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Plans Revealed for Enormous Particle Collider in China

63 points by rlv-dan 8y ago

orbifold 8y ago
If the western particle physics community goes along with that it would be pretty disappointing.
- rlv-dan 8y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - ahje 8y ago
    From the article: > But Cheng asked that scientists worldwide don’t just allow the machine to be built and use it without exercising their political power to help address the country’s issues. “International scientists have leverage and power,” that they can wield without being complicit. She also said that Chinese scientists should be more aware about their potential complicity.
    - iofiiiiiiiii 8y ago
      I do not see why scientists should be expected to play politics if they do not want to. It is great if China is willing to fund and host such a project. Yes, perhaps there are some issues in China but there are issues in every country.
      - ahje 8y ago
        For what it's worth, I agree. Still, you did ask for an elaboration. :)
- colordrops 8y ago
  why?
  - vixen99 8y ago
    CERN is run by 22 member states. Is it not likely that the Chinese center would be run and major decisions entirely made, by the Chinese. Many might suspect that is the case. No problems with that?
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Not really. If they want to build something in their own country and run it how they choose then that's up to them. Why is it a problem? Even if they refuse the share any science with the rest of the world we're no worse off than we were before.
      - lpellis 8y ago
        Hopefully they do share though, we might be slightly worse off if they lure away scientists that otherwise would have working in a more open system. But it seems unlikely to be an issue, I'm sure the people working on the cutting edge would like to publish and get the results known everywhere.
      - moccachino 8y ago
        When the world went from no country having nuclear weapons to one country having nuclear weapons, was the rest of the world not worse off than before?
        stevenjohns 8y ago
        Probably not. We're doing a lot better than we were 100 years ago, and nuclear weapons have been a great deterrent to stop many countries from engaging in wars that they might have been more tempted to if at least one of the parties didn't have nuclear weapons.
        TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
        We've had almost constant small-scale proxy wars instead, and the arms industry isn't exactly going through hard times. More realistically, we got lucky and barely dodged the armageddon bullet on a number of occasions.
elliottlan 8y ago
I am ignorant on this subject - when discoveries are made with the LHC are they made public or are they kept 'secret' by its 'owners'? If they are made public, will another country investing in another one (or even a bigger one) discover anything that the European one hasn't?
- nextweek2 8y ago
  Science by it's nature isn't kept secret, results are shared and verified. What a second LHC does is allow you to verify results independently. With one LHC you have to be extra careful about assumptions you made and what data might be being thrown off by local peculiarities. Being at the forefront of particle/energy research is it's own reward. The results are only part of the prize. Learning how to build a LHC is probably just as valuable.
  - T-A 8y ago
    The LHC hosts multiple detector complexes. They are operated independently by different collaborations which compete with each other: https://home.cern/science/experiments https://home.cern/science/experiments They just happen to feed off the same particle beams. The proposed Chinese collider would not be a second LHC; it would be a Higgs factory for precision studies rather than a discovery machine like the LHC.
- T-A 8y ago
  > when discoveries are made with the LHC are they made public Yes. CERN is a publicly funded, shared facility; its users are universities. What it does has no direct commercial value. > will another country investing in another one (or even a bigger one) discover anything that the European one hasn't? Possibly. The proposed machine would allow more precise measurements of the Higgs boson's properties than the LHC. The best case scenario is that those measurements would turn up deviations from the Standard Model, which would point the way to something new. To actually "discover" that hypothetical new thing, in the sense of directly detecting a new particle, would probably require yet another accelerator to be built (possibly in the same tunnel).
labster 8y ago
Good luck to them, and to any nation that pushes the boundaries of pure science. I do hope that they'll be able to staff it, though; they still can't get scientists to staff their mega radio telescope: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/china-still-having-trouble-staffing-up-its-mega-telescope/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/china-still-having-t...
- rando444 8y ago
  I would say that's less about technology and more about location. Particle colliders can go underground around major cities. Telescopes like this are in the middle of nowhere. You need a special type of person that is qualified to operate the worlds largest telescope and simultaneously wants to live in a remote forest.
  - tshannon 8y ago
    Heh, that sounds kind of awesome actually.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    I'd say it may be less about the type of person, and more about the conditions: > Another concern international astronomers have about the chief scientist position, as well as that of the research associates, is that their activities will be controlled by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This seems likely to limit the academic freedom that Western observers generally enjoy.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bmc7505 8y ago
If their chief scientists start disappearing and their colliders suddenly malfunction, I’m going to be pretty disappointed. Trisolarans had better watch out, our Space Fleet is waiting for you this time.
- basementcat 8y ago
  Yeah our combined fleets can totally take out that puny little droplet.
ginsu 8y ago
Cool, let's all protest about the inevitable cataclysm of microscopic black holes we were so worried about with CERN.
deadbunny 8y ago
China really seems like the America of the 50s/60s when it comes to science these days.
- tshannon 8y ago
  China is funding like America of the 50s/60s.
cletus 8y ago
Not the best source for this. As in it's light on details. For one the LHC was designed to have a maximum collision energy of 14 TeV. The CEPC is designed for more like 70 TeV. The goal of higher end is to make relatively infrequent products much more common. It says in the article they want to produce more Higgs bosons and this is how that happens.

63 points by rlv-dan 8y ago

orbifold 8y ago

If the western particle physics community goes along with that it would be pretty disappointing.

rlv-dan 8y ago
Care to elaborate?
- ahje 8y ago
  From the article: > But Cheng asked that scientists worldwide don’t just allow the machine to be built and use it without exercising their political power to help address the country’s issues. “International scientists have leverage and power,” that they can wield without being complicit. She also said that Chinese scientists should be more aware about their potential complicity.
  - iofiiiiiiiii 8y ago
    I do not see why scientists should be expected to play politics if they do not want to. It is great if China is willing to fund and host such a project. Yes, perhaps there are some issues in China but there are issues in every country.
    - ahje 8y ago
      For what it's worth, I agree. Still, you did ask for an elaboration. :)
colordrops 8y ago
why?
- vixen99 8y ago
  CERN is run by 22 member states. Is it not likely that the Chinese center would be run and major decisions entirely made, by the Chinese. Many might suspect that is the case. No problems with that?
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Not really. If they want to build something in their own country and run it how they choose then that's up to them. Why is it a problem? Even if they refuse the share any science with the rest of the world we're no worse off than we were before.
    - lpellis 8y ago
      Hopefully they do share though, we might be slightly worse off if they lure away scientists that otherwise would have working in a more open system. But it seems unlikely to be an issue, I'm sure the people working on the cutting edge would like to publish and get the results known everywhere.
    - moccachino 8y ago
      When the world went from no country having nuclear weapons to one country having nuclear weapons, was the rest of the world not worse off than before?
      - stevenjohns 8y ago
        Probably not. We're doing a lot better than we were 100 years ago, and nuclear weapons have been a great deterrent to stop many countries from engaging in wars that they might have been more tempted to if at least one of the parties didn't have nuclear weapons.
        TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
        We've had almost constant small-scale proxy wars instead, and the arms industry isn't exactly going through hard times. More realistically, we got lucky and barely dodged the armageddon bullet on a number of occasions.

elliottlan 8y ago

I am ignorant on this subject - when discoveries are made with the LHC are they made public or are they kept 'secret' by its 'owners'? If they are made public, will another country investing in another one (or even a bigger one) discover anything that the European one hasn't?

nextweek2 8y ago
Science by it's nature isn't kept secret, results are shared and verified. What a second LHC does is allow you to verify results independently. With one LHC you have to be extra careful about assumptions you made and what data might be being thrown off by local peculiarities. Being at the forefront of particle/energy research is it's own reward. The results are only part of the prize. Learning how to build a LHC is probably just as valuable.
- T-A 8y ago
  The LHC hosts multiple detector complexes. They are operated independently by different collaborations which compete with each other: https://home.cern/science/experiments https://home.cern/science/experiments They just happen to feed off the same particle beams. The proposed Chinese collider would not be a second LHC; it would be a Higgs factory for precision studies rather than a discovery machine like the LHC.
T-A 8y ago
> when discoveries are made with the LHC are they made public Yes. CERN is a publicly funded, shared facility; its users are universities. What it does has no direct commercial value. > will another country investing in another one (or even a bigger one) discover anything that the European one hasn't? Possibly. The proposed machine would allow more precise measurements of the Higgs boson's properties than the LHC. The best case scenario is that those measurements would turn up deviations from the Standard Model, which would point the way to something new. To actually "discover" that hypothetical new thing, in the sense of directly detecting a new particle, would probably require yet another accelerator to be built (possibly in the same tunnel).

labster 8y ago

Good luck to them, and to any nation that pushes the boundaries of pure science. I do hope that they'll be able to staff it, though; they still can't get scientists to staff their mega radio telescope: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/china-still-having-trouble-staffing-up-its-mega-telescope/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/china-still-having-t...

rando444 8y ago
I would say that's less about technology and more about location. Particle colliders can go underground around major cities. Telescopes like this are in the middle of nowhere. You need a special type of person that is qualified to operate the worlds largest telescope and simultaneously wants to live in a remote forest.
- tshannon 8y ago
  Heh, that sounds kind of awesome actually.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  I'd say it may be less about the type of person, and more about the conditions: > Another concern international astronomers have about the chief scientist position, as well as that of the research associates, is that their activities will be controlled by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This seems likely to limit the academic freedom that Western observers generally enjoy.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bmc7505 8y ago

If their chief scientists start disappearing and their colliders suddenly malfunction, I’m going to be pretty disappointed. Trisolarans had better watch out, our Space Fleet is waiting for you this time.

basementcat 8y ago
Yeah our combined fleets can totally take out that puny little droplet.

ginsu 8y ago

Cool, let's all protest about the inevitable cataclysm of microscopic black holes we were so worried about with CERN.

deadbunny 8y ago

China really seems like the America of the 50s/60s when it comes to science these days.

tshannon 8y ago
China is funding like America of the 50s/60s.

cletus 8y ago

Not the best source for this. As in it's light on details. For one the LHC was designed to have a maximum collision energy of 14 TeV. The CEPC is designed for more like 70 TeV. The goal of higher end is to make relatively infrequent products much more common. It says in the article they want to produce more Higgs bosons and this is how that happens.