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The 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 ev
by cygx 6y ago
The 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.
- davrosthedalek 6y agoThat's the headliner so far, but LHC has produced an enormous amount of data. There are also some quite interesting findings for example from LHCb: Tetraquarks: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.11952 https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.11952 Lepton flavor violation: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.07287.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.07287.pdf
- dukwon 6y agoLHCb has not seen lepton flavour violation, and neither has anyone else outside of neutrino oscillations. LHCb, Belle and BaBar have however seen hints of lepton flavour non-universality.
- davrosthedalek 6y agoYou are right, I miss-typed, I had non-universality in mind.