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CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider
- instance 6y agoSuper exciting! For reference, current Large Hadron Collider is 17 miles (27 km).
- viswanathk 6y ago> The aim is to start construction of the new tunnel by 2038 Not in my lifetime, I guess.
- Taniwha 6y agowell 2038 is the end of time .....
- The_rationalist 6y agoDid you know that though vitrification, state of the art cryogenics researched have achieved to preserve 100% of the structure of a pig brain? The science for preserving with 100% accuracy your brain is already here. Those scientists use this technology to preserve organs and the cryogenic property is just a side effect. We simply need an enterprise that reproduce their results on human brains (shouldn't be different than a pig brain) and that commercialize it. The process replace blood and other brain fluids with a chemically toxic fluid. Which means that while the structure is preserved, any attempt at resurrecting the brain would need an advanced technique that would gradually replace the toxic fluid with fresh blood/Cerebrospinal fluid and the replacement should be 1) total 2) the replacement process should not destroy structure. Intermediary new kinds of fluids in the process might make the transition easier/safer. Once your brain is filled with the right amount of blood and of cerebrospinal fluid and has no toxic fluid left in order for the brain to function, a minimal level of hormones / molecules will need to be dispatched in the brain. Once all of this is achieved remains the problem of interfacing your brain with a new body. Happily once cryogenized (technically doable today) resolving all the others necessary steps will take time and you will have time. With not so much money you could be kept vitrified (not frozen) for a millennium or two. It seems unlikely but still is a possibility that an advanced civilization could not by design uncryogenize you without affecting your structure. But the structure being preserved they could make a copy of you (numeric or not), while this has its lot of metaphysical issues It's still a path far more hopeful than eternal death. As a reminder our normal life is mostly as metaphysically weird as most of our cells are replaced every 5 years? What's define YOU is totally unclear and continuous
- SuoDuanDao 6y agoHave they been able to wake the pigs back up yet?
- blueblisters 6y ago> It could be a hard sell, especially as the new collider wouldn’t have as clear a goal as the LHC did. However, particle physics and the Standard Model are at a place where the application of science is needed to validate theories. I mean I understand the need to keep pushing the boundaries of fundamental physics, but how long do you justify such spending on a single project? That same money could possibly be pumped into more immediately useful "hard" applied problems like fusion reactors, clean energy, propulsion systems or pretty much any problem on the technology horizon that won't be funded by private capital.
- The_rationalist 6y agoOr 23 Billions for building the first serious AGI project!
- dgellow 6y ago> That same money could possibly be pumped into more immediately useful "hard" applied problems like fusion reactors Interesting, I just checked the number for ITER (i.e: Europe's main fusion project), the project has been estimated at around €20-30 billion (with some pessimistic estimates from the US at around €60 billion for the completion of the reactor). And that's considered a VERY HIGH cost and has been the main concern from participating countries. But somehow $23 billion for a new collider have been approved? Edit: correction, $23 billion haven't been approved, the plans for a potential collider, estimated at $23 billion, have been approved.
- usrusr 6y agoThink of CERN more as a cultural endeavor. It's the big, permanent, multigenerational physicists jamboree. The big colliders are not the goal, they are merely the foundation. The meat is in the detectors and experiments that are attached and that would not be possible elsewhere. Sure, the flagship experiments are also important in their own right, but their function as a rallying point, as a halo product for everything else that is happening there is a big reason why they should be funded. A reactor project is a much less colorful affair, focused on a single deliverable. More contractors, less postgrads. There should be money for both.
- auntienomen 6y agoMore precisely, CERN approves spending a few million to consider more detailed plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider.
- codegladiator 6y agoI guess this might be a stupid question, but how does the size of the circle matter ? I mean, the particles are going in a round, wouldn't that be like infinite from the particles prespective, so is it related to the turn rate or something ?
- danielheath 6y agoTurning a particle moving at half light speed requires some pretty big magnets; the bigger the faster and tighter the turn. The bigger turning circle lets them go faster with the same magnets.
- vihren 6y agoIt is more related to the needed strength of the magnets to keep the particles on track and also the synchrotron radiation. The first issue is that the lower the radius of the circle, the stronger magnetic field is needed because of the increased centrifugal forces. The second issue is that synchrotron radiation leads to loss of energy. It is again proportional to the acceleration perpendicular to the vector of the velocity of the particle [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchrotron_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchrotron_radiation
- akjssdk 6y agoThe particles that go around radiate their energy away, which is a function of the radius of the circle. It is called synchrotron radiation and is the main limitation factor of these kind of accelerators.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dilivion 6y agoThe particles are steered round the accelerator with magnetic fields from superconducting magnets. Higher speeds (and thus energies) can be achieved by increasing the circular circuit radius by limiting the force that has to be applied and the energy loss in the acceleration (change of direction around the circle).
- shmageggy 6y agoAlternative link that doesn't have a redirect to an advertising.com address or forced tracking cookie acceptance https://phys.org/news/2020-06-cern-council-endorses-larger-supercollider.html https://phys.org/news/2020-06-cern-council-endorses-larger-s...
- crispyambulance 6y agoI'm surprised it got through. $23B is a lot of money, and it will cost A LOT more when you start adding up the operational costs. In comparison, the space shuttle was $1.5B per launch "amortized" over 135 launches. One of the effects of the Space Shuttle is that it hogged the budget of NASA (around 30%). Really worthwhile exploration and other space science programs got less funding because the Shuttle program was so big in cost. Is the FCC going to do the same for Physics? There's an opportunity cost here that isn't getting addressed.
- cinntaile 6y agoIt didn't get through yet though, the CERN council approved of a feasibility study for this particular idea after considering and rejecting several other ideas. I don't really get what the FCC has to do with this?
- ajnin 6y agoFCC is the acronym for Future Circular Collider, the name of the proposed new accelerator.
- rubidium 6y agoThis is CERN. They approved a study into building one. They exist to study these things. Take away the toys and the institution has a hard time justifying itself. This is mostly self preservation. In my opinion we should give the Lhc a 25 year leash and then give the whole super-high energy colliders thing a rest. Put the funding into other research areas in physics; the reductionists have had their turn :)
- erk__ 6y agoYou should problably note that this collider is first planned to begin building around 30 years after the LHC was in put into operation. And it will probably take longer to build as well so put around 10 more years on that and you have 40 years after the LHC was put into operation.
- fnord77 6y ago$2 billion was sunk into this 40 TeV collider before it was cancelled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
- mathattack 6y agoCanceled in part because of our $255 billion budget deficit, a number that seems quaint today.
- f00zz 6y agoHonest question, what are some engineering spin-offs that could come out of this? I'm asking because I'm reminded of a Peter Thiel interview where it's mentioned that, despite changing our view of the universe, no "real world" applications came out of the quark model discovered in the 1960s. This is different from a project like ITER, which is also hugely expensive but could be a game changer.
- jively 6y agoUltimately the end goal is a grand unified theory of everything, all the forces and how they work together. Maxwell's equations were completely theoretical (read: useless) and ahead of their time - but are fundamental to the invention of radio. Foundational research creates opportunity, it cant really be targeted. For something like particle research, the fallout (pun not intended!) will take their time to shape anything our engineering cap availity can take advantage of.
- noobermin 6y agoYou're not going to want to hear this but I think deep down a lot of these scientists who are so desperate for physics beyond the standard model, theoretical and experimental particle physicists don't view fusion or plasma science as a hard science as is their search for new physics.
- benjaminva 6y agoWell, given that the world wide web was developed at CERN and they have driven a lot of big-data topics in the past I would say that the collateral developments are non-negligible. In the software field, CERN and particle physics in general, have driven quite some open source projects (both scientific and general ones).
- cosmic_quanta 6y agoHere's a concrete example. Some of CERN detector technology has been spun-off as Quantum Detectors [https://quantumdetectors.com/ https://quantumdetectors.com/], which makes detectors for electron microscopy, x-ray scattering , and neutron detection I think. I've personally beta-tested their MerlinEM and it's pretty damn cool. It's very different from other technologies that already exist (e.g. Gatan detectors). You can read out images at extremely fast rates (compared to traditional electron microscopy detectors anyway). I'm guessing that this comes from the need for CERN to read-out detectors fully for every collision. Who would have known that this would have been useful for unrelated ultrafast electron scattering experiments?
- aronpye 6y agoAnd these same scientists will no doubt also complain about climate change and how we aren’t investing enough to combat it...
- noobermin 6y agoHint, they are not the same scientists. You're making a category error.
- aronpye 6y agoI’m well aware of the differences between particle physics and climatology. My point, which you have just made the logical fallacy of straw manning, still stands. Scientists of all fields have commented on climate change, Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox, Neil Degrasse Tyson have all opined in climate change, yet also advocate for vanity projects such as the large hadron collider.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sgift 6y agoSince LHC isn't a vanity project your whole argument breaks down. Also, climate change is largely not a topic for science, but for politics. Politicians know what to do, they just don't want to. No amount of science can fix this.
- aronpye 6y agoMy point is, if it isn’t clear, is that scientists who think the world is being put in danger by climate change shouldn’t be requesting or otherwise accept money that would be better spent combatting said existential threat. To accept money on huge projects with no clear benefit to humanity when there are much more pressing matters at hand is either to deny those problems don’t exist or act with hypocrisy. P.S. spending money on something that adds no clear value is the definition of a vanity project. P.P.S. My argument also doesn’t hinge on whether the LHC or its successor is a vanity project or not, I think we can all agree spending 20bn+ on lifting people out of poverty or combatting climate change is a much more worthy recipient of tax payer dollars.
- mqus 6y agomost of the comments are about the cost-to-deliverable tradeoff, which is pretty high. But we have to consider that the new particle accellerator is not the only thing that will be created. An enormous amount of infrastructure will have to be developed and researched, including new hardware to handle all the events, new detector hardware, magnets, etc. All of these are pretty usable outside of a particle detector or even science environments, because many of the hard parts are engineering problems. I think the "useless" part of this 23B investment is far smaller than we think. For evidence of that look at the past, two projects that immediately come to my mind as being pushed by CERN: HTTP and KiCad. But there are surely some more.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> we have to consider that the new particle accellerator is not the only thing that will be created The problem with this argument is it works for any spending. The cost of $23bn on a new collider is potentially not spending $23bn on other, more fruitful, physics experiments.
- noobermin 6y agoMade this comment below but spending billions on another collider in an attempt to essentially validate SUSY is irresponsible. A few years ago, a bunch of physical philosophers tried to justify this turn of particle physics in general away from experiment, particularly suggesting the search of symmetries and mathematical beauty (I guess) was enough of a justification for the work even though it essentially is contrary to the basic scientific principles of relying on experiment and observation. Now, we're seeing real world consequences of that mistake, billions in resources and potentially decades of man-hours to be devoted to another super-collider. Honestly, this money could be spent on myriad other projects, not to mention towards fusion research or alternative energies (solar, wind) in general especially in the face of climate change. Again, seeing the failure of the LHC and then deciding you're going to double down is just straight irresponsible. I honestly wonder what member states are thinking when they see CERN contemplate this especially after the LHC failed to find SUSY particles. This is just another painful reminder of how narrow minded some scientists are and so focused on their own little niche. There are so many larger problems the world is facing today, it's upsetting but not surprising no one at the table even asked the most important questions when making these plans, "is this even necessary?" Last tidbit, there are next generation acceleration schemes using lasers that could promise much cheaper acceleration of particles on a much smaller scale (centimeters) although the brightness and general beam quality isn't quite there yet. That could be a potential route forward and be much cheaper in the long run, it just would require a) some time and research but more importantly b) the current crop of experimental scientists at CERN might find it not their expertise and so might not get the grants. Again, reiterating the narrow mindedness of scientists these days.
- yiyus 6y agoThe LHC has not been a failure. First you complain about the lack of experimentation, then you complain when they perform experiments. It is normal in science to formulate a theory, design an experiment, and then having to discard the theory in view of the experimental results. That's the scientific method, and that's what has happened with SUSY (kind of). You also claim the goal of new collider is to validate SUSY, but they say is to study the Higgs boson, the one that was discovered using the LHC. It is also normal that scientists worry about their niche and try to find funding for research in that niche. Else, the only research we would do would be cancer treatments, but that would not be effective in the long run. Huge amounts of money like this one always call people attention, but it is not so much. If you compare the cost of the LHC with the amount spent in defense by the countries involved during the same period, these are peanuts. You will find all kind of reasons to spend this money somewhere else, and some of them may be valid, but fundamental research is still necessary.
- LatteLazy 6y agoCan anyone comment on the claim that making large numbers of Higgs' bosons will explain dark matter?
- T-A 6y agoIt's a plausible idea, but there are no guarantees. The reasoning goes like this: So far, the Standard Model is holding up quite well (too well in fact; it would be nice to have some glaring discrepancies pointing to new physics). According to the Standard Model, all fundamental particles with mass get that mass by interacting with the Higgs field. Now, assuming that dark matter also consists of particles with mass (plausible), it's a fair guess that those particles also get their mass by interacting with the Higgs field. And if they do, we should be able to produce them by making Higgs particles (excitations of the Higgs field); when those decay, they will produce pairs of any particle species which they interact with (provided that those particle pairs are less massive than the Higgs particle; and even if they are not, their existence should indirectly affect Higgs decay to other particle species in ways which may be possible to study). An obvious way this idea could fail is that dark matter gets its mass from a different Higgs field than the Standard Model one (SUSY generally requires more than one Higgs field, and GUTs can have lots). Another is that dark matter is not just another particle but something more weird.
- mrfusion 6y agoHas anyone considered a collider in space? It seems like you could have huge distances. And just let the particles fly in the vacuum between acceleration points?
- davrosthedalek 6y agoIf you want to store the beam, you need a ring. And the size of the ring is given by the minimum bending radius, which is given by maximum field strength you can achieve, and energy loss from bremsstrahlung in the bends, which you have to put back. So space doesn't really help: You'll still need a circle of magnets. Approximating the circle with a polygon means you split up a smaller circle with straight segments. But these straight segments are not really useful.
- mrfusion 6y agoThat’s sad. I really thought space could open up some new physics.
- davrosthedalek 6y agoCertainly can, see AMS :)
- mrfusion 6y agoWhat’s that?
- davrosthedalek 6y agoThe Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer: https://home.cern/science/experiments/ams https://home.cern/science/experiments/ams https://ams.nasa.gov/ https://ams.nasa.gov/ It's essentially a HEP-style(ish) particle detector, mounted on the ISS, to study cosmic rays.
- ThomasBHickey 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- GordonS 6y agoIs someone able to ELI5 what the previous LHC actually achieved? (not a loaded question, I genuinely don't know)
- cygx 6y agoThe big one was the discovery of the Higgs boson, a missing piece of the so-called 'standard model' of particle physics, plus a bunch of other stuff (lack of evidence for super-symmetry so far, discovery of some tetra- and pentaquarks states, potentially some hints of physics beyond the standard model from B-meson decays, ...). In large part, it 'merely' confirmed our current theories, disappointing people hoping for revolutionary discoveries.
- BurnGpuBurn 6y agoI must say, that is a pretty weak result given the humongous amount of money sunk into it. And all those new understandings have no real world implications except for how some smart people think reality works. I'd say, let's not repeat this massively expensive debacle and fund some more promising fields that may actually solve some of the worlds problems. I know this is not a popular opinion and I'm quite sure they'll build a bigger collider anyway. And after that, they'll build an even bigger one. And still a bigger one after that.
- cygx 6y agoCompared to all the others things humanity chooses to waste money on, fundamental science is a steal, in particular considering that our ability to understand nature is what sets us apart from all other animals competing in the rat race that is existence.
- Invictus0 6y agoThe fact the humanity wastes money on other things is not a good justification for wasting money on another collider.
- 6y ago
- sschueller 6y agoEveryone complaining about funding of projects at CERN using a website running in the www[1] which might not exist if it wasn't for CERN... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web
- the_cramer 6y agoI think you need to distinguish between people complaining about CERN in general and people complaining about funding a new large hadron collider. The use of CERN and other scientific communities is well-known and, I think, widely acknowledged.
- curiousgal 6y ago> 62-mile It's 100 km. Even when the news is unrelated to the U.S. journalists cater to a retarded measurement system.
- ghaff 6y agoDo you actually think that is a helpful comment? Mainstream publications tend to use the units commonly used in the country where they're located and may, depending upon style, also provide conversions. However, for casual everyday use, there's no particular advantage to km over miles just because it's based on powers of 10.
- readarticle 6y agoFor what it’s worth, the usage of “retarded” as an insult is rapidly becoming as antiquated as the ridiculous measurement system in question. Usually implies either immaturity, ignorance, or in grouping with a certain, very online crowd.
- LatteLazy 6y agoThis article and the title (and subject) seems invite uninformed speculation. Some people who are pro-particle-research will point out that you never know what is there till you look. Others will point out CERN has not achieved much with the LHC yet and that this research is highly speculative. I have 2 questions: Can anyone make a good case why this is necessary? The only experiment listed is Higgs Dark matter work. But that seems speculative and also is already being done at ATLAS. If this is not speculative, is it still a good use of money compared to spending the same cash on (say) genetics or AI or nano materials, all of which seem to be areas both in need of funding and with high potential for break throughs?
- vidarh 6y agoThis isn't starting tomorrow. This is going to take 2-3 decades, starting with a design study. So part of the point here is future-proofing. Upgrades to LHC are due to take place. We don't know what the outcome of experiments after those upgrades will be. We don't know where other research will get us to over the next decade or two. If we want a new collider in place 3 decades from now then it is time to start planning, so that if we find out a decade from now it is essential for future progress we've got a decade less to wait. It's not a given this will be built - we have at least decade and a half to decide whether to put down the full amount. But that is not a justification for not spending a tiny fraction of the cost to take the project forward.
- LatteLazy 6y agoI take you're point, but this is all still entirely speculative as far as I can tell. Do we need it now? No but we might in 30 years! Or we might not. And there is no good reason to think we will. Particle physics has felt very tapped out for a while. And we still have the LHC and LHC upgrades to answer the few questions left Remember.
- vidarh 6y agoIt may be entirely speculative (I don't know), but that is CERNs leaderships job - if they don't plan ahead and spend small amounts on design studies now and it turns out new hardware is needed, and they need to start a project from scratch ten years down the line, then that's potentially 10k+ people (CERN currently has 2.5k on staff, of which a lot are not scientists, and ~12k external "users") having their experiments delayed for 10 years. Of course not all experiments would be affected. CERNs yearly normal budget is ~$1.2bn. Spending a few million on design studies and planning now is a pittance as risk mitigation against delaying future experiments. Once there's a need to commit serious cash, then these questions needs to be answered.
- take_a_breath 6y agoHN: Governments don’t fund enough scientific research projects. Also HN: Governments shouldn’t be funding this scientific research project. Can’t win with this crowd.
- Swenrekcah 6y agoHumans: Ah, they're doing some good stuff I like. Let's move on with my day. Also humans: Oh no! They're doing some bad stuff I don't like! Let's tell'em off!
- Torok 6y agoI mean it's obviously all about funding the right projects isn't it? Going to an obviously hyperbolic extreme for the sake of the argument, say that the EU invested billions in determining if the moon is really made of cheese then that's obviously a waste of money even if it is a scientific investment. There's a non negligible amount of people, even those who have worked at CERN previously, saying that it just doesn't make sense to put more investment into a new supercollider which might just show that there's an energy desert of particles in the regime it's testing. You're also falling prey to the fallacy that HN acts as a single entity, in reality everyone here has different opinions and can't just be all lumped in one bucket saying HN thinks this or that. It's obviously going to seem contradictory if you view it as if it's a single person
- take_a_breath 6y ago==I mean it's obviously all about funding the right projects isn't it?== So is everything in life, but that doesn't help us actually determine which are the "right projects". ==Going to an obviously hyperbolic extreme for the sake of the argument, say that the EU invested billions in determining if the moon is really made of cheese then that's obviously a waste of money even if it is a scientific investment.== That you have to go to such a ridiculous argument seems to say something about your stance. What would we learn if we discovered the moon was made of cheese? Why would it matter? What is the scientific impact of a cheese moon? Without those answers it isn't really a scientific investment. ==There's a non negligible amount of people, even those who have worked at CERN previously, saying that it just doesn't make sense to put more investment into a new supercollider which might just show that there's an energy desert of particles in the regime it's testing.== And a non-negligible amount of people, even those who currently work at CERN, think it is worthwhile. We could play this game all day (which is my entire point). If the test fails, we still get to learn something new. A foundation of the scientific method. ==You're also falling prey to the fallacy that HN acts as a single entity, in reality everyone here has different opinions and can't just be all lumped in one bucket saying HN thinks this or that. It's obviously going to seem contradictory if you view it as if it's a single person== You seem to be falling prey to the fallacy that all people who worked at CERN act as a single entity. In reality, people who have worked at CERN have different opinions. Similarly, I've seen many posts about how HN is a hive mind. I guess that is just when it suits the narrative.
- turowicz 6y agoI see plenty of critical theory majors complaining about STEM in this thread. What has the world come to.
- kashyapc 6y agoI'd guess Prof. Sabine Hossenfelder (herself a physicist, and a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies) must be pretty annoyed, to put it politely. She posits that a lot of current physicists are working with outdated notions of "beauty": (quote) But if it’s clear that putting forward new hypotheses just because they are beautiful doesn’t mean they’re likely to be right, then why do theorists in these fields focus so much on beauty? Worse, why do they continue to focus on the same type of beauty, even though that method has demonstrably not worked for 40 years? ... So I have historical evidence, math, and data. In my book I lay out these points and tell the reader what conclusion I have drawn: Beauty is not a good guide to theory-development. I then explain that this widespread use of scientifically questionable but productive methodology is symptomatic to the current organization of academic research, and a problem that’s not confined to physics. (/quote) --- I'd also recommend listening to the EconTalk podcast[2] where Hossenfelder was a guest. --- PS: I'm not judging this decision of funding, not least because I'm no where near qualified :-). I like what CERN does in general (and I sometimes interact with one of their Cloud Infrastructure teams.) [1] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/10/you-say-theoretical-physicists-are.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2018/10/you-say-theoretical... [2] https://www.econtalk.org/sabine-hossenfelder-on-physics-reality-and-lost-in-math/ https://www.econtalk.org/sabine-hossenfelder-on-physics-real...
- jojobas 6y ago>has demonstrably not worked for 40 years The beauty of Standard Model was affirmed with finding Higgs Boson mere 8 years ago, what is she getting at?
- aroberge 6y agoActually, the Standard Model is NOT considered to be "beautiful". What is considered to be beautiful are extensions that include supersymmetry for which no experimental evidence exist but which have been used as justification for building larger colliders.
- nix23 6y agoI know her book, and i think quantum theory is NOT beautiful nor is the string/M-Theory beautiful, she's for sure is partially right because everyone want's to find a Einstein equation, but she also has a big blind spot for the dirty stuff that is the quantum-theory.
- cryptica 6y agoThis is an insane centrally-planned communist enterprise. It would be much more efficient to just give a $1 million research grant to 23K scientists to research whatever they want. Or you could give $50K to half a million scientists. This would be enough to fund them for 1 year. This is an unfathomable number of scientists. Imagine the impact of allowing half a million minds focus on the problems that they are best at solving.
- mhh__ 6y agoIf you give 50k to half a million engineers they aren't going to beat the track record at the Nürburgring by magic. Some science experiments are expensive - not only financially, they require intense cooperation between large groups of multi-discipline people. Theoretical Work takes a toll on the mind, experimental work does the same while draining the wallet at the same time.
- mromanuk 6y agoIt's truly awkward that engadget uses 62-mile, when it should use the 100km unit.
- mrlala 6y agoIt's even more amazing that you take the time to comment about this.. why do you care so much about the unit specified?
- ngcc_hk 6y agoI heard a top phycists are going to china as they are building the next generation there. Is this a strategy to stop that.
- dukwon 6y agoIt's more like hedging their bets. The Chinese proposals (CEPC + SppC) are simultaneously underwhelming in terms of performance specs and over-ambitious in terms of timescale. There's also always a chance that they will never materialise. If they do actually get built, construction of the FCC will be cancelled and CERN will participate in (and hopefully improve) CEPC+SppC. Similarly if Japan builds the ILC, FCC-ee will be cancelled and CERN will join that while bringing forward the FCC-hh.
- booleandilemma 6y agoNon-scientist here - do existing colliders like the LHC become useless, or can they still be used to make new scientific discoveries?
- ddavis 6y agoThe physical accelerator will become useless (the magnets). The tunnel where the LHC exists right now is the old home of the LEP collider.
- maxnoe 6y agoNo, as you can see in the drawings, the old accelarators are always integrated as pre-accelerators into the chain, feeding the next larger ones. LHC will feed this new accelerator, this is why they intersect at two points.
- anthony_barker 6y agoWhy not in km? Why do miles even come into eu science projects?
- mellosouls 6y agoIt's an American report. Dollars as well are used for currency. Natural in the title. The km etc. are expressed in the report.
- dang 6y agoAlso discussed 4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23577124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23577124
- oh_sigh 6y ago> The aim is to start construction of the new tunnel by 2038 Why wait so long? Surely the tunnel is the easiest part of the project, and the Swiss are very good at digging tunnels. The article goes on to talk about funding issues, but I'd imagine they'd be able to start digging the tunnel now and round up funding over the years by expanding their organization or lobbying the EU harder.
- l0b0 6y agoAside from the gamble that any fundamental research represents, consider the immense amount of training CERN generates every year, with several thousand physicists and engineers continuously involved. That sort of a mix generates more learning than the sum of its parts, because everyone has opportunities to learn from many related fields. If the money was instead split into many smaller projects it wouldn't generate the same kind of learning, because each project would be a tiny silo compared to CERN.
- amai 6y agoThis is simply the reaction of CERN to the competition from China, which is planning to build an 80km collider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_Electron_Positron_Collider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_Electron_Positron_Col...