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Claiming we'd have learned everything the LHC taught us a generation ago also doesn't make much sense, considering the vast improvements in sensor technology an
by kjs3 11y ago
Claiming we'd have learned everything the LHC taught us a generation ago also doesn't make much sense, considering the vast improvements in sensor technology and data handling that happened between the last generation and this. It's just as likely we'd have seen little or nothing because our "eyes" weren't sensitive enough or we couldn't find the needle in the data haystack.
- jgalt212 11y agoPerhaps, but in high energy physics, size matters. Or at least size matters more than most other dimensions.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoI'd suggest computing matters more. The SSCO would have been crippled by the sensor and computing technology available at the time. It would have been able to make very small things go "boink" a lot, but it would have had problems capturing a fat enough stream of data to record the results. LHC wins because signals are statistical, and the more data you have the more reliably you can say "Uh huh - that's a real signal and not just one of those random things that happens sometimes." See also the current debate about whether or not something real is going "boink" at 750GeV.
- kjs3 11y agoOnly with respect to generating events, not with respect to detecting and analyzing them.