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I do not know if building colliders should be considered increasingly futile. However, there are other points the author made. First, I don't expect anything

by kiba 6y ago

I do not know if building colliders should be considered increasingly futile. However, there are other points the author made. First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality, at least not for a long time. To me, it isn't necessary for every research to have social relevance. Also, I thought climate change was pretty much a problem of social coordination. What exactly do we gain from building better model of climate change? Knowing where it's going to hit us hard? I supposed that could be useful, but even more pressing was how to motivate the people of Earth to make the necessary changes. Also, the money offered doesn't seem that huge on scale of countries. 1 billion dollars per year for operating cost? I suppose we could make better use of money that would otherwise go to making a new collider, but so we can do so elsewhere as well.

noir_lord 6y ago
> First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality, at least not for a long time. To me, it isn't necessary for every research to have social relevance. Me either and often the technology you get on the back of it doesn't show up for decades and decades anyway.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  So is that an argument now to stop basic research? That we can't even look across the horizon of our own lifetimes anymore? Even the Romans thought bigger than that.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    Is there an actual theoretical question that will be answered by an even bigger collider, or is it just, “let’s see what happens?” It’s not a question of whether basic research is fundamentally valuable but rather whether building larger and larger particle colliders will deliver diminishing returns in exchange for increasing costs.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      It's just "Let's see what happens" - and that's why it's a bad idea. LHC was justified as a search for the Higgs. The Higgs was found. Everyone was happy. Fine. LHC 2.0++ is just banging rocks together for the sake of it. Something interest might fall out, or it might not. But considering that we still don't understand quantum origins, have no clue how to make a theory of quantum gravity, and have no idea what Dark Energy is, or even if it exists at all, it might be better to spend the money on pursuing creative theoretical leads in those other directions and coming back to country-sized experimental hardware when there are some new theories to test.
      - henearkr 6y ago
        Today the axion is the new hypothetical fundamental particle that coincides with the status that had the Higgs boson two decades ago. It may very well be the next milestone.
        dnautics 6y ago
        What's the particle energy range needed to make an observation about axions?
        henearkr 6y ago
        Pretty tiny: 10−5 to 10−3 eV/c2 Though the utility of a big collider would be in diversifying the types of decays observed?
      - seamyb88 6y ago
        Banging rocks together has been a very fruitful method which is always limited by the technology. Many physicists believe that the rock banging should be an ongoing exercise which itself guides the theoretical directions. They also believe that there is an almost guaranteed chance of finding something, if their advances to higher energy are achieved. All we need is one anomaly in the vast data processing. There are many things which are expected to be seen at higher energies. If they are not seen, it still says a great deal and will guide theoretical discussion.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    Not what I meant, I was agreeing with the sentiment that we shouldn't stop doing science because it has no immediate application.
- close04 6y ago
  > the technology you get on the back of it doesn't show up for decades That would be an argument to start even sooner rather than later or never. If you want to combat the usefulness of the research the only arguments you can make are that the results are not useful at all, or that they can be obtained cheaper, faster, or more reliably with other means. The "it takes decades to bear fruit" works even against education. And I'm sure nobody would agree to be barred access to any tech that was the result of decades of research or simply took decades to reach market. I'm also not a fan of this project simply because I don't think an incremental advance in colliders will bring anything new at all, certainly not because it will take too long to reach market. As the saying goes, you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. To achieve the next breakthrough we need something on a scale we're simply not capable of building now, or soon.
  - techphys_91 6y ago
    As a counter point, the gravitational wave discovery came about because of incremental upgrades to the detector. We don't know whats beyond that noise floor. Maybe there are better ways to measure the tiny signals that hint at new physics, but the question is what we can do now. I would personally say its optimistic to assume we'll get a big breakthrough if we don't invest in the incremental upgrades.
    - close04 6y ago
      I didn't want to imply that incremental updates in general aren't useful. Just that many physicists' educated assessment (guess) is that new physics and new particles require energy levels that are out of reach right now, substantial higher than this new accelerator's. So now the expected outcome is to give a more detailed look for a slightly better understanding of what we already know, with a hefty price tag. This cost/benefit is where the current controversy comes from.
- dnautics 6y ago
  That's a big lie, it's extremely rare for big projects outside of wartime to create downstream tech that is generally usable. The big ones that are often claimed (Velcro for NASA and MRIs for the supercollider) are definitely lies. Usually big projects tend to need to be conservative and use off the shelf available materials (just in clever ways). Sabine's big point is not that we shouldn't do basic science, it's that we shouldn't do bad basic science; that is science that isn't driven by hypotheses. Historically in science you would create a new model that agrees with current facts, but makes an prediction that some unobserved event X would be observable. You build your apparatus or design an experiment to observe X, and then confirm of reject the model. In the case of a bigger collider, what is X?
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    > That's a big lie, it's extremely rare for big projects outside of wartime to create downstream tech that is generally usable. The big ones that are often claimed (Velcro for NASA and MRIs for the supercollider) are definitely lies. This quite mistaken based on what I've read. Historically NASA hovers at around a 10:1 ROI. SpaceX would not exist today without the huge benefit of all the material NASA has published historically. MRI may not have come from colliders, but modern medical imaging absolutely has benefited from these projects. There's a researcher that commented in a sibling thread with specific benefits to their project. > In the case of a bigger collider, what is X? Here's a quick summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      > Historically NASA hovers at around a 10:1 ROI. I suggest you look at what was spent on the Space Shuttle, which turned out to be non-reusable (it was re-manufactured after each flight for up to a year.) No ROI there. Fun facts: NASA knew from the very first flight that they were losing several tiles during launch, and no tiles were optional. Also, NASA managers were given photos of Columbia's damaged wing, which had a gaping hole in the leading edge, before re-entry, and sat on them. I wouldn't fly a Cessna 152 like that.) https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html That and the ISS sucked most of the funding out of US space research and is still going on. My constructive suggestion? Take a chain saw to the ISS on the next "mission."
awinder 6y ago
“Also, I thought climate change was pretty much a problem of social coordination.” Yeah that argument was extremely dishonest. We don’t build a 1 billion dollar climate change center because that 1 billion is going to beget trillions of dollars in disruption. Throwing 20, 40 billion with staffing (which comes back into the economy) over a decade or more all-in is a total different ballgame.
TwoNineA 6y ago
"First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality" This is an extremely narrowminded view. Lasers, MRI, X-Ray machines, etc ... are all made by engineers after physicists tried to understand the fundamental nature of reality. One would argue that modern electronics are possible because research was done about Quantum Physics, a fundamental nature of reality.
- wernercd 6y ago
  > at least not for a long time The very next part of his statement covers that... It could be decades before "society" sees fruits of the research. > To me, it isn't necessary for every research to have social relevance. His next sentence also says "research is good for research sake" - there doesn't need to be "real world results" for the research to be worth it. You talk about narrow mindedness... then ignore second part of the first sentence and completely ignore the second sentence... Seems narrow minded to do that? I tend to agree on both those points... It could be a long time to see results and research for research can be good.
- radioactivist 6y ago
  While I sympathize with this viewpoint, as a physicist I think there is a fairly persistent misunderstanding in the public about just how disconnected current particle physics experiments are from application to everyday life. Essentially none of the particle physics done since the 1960s has had any application outside of fundamental knowledge, with no prospects for it having those applications in the future. At best, and even this is stretching a bit, there are indirect benefits of developing the machines that are needed to explore this frontier (i.e. like some of the argued benefits of space exploration). Whether that changes the calculus of whether these things are worth the price is still a question (in my opinion: they are), but I don't think making analogies to applications of discoveries of fundamental physics operating at very different energy scales is a good argument. The development of quantum physics (lasers, MRI, etc), while a frontier at the time, is essential to understanding commonplace things like the cohesion of solids or the properties of metals or semi-conductors (say) at room temperature. To my knowledge, there is nothing outside of astrophysical objects and the early universe that depends on knowing what is at the current frontiers in particle physics (or even what was the frontier in 50 years ago).
fluffything 6y ago
> What exactly do we gain from building better model of climate change? Knowing where it's going to hit us hard? No? Models are useful for making predictions. If somebody like the POTUS tells you that nuking thunderstorms would be great against climate change, you don't have to just take their word for it. You can input that into your climate change model, and it will tell you how much of an impact this will have, and whether the impact is good or bad. The difference between a better model and a worse model is that the better model will agree better with reality. A shitty model, like the one POTUS is using, might tell you that nuking all thunderstorms would be great. Then we go ahead and do it, and we all die. A better model, like the mental model that every 14 year old child that starts studying physics and radiation has, might tell you that nuking thunderstorms is a pretty bad idea that would kill us all due to dozens of reasons. Given that we cannot make accurate predictions today of what the weather tomorrow will look like. If you want to predict the 50 year impact of more subtle changes like, e.g., covering the Sahara with black mats, you need a pretty good model to get an output that isn't multiple orders of magnitude off. So..... what do we expect from better climate change models? Avoiding the apocalypse to begin with. Worth every penny.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  >If somebody like the POTUS tells you that nuking thunderstorms would be great against climate change, you don't have to just take their word for it. You can input that into your climate change model, and it will tell you how much of an impact this will have, and whether the impact is good or bad. You have an odd concept of both how to determine if nuking a thunderstorm, which was not what was allegedly suggested, but also what large scale climate models actually capture.
- trekrich 6y ago
  And this is the problem with climate change models, they are just models. And get changed to suit the narrative thats currently being portrayed. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dozens-failed-climate-predictions-stretch-80-years-back https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dozens-failed-climate-pr... All this based on models, and look how wrong they where.
platz 6y ago
I disagree with every premise in this comment.
gonzo41 6y ago
"First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality" About 10K construction jobs, from high tech to low tech over the life of the build phase of the project, which is overlapping a world wide downturn of unknown length of time. I mean they could build staircase to the top of the tall hill and still not have it be a waste if it keeps people in work and out of harms way. In this case we may get some physics as an upside to a neat way to stimulate industry.
- rjmunro 6y ago
  Surely those 10K construction jobs could be used to build things with much more relevance, maybe things to reduce / mitigate climate change.
cma 6y ago
> First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality, at least not for a long time. To me, it isn't necessary for every research to have social relevance. Berners-Lee invented the web while working at CERN on organizing scientific information for collides and stuff. > The stage was being set for the invention of the World Wide Web, and future history books will recount how, almost alone, Sendall supported the pioneering work of Tim Berners-Lee, then working in his group. After reading Berners-Lee's prophetic 1989 proposal for what would become the Web, Sendall wrote on the cover "Vague but exciting", and added at the end - "And now?" The rest is already history.
yojo 6y ago
> Also, I thought climate change was pretty much a problem of social coordination. What exactly do we gain from building better model of climate change? Knowing where it's going to hit us hard? I supposed that could be useful, but even more pressing was how to motivate the people of Earth to make the necessary changes. It's not either or. Knowing the impact is valuable for mitigating damage. You can allocate capital for mitigation more effectively if you have a more accurate model of the threats. Presumably at some levels funding more accurate models are net cost-saving, by increasing the efficiency of spend. I have no idea if we have or have not passed that level. Similarly, a better model might provide a better understanding of different strategies for curtailing climate change. e.g. planting trees takes carbon out of the air directly (easy to estimate), but also changes the albedo of the underlying terrain. The impact of the albedo change is less clear, particularly as to how it changes regional weather patterns. It might benefit from better models to guide the most impactful locations to reforest. Again, I'm not an expert/maybe this is a solved problem, but I can see how these cases might exist.
ip26 6y ago
If better models of climate change allow us to predict more precisely what will happen, we may be able to get people to care more. If we can say with a high degree of certainty that City X is going to see 4.5x as many terrible hurricanes every year, then the people of City X may have a more vested interest than if we say "there will probably be more hurricanes".
- hannob 6y ago
  The counterexample is Australia. We can say with high certainty that the great barrier reef will die unless some miracle happens and the world limits warming to 1.5°. And even then most of the reef will be gone. Yet Australia is a country that basically has no real climate policy at all, they still plan for decades of new(!) coal extraction.
  - ip26 6y ago
    That is an excellent counterexample. It defies comprehension.
- imtringued 6y ago
  The problem is that nobody cares about your model. If it's too grim then people will refuse to believe it. If it's too optimistic people won't do anything.
f6v 6y ago
Let's not make this a choice between colliders and "something good for society". We have so many other things we could take resources from: social media apps, fashion, luxury industry. Only when all of the parasitic industries are gone can we think whether we need a new particle accelerator, or, say, a new DNA sequencing technology.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  However those are all private enterprises? Are you saying that we need to eliminate privately owned assets/capitalism?
HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
Resource allocation is a moot point when it comes to CERN projects because CERN manages their own funding and they have one mission, to do particle research. The fact that they manage their budget is exactly why they can do things like big accelerators, unlike the United States who destroyed their half-way dug accelerator before it even came online. And besides that, CERN is literally the only place on Earth with the foundations for this kind of research.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> I suppose we could make better use of money that would otherwise go to making a new collider, but so we can do so elsewhere as well. Tell that to the hundreds, thousands, of valid scientific projects that cannot find funding. This collider, if built, represents not only a lot of money but those hundreds of smaller projects that didn't happen. I once heard a physicist say that our society spends more on ring tones than it does fusion research. I suspect that this collider would yield an inverse. We will spend more on a narrow aspect of particle science than we do on vaccine research. More than on new antibiotics? More than on SETI? More than on detecting possible life in our own solar system? Particle science is great, but there are more efficient ways to spend billions.
bsder 6y ago
> First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality The Superconducting Supercollider would have had to figure out how to deal with fire ants (apparently the magnetic fields attracted them). That's the kind of really useful technology that spins out of projects like this.

by kiba 6y ago

noir_lord 6y ago

> First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality, at least not for a long time. To me, it isn't necessary for every research to have social relevance. Me either and often the technology you get on the back of it doesn't show up for decades and decades anyway.

jacquesm 6y ago
So is that an argument now to stop basic research? That we can't even look across the horizon of our own lifetimes anymore? Even the Romans thought bigger than that.
- philwelch 6y ago
  Is there an actual theoretical question that will be answered by an even bigger collider, or is it just, “let’s see what happens?” It’s not a question of whether basic research is fundamentally valuable but rather whether building larger and larger particle colliders will deliver diminishing returns in exchange for increasing costs.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    It's just "Let's see what happens" - and that's why it's a bad idea. LHC was justified as a search for the Higgs. The Higgs was found. Everyone was happy. Fine. LHC 2.0++ is just banging rocks together for the sake of it. Something interest might fall out, or it might not. But considering that we still don't understand quantum origins, have no clue how to make a theory of quantum gravity, and have no idea what Dark Energy is, or even if it exists at all, it might be better to spend the money on pursuing creative theoretical leads in those other directions and coming back to country-sized experimental hardware when there are some new theories to test.
    - henearkr 6y ago
      Today the axion is the new hypothetical fundamental particle that coincides with the status that had the Higgs boson two decades ago. It may very well be the next milestone.
      - dnautics 6y ago
        What's the particle energy range needed to make an observation about axions?
        henearkr 6y ago
        Pretty tiny: 10−5 to 10−3 eV/c2 Though the utility of a big collider would be in diversifying the types of decays observed?
    - seamyb88 6y ago
      Banging rocks together has been a very fruitful method which is always limited by the technology. Many physicists believe that the rock banging should be an ongoing exercise which itself guides the theoretical directions. They also believe that there is an almost guaranteed chance of finding something, if their advances to higher energy are achieved. All we need is one anomaly in the vast data processing. There are many things which are expected to be seen at higher energies. If they are not seen, it still says a great deal and will guide theoretical discussion.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Not what I meant, I was agreeing with the sentiment that we shouldn't stop doing science because it has no immediate application.
close04 6y ago
> the technology you get on the back of it doesn't show up for decades That would be an argument to start even sooner rather than later or never. If you want to combat the usefulness of the research the only arguments you can make are that the results are not useful at all, or that they can be obtained cheaper, faster, or more reliably with other means. The "it takes decades to bear fruit" works even against education. And I'm sure nobody would agree to be barred access to any tech that was the result of decades of research or simply took decades to reach market. I'm also not a fan of this project simply because I don't think an incremental advance in colliders will bring anything new at all, certainly not because it will take too long to reach market. As the saying goes, you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. To achieve the next breakthrough we need something on a scale we're simply not capable of building now, or soon.
- techphys_91 6y ago
  As a counter point, the gravitational wave discovery came about because of incremental upgrades to the detector. We don't know whats beyond that noise floor. Maybe there are better ways to measure the tiny signals that hint at new physics, but the question is what we can do now. I would personally say its optimistic to assume we'll get a big breakthrough if we don't invest in the incremental upgrades.
  - close04 6y ago
    I didn't want to imply that incremental updates in general aren't useful. Just that many physicists' educated assessment (guess) is that new physics and new particles require energy levels that are out of reach right now, substantial higher than this new accelerator's. So now the expected outcome is to give a more detailed look for a slightly better understanding of what we already know, with a hefty price tag. This cost/benefit is where the current controversy comes from.
dnautics 6y ago
That's a big lie, it's extremely rare for big projects outside of wartime to create downstream tech that is generally usable. The big ones that are often claimed (Velcro for NASA and MRIs for the supercollider) are definitely lies. Usually big projects tend to need to be conservative and use off the shelf available materials (just in clever ways). Sabine's big point is not that we shouldn't do basic science, it's that we shouldn't do bad basic science; that is science that isn't driven by hypotheses. Historically in science you would create a new model that agrees with current facts, but makes an prediction that some unobserved event X would be observable. You build your apparatus or design an experiment to observe X, and then confirm of reject the model. In the case of a bigger collider, what is X?
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  > That's a big lie, it's extremely rare for big projects outside of wartime to create downstream tech that is generally usable. The big ones that are often claimed (Velcro for NASA and MRIs for the supercollider) are definitely lies. This quite mistaken based on what I've read. Historically NASA hovers at around a 10:1 ROI. SpaceX would not exist today without the huge benefit of all the material NASA has published historically. MRI may not have come from colliders, but modern medical imaging absolutely has benefited from these projects. There's a researcher that commented in a sibling thread with specific benefits to their project. > In the case of a bigger collider, what is X? Here's a quick summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > Historically NASA hovers at around a 10:1 ROI. I suggest you look at what was spent on the Space Shuttle, which turned out to be non-reusable (it was re-manufactured after each flight for up to a year.) No ROI there. Fun facts: NASA knew from the very first flight that they were losing several tiles during launch, and no tiles were optional. Also, NASA managers were given photos of Columbia's damaged wing, which had a gaping hole in the leading edge, before re-entry, and sat on them. I wouldn't fly a Cessna 152 like that.) https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html That and the ISS sucked most of the funding out of US space research and is still going on. My constructive suggestion? Take a chain saw to the ISS on the next "mission."

awinder 6y ago

“Also, I thought climate change was pretty much a problem of social coordination.” Yeah that argument was extremely dishonest. We don’t build a 1 billion dollar climate change center because that 1 billion is going to beget trillions of dollars in disruption. Throwing 20, 40 billion with staffing (which comes back into the economy) over a decade or more all-in is a total different ballgame.

TwoNineA 6y ago

"First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality" This is an extremely narrowminded view. Lasers, MRI, X-Ray machines, etc ... are all made by engineers after physicists tried to understand the fundamental nature of reality. One would argue that modern electronics are possible because research was done about Quantum Physics, a fundamental nature of reality.

wernercd 6y ago
> at least not for a long time The very next part of his statement covers that... It could be decades before "society" sees fruits of the research. > To me, it isn't necessary for every research to have social relevance. His next sentence also says "research is good for research sake" - there doesn't need to be "real world results" for the research to be worth it. You talk about narrow mindedness... then ignore second part of the first sentence and completely ignore the second sentence... Seems narrow minded to do that? I tend to agree on both those points... It could be a long time to see results and research for research can be good.
radioactivist 6y ago
While I sympathize with this viewpoint, as a physicist I think there is a fairly persistent misunderstanding in the public about just how disconnected current particle physics experiments are from application to everyday life. Essentially none of the particle physics done since the 1960s has had any application outside of fundamental knowledge, with no prospects for it having those applications in the future. At best, and even this is stretching a bit, there are indirect benefits of developing the machines that are needed to explore this frontier (i.e. like some of the argued benefits of space exploration). Whether that changes the calculus of whether these things are worth the price is still a question (in my opinion: they are), but I don't think making analogies to applications of discoveries of fundamental physics operating at very different energy scales is a good argument. The development of quantum physics (lasers, MRI, etc), while a frontier at the time, is essential to understanding commonplace things like the cohesion of solids or the properties of metals or semi-conductors (say) at room temperature. To my knowledge, there is nothing outside of astrophysical objects and the early universe that depends on knowing what is at the current frontiers in particle physics (or even what was the frontier in 50 years ago).

fluffything 6y ago

> What exactly do we gain from building better model of climate change? Knowing where it's going to hit us hard? No? Models are useful for making predictions. If somebody like the POTUS tells you that nuking thunderstorms would be great against climate change, you don't have to just take their word for it. You can input that into your climate change model, and it will tell you how much of an impact this will have, and whether the impact is good or bad. The difference between a better model and a worse model is that the better model will agree better with reality. A shitty model, like the one POTUS is using, might tell you that nuking all thunderstorms would be great. Then we go ahead and do it, and we all die. A better model, like the mental model that every 14 year old child that starts studying physics and radiation has, might tell you that nuking thunderstorms is a pretty bad idea that would kill us all due to dozens of reasons. Given that we cannot make accurate predictions today of what the weather tomorrow will look like. If you want to predict the 50 year impact of more subtle changes like, e.g., covering the Sahara with black mats, you need a pretty good model to get an output that isn't multiple orders of magnitude off. So..... what do we expect from better climate change models? Avoiding the apocalypse to begin with. Worth every penny.

X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
>If somebody like the POTUS tells you that nuking thunderstorms would be great against climate change, you don't have to just take their word for it. You can input that into your climate change model, and it will tell you how much of an impact this will have, and whether the impact is good or bad. You have an odd concept of both how to determine if nuking a thunderstorm, which was not what was allegedly suggested, but also what large scale climate models actually capture.
trekrich 6y ago
And this is the problem with climate change models, they are just models. And get changed to suit the narrative thats currently being portrayed. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dozens-failed-climate-predictions-stretch-80-years-back https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dozens-failed-climate-pr... All this based on models, and look how wrong they where.

platz 6y ago

I disagree with every premise in this comment.

gonzo41 6y ago

"First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality" About 10K construction jobs, from high tech to low tech over the life of the build phase of the project, which is overlapping a world wide downturn of unknown length of time. I mean they could build staircase to the top of the tall hill and still not have it be a waste if it keeps people in work and out of harms way. In this case we may get some physics as an upside to a neat way to stimulate industry.

rjmunro 6y ago
Surely those 10K construction jobs could be used to build things with much more relevance, maybe things to reduce / mitigate climate change.

cma 6y ago

> First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality, at least not for a long time. To me, it isn't necessary for every research to have social relevance. Berners-Lee invented the web while working at CERN on organizing scientific information for collides and stuff. > The stage was being set for the invention of the World Wide Web, and future history books will recount how, almost alone, Sendall supported the pioneering work of Tim Berners-Lee, then working in his group. After reading Berners-Lee's prophetic 1989 proposal for what would become the Web, Sendall wrote on the cover "Vague but exciting", and added at the end - "And now?" The rest is already history.

yojo 6y ago

> Also, I thought climate change was pretty much a problem of social coordination. What exactly do we gain from building better model of climate change? Knowing where it's going to hit us hard? I supposed that could be useful, but even more pressing was how to motivate the people of Earth to make the necessary changes. It's not either or. Knowing the impact is valuable for mitigating damage. You can allocate capital for mitigation more effectively if you have a more accurate model of the threats. Presumably at some levels funding more accurate models are net cost-saving, by increasing the efficiency of spend. I have no idea if we have or have not passed that level. Similarly, a better model might provide a better understanding of different strategies for curtailing climate change. e.g. planting trees takes carbon out of the air directly (easy to estimate), but also changes the albedo of the underlying terrain. The impact of the albedo change is less clear, particularly as to how it changes regional weather patterns. It might benefit from better models to guide the most impactful locations to reforest. Again, I'm not an expert/maybe this is a solved problem, but I can see how these cases might exist.

ip26 6y ago

If better models of climate change allow us to predict more precisely what will happen, we may be able to get people to care more. If we can say with a high degree of certainty that City X is going to see 4.5x as many terrible hurricanes every year, then the people of City X may have a more vested interest than if we say "there will probably be more hurricanes".

hannob 6y ago
The counterexample is Australia. We can say with high certainty that the great barrier reef will die unless some miracle happens and the world limits warming to 1.5°. And even then most of the reef will be gone. Yet Australia is a country that basically has no real climate policy at all, they still plan for decades of new(!) coal extraction.
- ip26 6y ago
  That is an excellent counterexample. It defies comprehension.
imtringued 6y ago
The problem is that nobody cares about your model. If it's too grim then people will refuse to believe it. If it's too optimistic people won't do anything.

f6v 6y ago

Let's not make this a choice between colliders and "something good for society". We have so many other things we could take resources from: social media apps, fashion, luxury industry. Only when all of the parasitic industries are gone can we think whether we need a new particle accelerator, or, say, a new DNA sequencing technology.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
However those are all private enterprises? Are you saying that we need to eliminate privately owned assets/capitalism?

HeadsUpHigh 6y ago

Resource allocation is a moot point when it comes to CERN projects because CERN manages their own funding and they have one mission, to do particle research. The fact that they manage their budget is exactly why they can do things like big accelerators, unlike the United States who destroyed their half-way dug accelerator before it even came online. And besides that, CERN is literally the only place on Earth with the foundations for this kind of research.

sandworm101 6y ago

>> I suppose we could make better use of money that would otherwise go to making a new collider, but so we can do so elsewhere as well. Tell that to the hundreds, thousands, of valid scientific projects that cannot find funding. This collider, if built, represents not only a lot of money but those hundreds of smaller projects that didn't happen. I once heard a physicist say that our society spends more on ring tones than it does fusion research. I suspect that this collider would yield an inverse. We will spend more on a narrow aspect of particle science than we do on vaccine research. More than on new antibiotics? More than on SETI? More than on detecting possible life in our own solar system? Particle science is great, but there are more efficient ways to spend billions.

bsder 6y ago

> First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to doing research on the fundamental nature of reality The Superconducting Supercollider would have had to figure out how to deal with fire ants (apparently the magnetic fields attracted them). That's the kind of really useful technology that spins out of projects like this.