioned in the article, and Lee Smolin ("The trouble with physics") who is also a theoretical physicist.
Things have changed a lot since accelerators became a must-have for high-energy physics: Today we have detectors and computing power that let us observe the natural experiment of the universe with a precision and diligence that would be impossible when LHC was commissioned. I find it much more likely that we would learn new physics by giving 10-year grants to 1000 young physicist of revolutionary spirit, and let them use the tools they could build themselves, than by handing that money to the old guard which has produced nothing of significance for the last two generations.
[1]: The industrial subsidy angle is not touched upon in TFA, but it is clear that there is a large number of people and companies making a good living from mega-physics, and talking to colleagues in the field, I get the distinct impression that it is not always they physicist walking in the front when asking for more machines.
by BrandoElFollito on 6/7/22, 3:40 PM
The place is fantastic, you get to meet great people and life is cool.
But what you are working on is completely useless for humanity. Knowing that there is a quantum foam is knowledge that brings us nowhere. If someone could answer to this "and so what?" in a meaningful way I would be glad to change my mind. For the time being, the energy scale we are making these discoveries is not useful.
"yes, but this is fundamental science..." → yes it is, but where does this fundamental science helps in everyday problems? Have we had a case where the Higgs boson changed anything in our life?
The quantum mechanics of the 1920's changed our everyday world. We could build a whole technology on it, and understand things that changes our everyday life. Is there a comparable impact on knowing that the Higgs boson is +/- 10^-9 (or whatever) aligned with the theoretical model?
We have so many problems where physics is needed (energy production to start with, and then exploring biology), the money should go there instead. Even if it means having less particle physicists the same way we have less philosophes.
by popinman322 on 6/7/22, 8:27 AM
I also don't have the expertise to tell whether the article is being overly reductive with the project's goals: are there other questions (besides new particles) that can only be answered with a larger collider? The summary of the FCC (Future Circular Collider) project's goals indicates that yes, there are unresolved questions that the FCC will address[0].
[0]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-019-69...
by mehrdada on 6/7/22, 8:19 AM
What's concerning to me, however, is the attitude towards curiosity that this article exhibits. They should rename their domain to smallthink.com.
by captainmuon on 6/7/22, 9:06 AM
Of course, there are a lot of smaller experiments that one could do, also in particle physics, that have great value. One example was the Muon g-2 measurement, another is anything neutrino physics. We can get a lot of interesting input and test our theories without going to the "energy frontier". Physicists understand this very well. But there are a bunch of questions that you can only really answer if you go to those higer energies.
As for the costs, 100 billion is a lot, but not when you compare it to other large infrastructure projects, or especially military spending (and note the Chinese proposal SPPC would be a lot cheaper!). I think if we could shave off 100 billion of military expenses and put it into basic research, it would be a great win for society. That's not realistic you say, with all the threats out there? Great, I agree, but now we have a nice project! Lets put as a common goal that we want to be able to do this kind of research, and then improve our societies nationally and globally so that we can reduce our military spending and do this kind of research.
100 billion ($/€) is the amount that Germany is spending as a special budget in response to Russia's aggression, in order to become the nation with the 3rd highest military spending on the planet. If it weren't for the war in Ukraine, we could put it all into such a project.
If we had averted COVID in it's early stages - like we did with SARS-1 and MERS - imagine all the resources we could have put into research instead.
by oyoman on 6/7/22, 9:43 AM
the FCC is a project for the next 70 years. It is supposed to be operational after 2040 at the earliest if I recall correctly (20 years from now more or less), and to run for around 40 years.
So if you do a very simplistic calculation on the first 20 years : 100 B euros over 20 years over 20 countries (there is 23 member states into the CERN) it is 250 M euros / year / country. This is not even calculated on the over-all project time, on on the different steps that will be happening: first FCC as electron-positron collider and then much later FCC hadron-hadron collider.
And if you are really interested into the previewed outcomes (scientifically and new techs associated):
https://indico.cern.ch/event/1040535/timetable/#20220503.det...
You can take look at the European research communities symposium that just happened recently on the future of the research topics in Europe. There are a lot of information for FCC and so on.
by yccs27 on 6/7/22, 10:26 AM
The fundamental problem for high-energy physics seems to be the "tyranny of the standard model", as one of my professors called it. We know that our current model of fundamental particles must be incomplete towards extremely high energies (trillions of TeV), because it conflicts with general relativity. However, almost all experimental results are consistent with the standard model. There are some barely-significant [2] results from muon spin and W-boson experiments, but the effect sizes are minuscule and and two data-points are in no way enough to guide new theory development.
This leaves theorists with almost no experimental input, so they pursue purely mathematical ideas that are in some way elegant, able to describe the standard model as a low-energy limit, and in some cases include a description of gravity as well. But the more advanced and theoretical the ideas get, the more difficult it gets to make experimental predictions. The ones which predict non-standard-model measurements with current equipment are already ruled out anyway, because we did the measurements and the standard model just keeps getting validated.
So what should we do? We can hope that a larger collider will find new evidence of beyond-standard-model physics, but (as I understand it) there is no concrete reason why there has to be anything interesting in the newly-accessible energy region.
[1] As just one example from particle physics: Gell-Mann's "Eightfold Way", which uses advanced representation theory to describe hadrons and was successful at predicting new particles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eightfold_way_(physics) [2] Note that high-energy physics has an extremely high standard of significance at 5 sigma, so it's not comparable to "barely significant" in the social sciences.
by rlpb on 6/7/22, 8:32 AM
I'd find this article and its opinion more credible if it could point out how this didn't apply to the LHC. Was every discovery and technology that came out of the LHC predicted in advance? If not, then this argument fails.
by Havoc on 6/7/22, 8:05 AM
Thats the point of discovery and arguably a point in favour of doing this
by throw457 on 6/7/22, 8:04 AM
by rvieira on 6/7/22, 8:17 AM
Interestingly, the most expensive ones are almost always highway systems. Can someone briefly explain why? I'm my naive view it's mostly asphalt and terrain work.
by _ph_ on 6/7/22, 1:21 PM
Consequently, the cost trade-off isn't as clear-cut as the article might make it sound. Which for me leads to the obvious answer: yes, we should build another, larger collider. But probably not right now. There should be plenty of funding for the current one and also quite a bit of theoretical preparation before it is getting planned/built. In this time, other projects should get priority funding. But eventually, we should build another collider. We should never stop researching.
by wasmitnetzen on 6/7/22, 9:34 AM
by r3x_m on 6/7/22, 8:42 AM
by ivanb on 6/7/22, 8:14 AM
The low hanging fruit of discovering new physics looks like this. Build a bigger machine to collide particles with even more energy. Observe what comes out. It's a clear direction. Just throw money at the problem and get a result.
by throwawayffffas on 6/7/22, 3:09 PM
by elashri on 6/7/22, 11:10 AM
Anyway as someone inside experimental HEP field, I would encourage anyone who wants to understand more about finding and ideas to try to follow up the snowmass process as an example on how the dynamics of funding and new ideas for the future forms, discussed and gets priorities (at least in US)
Snowmass process is basically a series of meeting for the US HEP community where they discuss the US strategy and funding requests for the coming decade. the last one was in 2014 and now this process which takes about 3 years (probably more this time thanks to covid). It is really insightful but technical in nature but try to read more about it and the final report that gets to DOE committee to act as advisory guideline from the community.
by rektide on 6/7/22, 4:23 PM
> There are many known problems in physics right now. $100 billion could fund (quite literally) 100,000 smaller physics experiments. There may not be enough physics labs on Earth to carry out that many experiments!
It's amazing & a bit problematic how big-biased we are. For reference, LHC cost a bit under $5B by compare. I have a hard time imagining what it would take to get $5B in funding for physics. How much effort would each physics project have to spend to go get funding, versus how much time did it take the LHC to get funding?
I really like the idea of diversity, of a range of medium & small projects. But it feels like structurally we are disposed towards bigger higher ticket tasks. That once the ball is rolling, once there's critical mass, we can get the checkbooks opening. But by compare the channels for getting small & medium funding is more case by case, that large pools of money aren't as available or accessible.
by throwaway14356 on 6/7/22, 10:47 AM
It's one of the rare setups where i lack thé arrogance to think my opinion would be relevant. (That said, if the goal was to burn the funds with minimal progress I couldn't imagine a better tool than the LHC BWANDO corporation.)
If the tax payer is to fund the effort perhaps their opinion should have some non-zero influence on the choice?
Im not entirely against theoretical efforts (which is like my opinion) but to alienate clearly productive effort under some "let industries do it" banner seems several bridges to far. Maybe the other way around: let industries decide. would be less sensless.
useful things like wind solar wave tidal energy, clean water, agriculture etc all directly compete for the funds.
Wait, i know. Lets spend an insane amount of money to research what we should be funding. Im sure we can figure out howmany apples an orange is worth.
by Animats on 6/7/22, 8:57 PM
That paper describes a design for a 160 meter ring synchrotron to produce "extreme ultraviolet" for IC fabs in the 7nm and below range. Some large research accelerators have been used for that experimentally, including SLAC at Stanford. So the concept is known to work. It just needs to come down in price and size.
ASML's tin-vaporization light source, which is a mechanical and optical nightmare made to work by throwing a few billion dollars at it, is the current technology.
This may be how China leapfrogs the West in IC technology.
by sandworm101 on 6/7/22, 7:32 PM
The link between CERN and the web is a great example of something that had nothing to do with the core science but was certainly worth more than the investment.
by DeathArrow on 6/7/22, 8:24 AM
by bjornsing on 6/7/22, 8:27 AM
PS. I have a masters in engineering physics and several friends who are physicists. I’m also a science nerd. But I still think this is the right thing to do.
by cm2187 on 6/7/22, 9:44 AM
XX century science has delivered plenty of practical applications. But is there any practical application to expect from another large Hadron collider? Wouldn’t that money be better used in bio science or something else?
by datadata on 6/7/22, 8:49 AM
by neltnerb on 6/7/22, 3:20 PM
But sure, go build a $100B machine out of habit.
by ainiriand on 6/7/22, 8:50 AM
In any case it will be built by a conglomerate of countries and the budget is not huge when splitting the bill.
Heck I would even like to see a couple of these built per year instead of more planes and warships.
Edit: Typo.
by TrapLord_Rhodo on 6/7/22, 10:41 PM
That shouldn't ever be the argument because you can argue about the exact peice of fecundity that the dollar value can have until you are blue in the face on X, Y, Z projects.
When it comes to government spending, my reactions seems to be the opposite of most. I actually think that these big audacious projects is the only use for government. Fund big things that individually and within the private market would never be a thing. Do Hubble, Do LHC++, do scientific exploration missions because that is what makes you proud to be part of what is going on around you. That sense of inspiration in the air of progress is all that is required for a functioning society.
by rkwasny on 6/7/22, 3:29 PM
The important part is "building" which pumps billions into research programs for improving materials/electronics etc.
Sure we can defund all expensive science and maintain the status quo, last time we did this dark ages happened.
by blablabla123 on 6/7/22, 12:41 PM
Interesting point, there was a time where it wasn't even clear whether string theory should be considered part of Physics or rather Mathematics or even Metaphysics. That said, the LHC has continuously given additional insights into existing theories and also it's not the only collider in the world although probably there's no other where so many countries collaborate. Also an interesting read about the early history of CERN: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1955503
by michaelcampbell on 6/8/22, 1:57 PM
Is this that?
by macspoofing on 6/7/22, 11:54 AM
I don't think you need to worry about it
by Johnny555 on 6/7/22, 5:10 PM
by dontbenebby on 6/7/22, 11:31 AM
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/nov/06/cern-big-ban...
(Old physics meme :-) )
by dmpk2k on 6/7/22, 8:42 AM
The LHC is a massive machine with advanced technologies, took a decade to design and build, involving 10k scientists and the international community, and cost $9B.
- Squadron of F-35 aircraft: ~0.2 LHCs
- JWT: 1.1 LHCs
- ITER: >2 LHCs
- Elon Musk's wealth: 24 LHCs
- Microsoft's market cap: 30 LHCs
- US annual military budget: 90 LHCs
- US national debt: 3389 LHCs
by spacemanmatt on 6/7/22, 1:03 PM
by bullen on 6/7/22, 10:33 AM
I think breakthroughs are often perpendicular to the energy, so the best investment in understanding the universe is probably to explore it.
Unfortunately that also requires alot of energy.
Rate of change is going to slow down with the price of energy going up.
by freemint on 6/8/22, 9:34 PM
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261...
by jmartin2683 on 6/7/22, 3:25 PM
by LeoNatan25 on 6/7/22, 10:48 PM
This has been said, in one form or another, about almost any invention and experiment, shortly before actual discoveries were made. Scientific conservatism at its worst.
by KHRZ on 6/7/22, 8:54 AM
by irthomasthomas on 6/7/22, 8:13 AM
Cern really should be investigated and audited publicly, but it would take Delloites and PWC to follow that paper trail and audit hundreds of companies going back 25-30 years. I've always said it, cern is a scam, they take public money to fund product research, and then spin off separate companies to cream off the profits. Then they act broke and beg us for more money.
Edit: There is very little public information on this. The company accounts may be public, but like I said, there are hundreds of them going back 30 years, and no-one is motivated to do that kind of research. There is a recent study here[0] which looks at the economic benefit to companies that help build the research equipment. Obviously a lot of tech has to be invented just to build systems like this. But I haven't seen a similar study of the cern spin-off companies, or KT (Knowledge Transfer) partners in cern nomenclature, and that is where the real meat is.
I don't see why it would be so controversial for cern to retain some share in those KT companies and use that money to be self sufficient. That seems like a win for science.
[0] https://cds.cern.ch/record/2632083/files/CERN-ACC-2018-0022....
Further reading:
https://kt.cern/success-stories/fostering-culture-entreprene...
https://kt.cern/success-stories/managing-cern-intellectual-p...
One example company (out of hundreds):
UK firm buys cancer-zapping spin-off from CERN collider
"The spin-off, known as Adam, was established in 2007 by CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, to build low-cost innovative accelerators for proton beam therapy (PBT) and conventional radiotherapy. Advanced Oncotherapy will pay for Adam in shares, giving CERN scientist Alberto Colussi, who founded the CERN business, a continuing stake in the technology." https://www.avoplc.com/en-gb/Investors/Share-Price-Informati...
by hoseja on 6/7/22, 9:52 AM
by antonvs on 6/8/22, 11:01 AM
We're going to need that $100 billion for burn cream.
by hexo on 6/7/22, 8:09 PM
by practice9 on 6/7/22, 10:20 AM
by Invictus0 on 6/7/22, 6:32 PM
by atemerev on 6/7/22, 8:28 AM
Well, if this isn’t predictable!
by isaacfrond on 6/7/22, 8:05 AM
Because Supersymmetry is stupid theory that can be fit to any set of facts, there is no point in building LHC++. Besides it is so expensive you could give a 100.000 physicist a million bucks and that would be more productive.
by viburnum on 6/7/22, 8:35 AM
by godelski on 6/7/22, 7:36 PM
The other thing I hate about this is that the numbers reported in the article are clearly inflationary. The use the precise phrasing " It’s entirely possible that the price could swell to $100 billion." while highlighting the big number. Well let's check another source. CNET says $23bn. So that would require a 5x over budget, which would be quite high. I know HN loves Hossenfelder, but she is overly pessimistic. At least in my group of physicists, we don't know other physicists who like her much (not that I hate her, just more ambivalent). Pessimists are good, but they shouldn't dominate conversations the same way optimists shouldn't.
Either way, it is clear that this type of money is very small when we are discussing country budgets. It should not be inflated and should not be sold as if there is a single country buying it (which it is well cheap enough to be done. Hell, Bezos and Musk could each have one, or several. Hell, there's at least 20 billionaires that wouldn't have issues building their own and funding them for significant periods of time).
So the real question is if we should build it, not the cost. As a former physicist, I do think the argument for building one is weak. It is correct that we don't have any great things to test. But there are reasons to do so. We need to consider it will take at least another decade to build, which theorists will hopefully come up with something in that time. If they don't, we can still test precision levels which is highly helpful. But there are other intangible things that are hard to evaluate. Anytime we humans tackle difficult problems and push the boundaries of what we can do, we learn a lot. That's where spinoffs come from and we've seen them in every major scientific endeavor (NASA, CERN, LIGO, and many more). Also, what happens when you put a bunch of smart people from many countries in a room together? There's political advantages (and why I think it is a shame Bush killed the American accelerator). There's also the fact that if we stop doing this, we'll lose talent and skill. So yeah, the upsides aren't crazy good like finding a new fundamental particle, but it also isn't that expensive. That's the real conversation that needs to be had.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-d...
[1] https://www.lhc-closer.es/taking_a_closer_look_at_lhc/0.cern...
[2] https://www.cnet.com/science/cern-wants-to-build-a-new-23-bi...
by gumby on 6/7/22, 5:32 PM
Side note: this is comic number 401. Comic number 404 is particularly good.
by rubyist5eva on 6/7/22, 12:38 PM
by rootw0rm on 6/7/22, 8:04 AM
by yboris on 6/7/22, 3:22 PM
Please read this book, which is in my opinion the most important book written this century.