10 ms·
Concept design for a post-LHC future circular collider at CERN
- gigatexal 8y agoLess than 10 billion euros for something that will do amazing things for science? Where do I donate?
- kgwgk 8y ago> something that will do amazing things for science Maybe it will, maybe it won't. http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/01/particle-physicists-want-money-for.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/01/particle-physicists... http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/12/cern-produces-marketing-video-for-new.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/12/cern-produces-marke...
- Create 8y agoWell, there is a dedicated top of the line full-manned CERN video studio to produce marketing videos. https://cds.cern.ch/record/1331512 https://cds.cern.ch/record/1331512
- selectodude 8y agoCan anybody explain why we know there's exciting stuff at 15 orders of magnitude more power than what we currently have? I'm off today and I'd love to fall into a high-energy particle physics wikipedia wormhole.
- kristianp 8y agoA comment in the 2nd article implies that Loop quantum gravity is being referred to there: "Quantum gravitation occurs at a scale of 10^{14} to 10^{16}TeV and the 10 TeV work we can do is 13 or more orders of magnitude too low."
- spiritcat 8y agoMy understanding is that, since we have no idea what's happening down there, whatever it is would be new and exciting. (feel free to correct)
- walrus1066 8y agoThat's the energy scale where the force of gravity becomes strong enough to influence subatomic particle interactions. Currently, our model of nature at subatomic scales (the 'Standard Model') does not include gravity. This is fine for LHC energy scale, because gravity is so weak compared to the other three forces (electromagnetism, strong & weak nuclear force), that it can be ignored. The mass of quarks, electrons etc is tiny, you can make precise predictions on stuff like 'particle X will decay into particles Y & Z at this likelihood', without accommodating gravity. But at the planck energy scale, gravity is too strong to be ignored, and the Standard Model breaks down, it can't make predictions. So this is why the planck scale is where you're 100% guaranteed to see 'new physics'. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units EDIT: think the reason gravity becomes stronger at higher energies, is because the _relativistic mass_ of particles increases with their velocity. So if you bang two electrons a&b together at nearly the speed of light, the effective mass of electron a from the frame of reference of electron b will be orders of magnitude greater than the 'rest mass of electron a'. Because strength of gravitational interaction is proportional to mass of particles involved, electron b will feel stronger gravitational pull of electron a (and vice versa). So if the electrons are traveling at planck scale speeds, the strength of gravitational interaction becomes comparable to the electromagnetic interaction between them. Then all standard model predictions of how the electrons interact goes out of the window, because SM cannot model gravity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity
- kristianp 8y agoJust read that first link: "Another reason I am not excited about the current plans for a larger collider is that we might get more bang for the buck if we waited for better technologies. There’s the plasma wakefield acceleration, eg, that is in a test-period now and that may become a more efficient route to progress. Also, maybe high temperature superconductors will reach a level where they become usable for the magnets. " The new accelerator won't have superconducting magnets and doesn't have a particular particle to look for like the LHC did with the Higgs.
- olivierlacan 8y agoWith your taxes. No sarcasm intended.
- Create 8y ago...of which a sizeable chunk will go to Western European's private pension fund: the Pension Fund of CERN manages approximately 4 billion Swiss Francs in assets, both internally and externally. And screw the younger generation, while at it (most of whom aren't eligible anyway). Conditions for new members (see Table 1): https://cds.cern.ch/record/1694667 https://cds.cern.ch/record/1694667
- vkou 8y agoAnd the rest will go into salaries. So? Pensions are just deferred salaries. Do we expect scientists to work for free, or something?
- Create 8y agoWe expect scientists' salaries to be based on merit, not based on discrimination on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, creed, cultural background or other factors, such as age or nationality. "The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y) [where Y>X] source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report ISBN: 9290831693 cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264
- dukwon 8y agoI have no idea what point you're trying to make with that quote. Companies and universities in different countries pay different salaries. That is outside the control of CERN.
- tonfa 8y agoWhat's the issue with what they are doing? Isn't it the case for most pension system that the retirement age has been increased over time to make up for life expectancy improvements? Also the assets under management sounds pretty standard compared to similar funds in Switzerland.
- aylmao 8y ago> Less than 10 billion euros for something that will do amazing things for science? Where do I donate? I know right? A single aircraft carrier costs like $13 billion USD (or about 11.3 billion euros as of today). I'll take a huge machine for science over a big machine for war any day. EDIT: I got downvoted but see no comment? I'd like to know if I got my numbers wrong.
- nolok 8y agoI didn't downvote you but I disagree with the general idea of your comment for two reasons. One is that the big machine for war is what allows you to feel and be safe, by making sure you don't get attacked, and making sure no country can deprive you of the necessities you need, thus allowing you to invest yourself in things that aren't related to your safety, like this kind of research. And the second one is that we owe a giant lot to research done for the purpose of war. That we're having this conversation currently, on computers, through the internet, which I use by wifi, in a french home powered by a nuclear reactor ... War research is one of 3 big misappreciated sources of research advance along with fundamental research and space research, amongst the ones that many people often calls out as "doesn't bring anything / we could do without". Like it or not, we're competitive organism and we're at our best on that front when threatened or when trying to steal others's resources. With that said it is all a matter of measures and balance, and assuming you're american I agree that the US went completly overboard on that military spending front. Having the know-how to make carriers ? Yes. Having enough carriers to ensure you're safe, that nobody can push you around and that you can push someone else around if need be ? Yes. Reaching that point and then still building some more ... Well no.
- Frondo 8y agoThe big war machine isn't what keeps us safe; that is a fetishization of the military that has always been around as a justification for outsized military budgets. Saying that we've gotten research via military funding also disregards how much more research we could get if it weren't redirected through the war bureaucracy. Funding research through the military is about as inefficient as you could get--better than doing so via the lottery, I guess, or by throwing bundles off cash off a bridge, but not by much.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI agree we should spend on science but at this moment I would prefer to spend the money on fusion research.
- Symbiote 8y agoIn 2018, the EU proposed allocating €6bn to ITER, the international fusion reactor project in France. I can't find figures for the contributions from other countries, or whether the EU followed through with that. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/technology-and-innovation/iter-and-fusion-energy https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/technology-and-innovat...
- maxxxxx 8y agoI don't know if more money would help fusion. Maybe it just takes time to work through the issues and money won't speed up things. But if money would speed up things I would vote for that.
- mtgx 8y agoDoes ITER have any hope at all? Articles about ITER's promise seem to pop-up every time they need new funding like clockwork.
- XorNot 8y agoThey're building it and it's the first of it's kind. ITER isn't stuck - the building and it's contents are going up week by week. I visited the site when it was an interesting hole in the ground, and they've done a lot more since then. Also fun fact there's a spider that eats bats that lives in that area.
- maxxxxx 8y ago"Also fun fact there's a spider that eats bats that lives in that area. " Scary. What kind of spider is that? Or are the bats really small?
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- blancheneige 8y agoif you are a EU citizen you do not have to donate. your contribution is automatic whether you've asked for it not.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dukwon 8y agoThe EC partly funded the FCC design study (http://www.eurocircol.eu/ http://www.eurocircol.eu/), but I'd be amazed if the EU made a significant contribution to actually building it. Particularly as it would mean 22+ member states paying twice.
- tomatotomato37 8y agoI don't actually get how it can be this cheap; your tunneling through 100 kms of mounatinous earth and filling it with rare-earth superconductors. In contrast European subways average out to around 100 million per km to put a couple rails in a concrete tube
- tangent128 8y agoThe subways have to be safe for human passengers, interface with stations, and be built in populated areas without disturbing the buildings above.
- magicalhippo 8y agoIf anything like the LHC, the tunnel will be much smaller in diameter. The LHC, designed to reuse the existing LEP tunnel, is just 3.8m in diameter. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2011.0453 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2011... http://atlasexperiment.org/photos/lhc.html http://atlasexperiment.org/photos/lhc.html
- lokimedes 8y agoGood news, but it’s not a CDR collider. It collides particles not reports.
- FreeFull 8y agoTechnically reports are made out of particles, though
- rossdavidh 8y agoThat would be awesome, though.
- njarboe 8y agoIt plans to build the Future Circular Collider (FCC). The Conceptual Design Report (CDR) has already been built[1], but not yet released. [1]https://cern.ch/fcc-cdr https://cern.ch/fcc-cdr
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nraynaud 8y agowouldn't it be better to put it where the ground is not active?
- Florin_Andrei 8y agoSurely better in some ways, surely worse in some other ways.
- fasteddie31003 8y agoI'd also put it where labor prices are not the highest in the world.
- m_mueller 8y agotunneling in Switzerland is actually reasonable compared internationally. Take a look at the NEAT project. Roughly 100km of tunnels built for 22bn or so, in highly difficult terrain. NYC built like a couple of km and a station for almost the same cost.
- nraynaud 8y agomy understanding is that they had very bad difficulties drilling in CH for the Gotthard project: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-gotthard-base-tunnel-miracle-under-the-alps-a-723202.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-gotthard-base... .
- m_mueller 8y agomy point was that despite all these difficulties, long duration and it being Switzerland, cost was actually reasonable. ~22M / tunnel kilometer is an order of magnitude lower than many other projects abroad. In general I find public infrastructure projects here to be well run and within reasonable budget. With these kinds of things, labour cost seems to be less of important than inefficiences due to administration and legal uncertainties (unions, nimbys etc.)
- sandworm101 8y agoI'd support this if there was some notion of compromise, some sharing of the load between projects. Why not build the new ring to incorporate the current detector halls? Get the ring 90% done, then punch through into one of the existing LHC detector arrays. Use as much of the current LHC equipment as possible. Once those abilities have been maxed, then move forwards with costly new detectors.
- captainmuon 8y agoAs far as I know, the exact location of the collider is constrained by geography. It has to fit next to the Jura and around a part of the Alps. And they are probably going to reuse many of the LHC preaccelerators anyway.
- jessriedel 8y agoThe detectors are heavily, heavily optimized based on the properties of the beam, and they are not that expensive compared to the cost of the accelerator, operations, and data analysis.
- DFXLuna 8y agoLooks like SERN is moving ahead of schedule. Be safe. El Psy Congroo
- TeMPOraL 8y agoI may or may not have a pristine IBM 5100 for sale.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- fasteddie31003 8y agoHas there been any progress of the AWAKE accelerator technology? https://home.cern/science/experiments/awake https://home.cern/science/experiments/awake Seems like that could be a cheaper method of particle acceleration.
- superkuh 8y agoNot on AWAKE specifically but there's been some exciting progress made using supersonic jets of neutral gas as decent lenses for wakefield accelerated beams. This solves the problem of having a tiny accelerator with a wakefield (not counting the size of the driving laser/beam/whatever) but still requiring large/bulky sections for quadrapole electrostatic lenses and the like.
- magicalhippo 8y agoThere was a discussion over at Physics Forums regarding wakefield acceleration. https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/two-stage-electron-wakefield-acceleration.948303/ https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/two-stage-electron-wak... Note that mfb works as a physicist in the CMS detector team, Vanadium 50 and ZapperZ are current or have been high-energy physicists as well. In summary, issue seems to be that the strong acceleration provided reduces beam quality, which kind of negates the gains you got from the higher energy. Though it doesn't seem to be a fundamental limitation, just a difficult engineering issue.
- dukwon 8y agoI always thought mfb worked on ATLAS
- magicalhippo 8y agoI can't find the reference right now, but in one thread he said something about how the CMS team did their analysis and then commented along the lines that ATLAS did something similar but he wasn't sure of the details. That's why I got the impression he was on the CMS team. Anyway, he works with one of them, so he's not just a random internet armchair expert was my point :)
- PhilWright 8y agoAs the Higgs fills in the last missing particle for the Standard Model, creating such a new accelerator seems very speculative. Maybe there is nothing else to find at higher energies, there is no hint of them at the LHC and the Standard model does not predict anything. I understand professionals always want more experimental power, but given the $10billion+ cost, it seems hard to justify.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoScientists always want more money, even if it isn’t needed. It is what they are groomed to do by their organizations. It’s a sickness. How do I know? I work in academia as a scientist and see it first hand. It’s not about what did you discover anymore, it’s about how much money did you bring in.
- thatoneuser 8y agoYeah I mean it's the biggest indicator of whether you'll get tenure. It's sad but it's how it is.
- verytrivial 8y agoYes, I found Sabine Hossenfelder's summary of LHC++ rather sobering. http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/12/cern-produces-marketing-video-for-new.html?m=1 http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/12/cern-produces-marke... (Very interesting blog, BTW)
- orbifold 8y agoShe does not work in the field and is not an expert. She also has an axe to grind, because she barely got tenure after many years in academia.
- orbifold 8y agoThe main benefits of CERN go well beyond the actual science that is done and building such a collider trains thousands of people in all kinds of skills that are very valuable in the real economy. It generates truly big data as well, so analyzing and handling that data trains yet another set of thousands of people. Most of them eventually quit particle physics and are then hired at SAP, Google, BMW (real examples I know of).