10 ms·

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 p

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).

grumple 6y ago
Does quantum computing count as particle physics? It seems like this may be the future of computing.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  It's speculation that it will ever be practical for computing, let alone in the near future. And even then I'm not sure how much that'll be related to recent experiments in high energy particle physics.
- radioactivist 6y ago
  The experimental platforms that I am aware of that are been used to try and build quantum computers are based on condensed matter physics (superconducting junctions), atomic physics (trapped ions) or photons (quantum optics). None of this involves particle physics. The theoretical side of quantum computing, while a rich and deep field on its own, is an application of quantum mechanics and does not share any deep connection with particle physics.
- OkayPhysicist 6y ago
  Quantum computing will never be the future of computing. If we manage to make it work, it will at best be something like a TPU: a specialized processor for accelerating specific tasks. It will always be faster and easier to build more powerful classical computers than an equivalently fast quantum machine.
  - needAnAltHN 6y ago
    Eli5 Quantum computing only solves a few specific problems. Like showing every possible outcome. For instance print(x), and your goal is to get a through z. But if the problem is linear, like 2+2, it doesn't help to have quantum computing.
esperent 6y ago
Do you think it's likely that any of the post-60s particle physics will lead to new useful inventions? Any idea what they might be or where I could read about them?
- radioactivist 6y ago
  I don't know of any promising prospects. I think nuclear physics provides an instructive example that sits in between some of these extremes. Here the energy scales are way way lower than current frontier standards, but also fairly divorced from things in everyday life. Yet nuclear physics has applications (in medicine, in power and [unfortunately] in war). These applications do tend however to be quite specialized (we don't have atomic cars, vacuum cleaners or whatever) so it didn't revolutionize the world the way our understanding of electromagnetism or quantum mechanics did. [I don't want to downplay the effect of nuclear science, but it isn't ubiquitous in our lives]. Barring a fundamental change in our understanding, I would expect that trade off between energy scale and specialization to continue to hold and any developments based on particle physics (of the 60s-present) to be very specialized. Let me be clear though -- you don't know what you don't know. It could be that what I think are reasonable expectations are wrong, and there are surprises waiting for us (this is one of the reasons I think particle physics is worth supporting).
  - emn13 6y ago
    In a sense though - that's what we should have been expecting all along. Particle physics may have had surprises for the experts along the way, but what it did not have are hidden ways to use those newly discovered particles without those huge energies; and similarly for the weakly-interacting stuff. That may not hold forever; but it's not a crazy assumption. Something who's existence you cannot deduce without energies that need specialized billion dollar equipment to reach is almost by definition not ever going to create or influence ubiquitous tech. That's quite different from stuff like quantum mechanics; those effects are quite visible in fairly everyday situations (e.g. the double-slit experiment doesn't need anything too exotic, and obviously lots of modern tech relies on tricks classical physics might observe but not predict). That means that if particle physics is to be relevant, it's most likely going to be in places that are not ubiquitous. Maybe it'll help astronomers understand the universe, and maybe that has some application down the line. Or maybe it'll be in absurdly expensive high-energy devices that matter even with only a few copies in the world (and let's hope those aren't yet more weapons). Still, seems reasonable to be pessimistic about the usefulness of particle physics investments of this type.
bob33212 6y ago
The hope is that a fundamental discovery will open the door to many other discoveries which could lead us to an understanding of ways to transfer energy between fields in new ways.p Making a Star Trek warp drive may be the only way for humanity to leave our galaxy.
- ictebres 6y ago
  True, but if we continue on our current trajectory (climate change, social inequality), we won’t make it to that future. While I understand, we have enough curious people to invest many long-term possibilities and theories, I do think we should focus more on current pressing concerns when we decide on such a costly project. I can’t help but think of the possibilities of building renewable energy, sanitization for the parts of the world that has been historically and systematically left behind.
kergonath 6y ago
Expanding on your second paragraph, off the top of my head I can cite superconducting magnets and high temperature superconductors, both of which have benefitted from funding/interest related to large particle accelerators. Now you have companies building tokamaks with this technology. Whilst they are not commonly used today, it is not entirely improbable that they play a significant role in the future. There’s also some developments related to grid computing, sensors, and electronics, which could be reasonably useful in other contexts. So yeah, chasing the next fancy particle itself is not very relevant to most people (though still very important in our quest of trying to understand the world around us), but it still contributes to technological progress. Another aspect is international collaboration. It’s not perfect, but CERN and ITER are organisations within which Chinese, Russians, Americans and Europeans (and many, many others) work together towards a common goal.
- radioactivist 6y ago
  Thank you for expanding on this -- I agree with all of these points. There is a real and tangible, albeit in this case indirect, value to have highly skilled people try to push that boundaries of what is possible technologically. It is easy to forget that the world-wide-web itself had its inception in at CERN -- an institution whose focus is particle physics. In my opinion, another important reason to support of keeping these large accelerators alive is there is a very real chance that the expertise to build these kind of devices could atrophy or be lost entirely given the long timescales involved. Even if one is opposed to building this specific collider, I think the prospect of losing this kind of institutional knowledge is concerning (though if one finds these things useless, you might care less if we lost that capability).
  - kergonath 6y ago
    Oh yes, good point about the Web. I know there’s a lot of cutting edge research on storage and computing distributed across the world to handle the sheer amount of data coming out of the LHC. It’s not implausible that this could help improve the Internet’s architecture. I entirely agree with your second point. I’ll add that it is also important to keep these people (from highly specialised technicians and physicists to diplomats and support staff) employed in positions where they can keep their skills sharp. Some of them then go back to their countries of origin to apply this experience and knowledge to help improve research and policy at home, whilst retaining personal links with their counterparts abroad. In the grand scheme of things, the expenditure is a rounding error anyway.
HelgeEgil 6y ago
I agree with you that the current physics output from the high energy experiments are far removed from practical usages today, and that this has immense value in itself. However I feel that you downplay the value of the developed hardware and (especially) software required to perform these experiments. As an analogy, I currently work on developing a medical imaging system where we track the trajectories of protons and heavy ions after they traverse a patient - in order to infer their energy loss and also the patient's "stopping power" map. With better knowledge of the stopping power we will be able to improve cancer radiation treatment with protons and heavy ions. We would be nowhere without recent work in particle physics on large scale pixel sensors, Monte Carlo simulation software, readout systems, experimental cross sectional data (although not directly from the high energy experiments), particle tracking algorithms, electronics design for very thin sensors and radiation hard equipment ++.
- radioactivist 6y ago
  You're probably right that my statement about "indirect" applications was a bit strong. I agree that there are numerous applications some fairly direct (like medical physics) and some very indirect (like the WWW) that have come out of work in particle physics. But I think my main point, that applications of particle physics itself (and not the human and technological advances made to support it) are essentially non-existent stands.
  - zepto 6y ago
    You may be right, but it may be a distinction of low relevance. The technological advances made to support particle physics may not have been possible without the effort to do the particle physics. I.e. they are actually a result of the effort to understand the universe, even though they aren’t written down in the standard model. It’s not at all obvious that we would have devised them any other way.
    - radioactivist 6y ago
      If that's the reason one wants to continue funding particle accelerators -- and it's a good argument -- then one needs to make precisely that argument (and not the argument made a few levels up by the original poster).
henearkr 6y ago
I was surprised to see in recent years quite a lot of applications of neutrinos in imagery. E.g. in geology, to visualize the inside of monuments (e.g. pyramids) without opening them, etc.
- ivan_gammel 6y ago
  Muon detectors are also application of particle physics. I will not be surprised if we’ll see more exotic particles being used, maybe in some areas of manufacturing, as a convenient carrier of certain energy. Particle colliders are the way to develop accessible technology for that purpose.
namibj 6y ago
Arguably the particle accelerator technology is useful for free-electron lasers, to the point where Globalfoundries wanted to base their next node shrink on an FEL-based lithography process.
ivan_gammel 6y ago
I believe there is. Observed universe shines on us in a broad spectrum of electromagnetic and gravitational waves and particles, so knowing it well and expecting what may come from it is important, because we utilize more and more of this spectrum. If you build a neutrino detector, you are looking at the whole universe and trying to separate your own signal from the background. In space some strange recurring radio signal may interfere with satellite communications, you may need to distinguish it from something else. It’s all practical right now, even if we are not yet building machines to exploit some new physical law.

grumple 6y ago

Does quantum computing count as particle physics? It seems like this may be the future of computing.

akvadrako 6y ago
It's speculation that it will ever be practical for computing, let alone in the near future. And even then I'm not sure how much that'll be related to recent experiments in high energy particle physics.
radioactivist 6y ago
The experimental platforms that I am aware of that are been used to try and build quantum computers are based on condensed matter physics (superconducting junctions), atomic physics (trapped ions) or photons (quantum optics). None of this involves particle physics. The theoretical side of quantum computing, while a rich and deep field on its own, is an application of quantum mechanics and does not share any deep connection with particle physics.
OkayPhysicist 6y ago
Quantum computing will never be the future of computing. If we manage to make it work, it will at best be something like a TPU: a specialized processor for accelerating specific tasks. It will always be faster and easier to build more powerful classical computers than an equivalently fast quantum machine.
- needAnAltHN 6y ago
  Eli5 Quantum computing only solves a few specific problems. Like showing every possible outcome. For instance print(x), and your goal is to get a through z. But if the problem is linear, like 2+2, it doesn't help to have quantum computing.

esperent 6y ago

Do you think it's likely that any of the post-60s particle physics will lead to new useful inventions? Any idea what they might be or where I could read about them?

radioactivist 6y ago
I don't know of any promising prospects. I think nuclear physics provides an instructive example that sits in between some of these extremes. Here the energy scales are way way lower than current frontier standards, but also fairly divorced from things in everyday life. Yet nuclear physics has applications (in medicine, in power and [unfortunately] in war). These applications do tend however to be quite specialized (we don't have atomic cars, vacuum cleaners or whatever) so it didn't revolutionize the world the way our understanding of electromagnetism or quantum mechanics did. [I don't want to downplay the effect of nuclear science, but it isn't ubiquitous in our lives]. Barring a fundamental change in our understanding, I would expect that trade off between energy scale and specialization to continue to hold and any developments based on particle physics (of the 60s-present) to be very specialized. Let me be clear though -- you don't know what you don't know. It could be that what I think are reasonable expectations are wrong, and there are surprises waiting for us (this is one of the reasons I think particle physics is worth supporting).
- emn13 6y ago
  In a sense though - that's what we should have been expecting all along. Particle physics may have had surprises for the experts along the way, but what it did not have are hidden ways to use those newly discovered particles without those huge energies; and similarly for the weakly-interacting stuff. That may not hold forever; but it's not a crazy assumption. Something who's existence you cannot deduce without energies that need specialized billion dollar equipment to reach is almost by definition not ever going to create or influence ubiquitous tech. That's quite different from stuff like quantum mechanics; those effects are quite visible in fairly everyday situations (e.g. the double-slit experiment doesn't need anything too exotic, and obviously lots of modern tech relies on tricks classical physics might observe but not predict). That means that if particle physics is to be relevant, it's most likely going to be in places that are not ubiquitous. Maybe it'll help astronomers understand the universe, and maybe that has some application down the line. Or maybe it'll be in absurdly expensive high-energy devices that matter even with only a few copies in the world (and let's hope those aren't yet more weapons). Still, seems reasonable to be pessimistic about the usefulness of particle physics investments of this type.

bob33212 6y ago

The hope is that a fundamental discovery will open the door to many other discoveries which could lead us to an understanding of ways to transfer energy between fields in new ways.p Making a Star Trek warp drive may be the only way for humanity to leave our galaxy.

ictebres 6y ago
True, but if we continue on our current trajectory (climate change, social inequality), we won’t make it to that future. While I understand, we have enough curious people to invest many long-term possibilities and theories, I do think we should focus more on current pressing concerns when we decide on such a costly project. I can’t help but think of the possibilities of building renewable energy, sanitization for the parts of the world that has been historically and systematically left behind.

kergonath 6y ago

Expanding on your second paragraph, off the top of my head I can cite superconducting magnets and high temperature superconductors, both of which have benefitted from funding/interest related to large particle accelerators. Now you have companies building tokamaks with this technology. Whilst they are not commonly used today, it is not entirely improbable that they play a significant role in the future. There’s also some developments related to grid computing, sensors, and electronics, which could be reasonably useful in other contexts. So yeah, chasing the next fancy particle itself is not very relevant to most people (though still very important in our quest of trying to understand the world around us), but it still contributes to technological progress. Another aspect is international collaboration. It’s not perfect, but CERN and ITER are organisations within which Chinese, Russians, Americans and Europeans (and many, many others) work together towards a common goal.

radioactivist 6y ago
Thank you for expanding on this -- I agree with all of these points. There is a real and tangible, albeit in this case indirect, value to have highly skilled people try to push that boundaries of what is possible technologically. It is easy to forget that the world-wide-web itself had its inception in at CERN -- an institution whose focus is particle physics. In my opinion, another important reason to support of keeping these large accelerators alive is there is a very real chance that the expertise to build these kind of devices could atrophy or be lost entirely given the long timescales involved. Even if one is opposed to building this specific collider, I think the prospect of losing this kind of institutional knowledge is concerning (though if one finds these things useless, you might care less if we lost that capability).
- kergonath 6y ago
  Oh yes, good point about the Web. I know there’s a lot of cutting edge research on storage and computing distributed across the world to handle the sheer amount of data coming out of the LHC. It’s not implausible that this could help improve the Internet’s architecture. I entirely agree with your second point. I’ll add that it is also important to keep these people (from highly specialised technicians and physicists to diplomats and support staff) employed in positions where they can keep their skills sharp. Some of them then go back to their countries of origin to apply this experience and knowledge to help improve research and policy at home, whilst retaining personal links with their counterparts abroad. In the grand scheme of things, the expenditure is a rounding error anyway.

HelgeEgil 6y ago

I agree with you that the current physics output from the high energy experiments are far removed from practical usages today, and that this has immense value in itself. However I feel that you downplay the value of the developed hardware and (especially) software required to perform these experiments. As an analogy, I currently work on developing a medical imaging system where we track the trajectories of protons and heavy ions after they traverse a patient - in order to infer their energy loss and also the patient's "stopping power" map. With better knowledge of the stopping power we will be able to improve cancer radiation treatment with protons and heavy ions. We would be nowhere without recent work in particle physics on large scale pixel sensors, Monte Carlo simulation software, readout systems, experimental cross sectional data (although not directly from the high energy experiments), particle tracking algorithms, electronics design for very thin sensors and radiation hard equipment ++.

radioactivist 6y ago
You're probably right that my statement about "indirect" applications was a bit strong. I agree that there are numerous applications some fairly direct (like medical physics) and some very indirect (like the WWW) that have come out of work in particle physics. But I think my main point, that applications of particle physics itself (and not the human and technological advances made to support it) are essentially non-existent stands.
- zepto 6y ago
  You may be right, but it may be a distinction of low relevance. The technological advances made to support particle physics may not have been possible without the effort to do the particle physics. I.e. they are actually a result of the effort to understand the universe, even though they aren’t written down in the standard model. It’s not at all obvious that we would have devised them any other way.
  - radioactivist 6y ago
    If that's the reason one wants to continue funding particle accelerators -- and it's a good argument -- then one needs to make precisely that argument (and not the argument made a few levels up by the original poster).

henearkr 6y ago

I was surprised to see in recent years quite a lot of applications of neutrinos in imagery. E.g. in geology, to visualize the inside of monuments (e.g. pyramids) without opening them, etc.

ivan_gammel 6y ago
Muon detectors are also application of particle physics. I will not be surprised if we’ll see more exotic particles being used, maybe in some areas of manufacturing, as a convenient carrier of certain energy. Particle colliders are the way to develop accessible technology for that purpose.

namibj 6y ago

Arguably the particle accelerator technology is useful for free-electron lasers, to the point where Globalfoundries wanted to base their next node shrink on an FEL-based lithography process.

ivan_gammel 6y ago

I believe there is. Observed universe shines on us in a broad spectrum of electromagnetic and gravitational waves and particles, so knowing it well and expecting what may come from it is important, because we utilize more and more of this spectrum. If you build a neutrino detector, you are looking at the whole universe and trying to separate your own signal from the background. In space some strange recurring radio signal may interfere with satellite communications, you may need to distinguish it from something else. It’s all practical right now, even if we are not yet building machines to exploit some new physical law.