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As 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 f

As 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 ago
Scientists 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 ago
  Yeah I mean it's the biggest indicator of whether you'll get tenure. It's sad but it's how it is.
verytrivial 8y ago
Yes, 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 ago
  She 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 ago
The 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).
kowdermeister 8y ago
The Standard Model is known to be incomplete, there must be something somewhere that leads us to a broader understanding. Let's put that $10 billion into perspective. How much would you pay for Quantum theory (yes, it's a broad term)? It gave us the modern world as we see it today. I think that $10 billion is cheap considering the possibilities that it might unlock.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

Scientists 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 ago
Yeah I mean it's the biggest indicator of whether you'll get tenure. It's sad but it's how it is.

verytrivial 8y ago

Yes, 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 ago
She 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 ago

The 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).

kowdermeister 8y ago

The Standard Model is known to be incomplete, there must be something somewhere that leads us to a broader understanding. Let's put that $10 billion into perspective. How much would you pay for Quantum theory (yes, it's a broad term)? It gave us the modern world as we see it today. I think that $10 billion is cheap considering the possibilities that it might unlock.