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The big problems in science can be solved by much smaller teams. LHC is just proving out the dominant paradigm. It’s not gonna help us understand dark matter an

The big problems in science can be solved by much smaller teams. LHC is just proving out the dominant paradigm. It’s not gonna help us understand dark matter and _that’s_ the real anomaly in the current physical understanding of the world. Crack that an you’re the next Einstein/newton or at least Planck/schrodinger/hooke. There’s plenty of room for innovation in green energy tech, housing materials, ag science, etc... We’re objectively spending more to get those than we used to need to. And that’s WITH google and scihub! Something is rotten.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
> We’re objectively spending more to get those than we used to need to. And that’s WITH google and scihub! Something is rotten. What’s rotten exactly? Take a look at this lovely graph [0] showing the cost of solar cells going from $76.67/watt in 1977, to $0.74/watt in 2013 (the price of installation is obviously more than the cell production costs, at about $2.5-$3.5/watt today). [0]: https://cleantechnica.com/2014/09/04/solar-panel-cost-trends-10-charts/ https://cleantechnica.com/2014/09/04/solar-panel-cost-trends...
- legolas2412 6y ago
  Surely you see the difference between explaining what dark matter is, and making solar cells cheaper. Which one fits your definition of important scientific question that we should answer?
OkayPhysicist 6y ago
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how scientific research (especially physics) works. You take a model. You figure out some observable predictions of that model. You run an experiment to test that prediction. If it's right, the experiment stands as support to the model's accuracy. More importantly, sometimes the predictions are wrong. After a pattern of anomalies, someone comes up with a model that explains them. Rinse, repeat. The idea that the "big problems" can be solved by small teams pontificating is missing all but that last step.
- rubidium 6y ago
  We must be talking past each other, as I understand it quite well. My point (which I understand is controversial) is there's no requirement for billions of dollars and thousands of scientists to make the next big breakthrough. There's still low hanging fruit. Less than there used to be, but it's still there. The LHC and big $$ funding is _one_ way to do it. So far its been unable to solve the biggest problems we have in physics (agreed that it's helped disprove some). We're at a point now that is similar to what people were saying in 1900. Some people say "we've almost dusted this physics thing off and figured it all out". I'm fairly confident something is going to come along from some small corner of physics that will knock all our socks off the same way Quantum Mech and Relativity did... it may arrive this year or it may arrive in 120 years more to get there though. The big problems in science can be solved by much smaller teams is my point. Sure it will take an army to completely work out the implications of the breakthrough. But the breakthrough "aha" can still come from an individual or small team.
dguest 6y ago
> It’s not gonna help us understand dark matter In case anyone wants a quick link to the LHC dark matter program, check the ATLAS [1] and CMS [2] summaries. TL;DR: The LHC has ruled out a good chunk of a few popular dark matter variants already. There are a lot more searches in the pipeline. They haven't found anything yet, but of course nature doesn't just drop particles in the first place you look. There are also some crazier plans in the works [3] which use the existing beams to look in other places. [1]: https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/CombinedSummaryPlots/EXOTICS/ https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/CombinedSumma... [2]: https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/CMSPublic/SummaryPlotsEXO13TeV#Dark_Matter_Summary_plots https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/CMSPublic/SummaryPlotsE... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASER_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASER_experiment

AmericanChopper 6y ago

> We’re objectively spending more to get those than we used to need to. And that’s WITH google and scihub! Something is rotten. What’s rotten exactly? Take a look at this lovely graph [0] showing the cost of solar cells going from $76.67/watt in 1977, to $0.74/watt in 2013 (the price of installation is obviously more than the cell production costs, at about $2.5-$3.5/watt today). [0]: https://cleantechnica.com/2014/09/04/solar-panel-cost-trends-10-charts/ https://cleantechnica.com/2014/09/04/solar-panel-cost-trends...

legolas2412 6y ago
Surely you see the difference between explaining what dark matter is, and making solar cells cheaper. Which one fits your definition of important scientific question that we should answer?

OkayPhysicist 6y ago

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how scientific research (especially physics) works. You take a model. You figure out some observable predictions of that model. You run an experiment to test that prediction. If it's right, the experiment stands as support to the model's accuracy. More importantly, sometimes the predictions are wrong. After a pattern of anomalies, someone comes up with a model that explains them. Rinse, repeat. The idea that the "big problems" can be solved by small teams pontificating is missing all but that last step.

rubidium 6y ago
We must be talking past each other, as I understand it quite well. My point (which I understand is controversial) is there's no requirement for billions of dollars and thousands of scientists to make the next big breakthrough. There's still low hanging fruit. Less than there used to be, but it's still there. The LHC and big $$ funding is _one_ way to do it. So far its been unable to solve the biggest problems we have in physics (agreed that it's helped disprove some). We're at a point now that is similar to what people were saying in 1900. Some people say "we've almost dusted this physics thing off and figured it all out". I'm fairly confident something is going to come along from some small corner of physics that will knock all our socks off the same way Quantum Mech and Relativity did... it may arrive this year or it may arrive in 120 years more to get there though. The big problems in science can be solved by much smaller teams is my point. Sure it will take an army to completely work out the implications of the breakthrough. But the breakthrough "aha" can still come from an individual or small team.

dguest 6y ago

> It’s not gonna help us understand dark matter In case anyone wants a quick link to the LHC dark matter program, check the ATLAS [1] and CMS [2] summaries. TL;DR: The LHC has ruled out a good chunk of a few popular dark matter variants already. There are a lot more searches in the pipeline. They haven't found anything yet, but of course nature doesn't just drop particles in the first place you look. There are also some crazier plans in the works [3] which use the existing beams to look in other places. [1]: https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/CombinedSummaryPlots/EXOTICS/ https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/CombinedSumma... [2]: https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/CMSPublic/SummaryPlotsEXO13TeV#Dark_Matter_Summary_plots https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/CMSPublic/SummaryPlotsE... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASER_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASER_experiment