4 ms·

I recently posted a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_particle_discoveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_particle_discoveri... in an

I recently posted a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_particle_discoveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_particle_discoveri... in another thread. Go on and look at it. Cross off composite particles like Antihelium-4 and antihydrogen, just look for the timeline of newly verified particles by decade. Note that each was predicted far in advance of the actual verification. (As a side question, ask "What newly predicted fundamental particles are we attempting to verify the existence of here?" You will largely hear crickets.) Now, examine each particle and ask if we use them in industry. We have had forty-five years for the tau lepton, just as an example. We're not using it. We're not going to use it. I majored in physics. I say this not by way of lending authority to my argument, but to highlight that I "ought" to be one of the very people slavering for more high-energy physics. But I am not. I just do not think we are going to get more interesting physics out of slamming particles together at ever nearer approaches to c. We might get some interesting engineering out of it, but we can get that by doing other things that have more application. We cannot spend a dollar twice; let's pursue multiple approaches to fusion. Or, if one is of a pure research bent, we ought to be looking for more clever ways to break our known models, rather than just scaling our current methods up into Bigger Baryon Bashers.

pas 6y ago
Isn't the best way to try to see if the Standard Model breaks is by pumping more energy into it? (And watching for the decay channel anomalies and whatnot?) What are other ways to check its predictions?
- at_a_remove 6y ago
  No, not really. Diminishing returns. I've pointed it out elsewhere, but there's no stopping point for that approach. Make an accelerator that goes around the world. Dismantle the Solar system to make an even larger accelerator. Continue onward and use self-replicating probes to slowly convert, over millions of years, the Milky Way into another accelerator ring. Where do you stop? You can always do more until you paperclip replicator the observable universe into one big accelerator. Like I said, I advocate for looking for more clever ways to look for new physics, rather than bigger ways. And you must accept the concept that at some point we may have discovered all fundamental particles that can be found in the Big Baryon Bashers and that all accelerators after that are completely wasted effort, but we'd never know that, because we would say, "Well, we didn't find anything there. Gotta build a bigger one!"

pas 6y ago

Isn't the best way to try to see if the Standard Model breaks is by pumping more energy into it? (And watching for the decay channel anomalies and whatnot?) What are other ways to check its predictions?

at_a_remove 6y ago
No, not really. Diminishing returns. I've pointed it out elsewhere, but there's no stopping point for that approach. Make an accelerator that goes around the world. Dismantle the Solar system to make an even larger accelerator. Continue onward and use self-replicating probes to slowly convert, over millions of years, the Milky Way into another accelerator ring. Where do you stop? You can always do more until you paperclip replicator the observable universe into one big accelerator. Like I said, I advocate for looking for more clever ways to look for new physics, rather than bigger ways. And you must accept the concept that at some point we may have discovered all fundamental particles that can be found in the Big Baryon Bashers and that all accelerators after that are completely wasted effort, but we'd never know that, because we would say, "Well, we didn't find anything there. Gotta build a bigger one!"