5 ms·

> What I'm more worried about is a replacement for liquid helium in cooling. CERN depends on cryogenics for keeping superconducting magnets cold. Helium's a lot

> What I'm more worried about is a replacement for liquid helium in cooling. CERN depends on cryogenics for keeping superconducting magnets cold. Helium's a lot safer than hydrogen. What other alternatives will there be for supercooling when there's no helium? Is that really a big concern? What's expected to come out of CERN that will help humanity face the challenges of the next 1000 years? It's an honest question, perhaps I'm missing something.

wyattpeak 7y ago
Nothing specific is expected (that's the point of basic research), but even ignoring the question of whether "facing challenges" is the only worthwhile goal of humanity, it's categorically erroneous to think that basic physics can't become extremely important to our lives. Nobody in the world thought there was any practical use of the knowledge that time dilated at high speed - the speeds were so ridiculously high that we'd never reach them. That part was right - nothing we build moves fast enough for time dilation to be relevant at a human level. But none of our navigational systems, to pick a single case, would work without an understanding of it.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  Like, I said, it was an honest question. The answer, according to, you is: Nothing. Fair enough. I'm aware that there's an off-chance that basic research can become useful for something. Of course people always point to GPS as an example. You can say that about pretty much any research, however. Since resources are finite, should we not focus on basic research that has the most promise of practical usefulness? As far as I can tell, particle accelerators are used to prove hypotheses whose truth/falsehood are not practically meaningful to pretty much any human being alive, now or in the future. It's an expensive hobby for physicists, as far as I can see. Again, I'd love to hear a better argument than the old "basic research is good because GPS".
  - wyattpeak 7y ago
    GPS is always used as an example because it's a clear demonstration that discoveries don't have to have effects at the human scale to be useful, not because it's the only example of basic research that's paid off. All electricity, all chemistry, started out as expensive hobbies for rich people. Go back to the Greeks and steam power and automation were seen as expensive hobbies for rich people. None of these things were thought to be practically meaningful to pretty much any human being alive. There is only a small chance that any given piece of research is useful, to be sure. Basic research is fundamentally about long-shots. But without basic research, you never get to the stage of directed research. You can't work out the best way to increase transistor density if you don't first work out what electricity is. But in the nineteenth century, it would have been wiser to have directed all that research into electricity into practical things like hydraulics. Where would we be now if we'd taken that path? If you think there's nothing else to be found in physics, sure, we can stop. But plenty of people in the ancient world thought there was nothing left, too. All of those detractors have been wrong right up until the last century. The question is, how sure are you that you're the first generation in two thousand years to be right?
    - gridlockd 7y ago
      > If you think there's nothing else to be found in physics, sure, we can stop. But plenty of people in the ancient world thought there was nothing left, too. To the contrary, I think there's an infinite amount of things to be found out, across all sciences. However, for all I can tell, CERN is out to prove hypotheses for which no one today can conceive of any use whatsoever. By contrast, there are many relatively low-hanging fruits in science and engineering that aren't long shots at all. I'm not gonna say the billion-dollar budget of CERN should be re-appropriated, but it does seem overblown. In any event, I'm not at all worried about CERN shutting down because helium gets to expensive.
this_was_posted 7y ago
I expect that it will help gain a deeper understanding of physics which in turn will enable the development of new technologies. These new technologies could in turn help us greatly in facing our biggest challenges.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  Can you be more specific?
  - demurgos 7y ago
    Some engineer at CERN wanted to easily share documents with its colleagues and came up with the World Wide Web. It's not a direct result of CERN, but a byproduct. They have special requirements for cooling, data processing, engineering, etc. It helps to push for improvements in these fields.
    - gridlockd 7y ago
      That's not convincing at all. If HTML/HTTP hadn't been invented then and there, something similar - perhaps better - would've caught on instead. After all, there was a plethora of internet services early on, the web just happened to eat most of them.
      - dwaltrip 7y ago
        Applications of CERN technologies in society: https://kt.cern/cern-technologies-society https://kt.cern/cern-technologies-society
        gridlockd 7y ago
        Thank you. I can see that medical imaging technologies in particular would show up as side-effects to what CERN is doing. That may not have happened otherwise. Perhaps I'm undervaluing the merits of taking a shower to solve a problem unrelated to cleaning my body, metaphorically speaking.

wyattpeak 7y ago

Nothing specific is expected (that's the point of basic research), but even ignoring the question of whether "facing challenges" is the only worthwhile goal of humanity, it's categorically erroneous to think that basic physics can't become extremely important to our lives. Nobody in the world thought there was any practical use of the knowledge that time dilated at high speed - the speeds were so ridiculously high that we'd never reach them. That part was right - nothing we build moves fast enough for time dilation to be relevant at a human level. But none of our navigational systems, to pick a single case, would work without an understanding of it.

gridlockd 7y ago
Like, I said, it was an honest question. The answer, according to, you is: Nothing. Fair enough. I'm aware that there's an off-chance that basic research can become useful for something. Of course people always point to GPS as an example. You can say that about pretty much any research, however. Since resources are finite, should we not focus on basic research that has the most promise of practical usefulness? As far as I can tell, particle accelerators are used to prove hypotheses whose truth/falsehood are not practically meaningful to pretty much any human being alive, now or in the future. It's an expensive hobby for physicists, as far as I can see. Again, I'd love to hear a better argument than the old "basic research is good because GPS".
- wyattpeak 7y ago
  GPS is always used as an example because it's a clear demonstration that discoveries don't have to have effects at the human scale to be useful, not because it's the only example of basic research that's paid off. All electricity, all chemistry, started out as expensive hobbies for rich people. Go back to the Greeks and steam power and automation were seen as expensive hobbies for rich people. None of these things were thought to be practically meaningful to pretty much any human being alive. There is only a small chance that any given piece of research is useful, to be sure. Basic research is fundamentally about long-shots. But without basic research, you never get to the stage of directed research. You can't work out the best way to increase transistor density if you don't first work out what electricity is. But in the nineteenth century, it would have been wiser to have directed all that research into electricity into practical things like hydraulics. Where would we be now if we'd taken that path? If you think there's nothing else to be found in physics, sure, we can stop. But plenty of people in the ancient world thought there was nothing left, too. All of those detractors have been wrong right up until the last century. The question is, how sure are you that you're the first generation in two thousand years to be right?
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    > If you think there's nothing else to be found in physics, sure, we can stop. But plenty of people in the ancient world thought there was nothing left, too. To the contrary, I think there's an infinite amount of things to be found out, across all sciences. However, for all I can tell, CERN is out to prove hypotheses for which no one today can conceive of any use whatsoever. By contrast, there are many relatively low-hanging fruits in science and engineering that aren't long shots at all. I'm not gonna say the billion-dollar budget of CERN should be re-appropriated, but it does seem overblown. In any event, I'm not at all worried about CERN shutting down because helium gets to expensive.

this_was_posted 7y ago

I expect that it will help gain a deeper understanding of physics which in turn will enable the development of new technologies. These new technologies could in turn help us greatly in facing our biggest challenges.

gridlockd 7y ago
Can you be more specific?
- demurgos 7y ago
  Some engineer at CERN wanted to easily share documents with its colleagues and came up with the World Wide Web. It's not a direct result of CERN, but a byproduct. They have special requirements for cooling, data processing, engineering, etc. It helps to push for improvements in these fields.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    That's not convincing at all. If HTML/HTTP hadn't been invented then and there, something similar - perhaps better - would've caught on instead. After all, there was a plethora of internet services early on, the web just happened to eat most of them.
    - dwaltrip 7y ago
      Applications of CERN technologies in society: https://kt.cern/cern-technologies-society https://kt.cern/cern-technologies-society
      - gridlockd 7y ago
        Thank you. I can see that medical imaging technologies in particular would show up as side-effects to what CERN is doing. That may not have happened otherwise. Perhaps I'm undervaluing the merits of taking a shower to solve a problem unrelated to cleaning my body, metaphorically speaking.