5 ms·

I’m sympathetic to both sides here. Obviously we cannot indefinitely build larger accelerators, and if it turns out that there is no support to go at least one

by czzr 6y ago

I’m sympathetic to both sides here. Obviously we cannot indefinitely build larger accelerators, and if it turns out that there is no support to go at least one size bigger, then perhaps our best hope is to find more effective ways to use the existing ones we have. As a random example to illustrate what I mean: https://www.google.nl/amp/s/phys.org/news/2018-07-plasma-size-limitations-large-hadron.amp https://www.google.nl/amp/s/phys.org/news/2018-07-plasma-siz... Maybe stopping here will force more thinking along these lines? I hope so, anyway.

m0zg 6y ago
It's like engineers think about research. I worked in both engineering and research, so I could perhaps elucidate the difference. Basically if one idea out of a hundred major ones really takes off, that's considered a success for a researcher. We're talking one, maybe two real hits throughout the entire scientific career. Researchers are well aware that much of what they do and publish is of little consequence. And they have to make "empty promises" from time to time to continue getting funding from the easily distracted politicians and upper management. They also almost have to have lofty, aspirational goals to keep the motivation. Basically 99% percent of work of a good, hard working researcher consists of going down the alleys to see if they are blind, which they nearly always are. But the remaining 1% often makes the whole thing worthwhile to all parties involved. The question is, can you pull off that 1% hail Mary or not. The potential discoveries we're talking about in this case could upend industries, reshape the world economy, and bring about the post-scarcity future, at least when it comes to energy. If we're willing to strain credulity a little, they might even enable interstellar travel. Is that worth a few days of the Pentagon budget? To me, it is, as long as we maximize the chance of the aforementioned Hail Mary. In contrast, an engineer that doesn't succeed with her ideas at least 50% of the time would quickly find herself out of a job, so by definition the amount of risk engineers take on is as little as possible.
- czzr 6y ago
  I agree, but the issue here is different I think. The linked article is also arguing for open ended research, the claim is that other open ended research is likely to be more fruitful, and that we have reached the limit of what we can learn from the particle accelerator route. This is a fair debate to have, even if my personal preferred answer is “do both”.
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    The problem is what "open ended" means. A typical experiment is to accelerate a lot protons and a lot of antiprotons (or other particle), make them collide, and see the "debris". The "debris" can be a lot of things. So you must filter some of them. For example pick only the one that produce exactly two photons and two "jets" of mixed particles that are difficult to identify. Now you calculate the energy of the photons and make a nice graph, of number of collisions versus energy of the photons. Using the standard theory you expect a smooth curve, but if there is a new particle you will see a peak somewhere. If you see something, you only see the peak. So good luck imagining what the particle can be and how it interact with the other particles. Another team peek another filter, like the experiment that produce two photons and electron and a positron. They make a nice graphic and hope to see an unexpected peak. Another team ... If the current theory predicts a peak somewhere you should find it, but if you find an unexpected peak yuo may have founded a new particle. The theoretical frameworks are useful to guess which filters may be interesting and give a chance to find a new particle. The problem is that there are just too many possible filters and you can't try all of them.
- foldr 6y ago
  I completely agree, but at some point you do have to make an economic risk/benefit calculation. Almost any person or organization can truly say that they might do something really amazing and important if given lots of money and resources.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    You can't really make that calculation with truly open ended, fundamental research. Both the potential benefits, and the complexity/cost of obtaining these benefits (or finding out they can't be obtained) can be enormous. At best, you can improve the odds of getting something rather than nothing, by e.g. hiring the smartest people and letting them do their thing with ample funding, a-la the Space Race or Manhattan Project. It just pisses me off that we spend trillions on bombing random people in the desert, yet a few billion for e.g. fusion research is an insurmountable obstacle.
    - foldr 6y ago
      Well, any time you spend less than all of your money on fundamental research you're implicitly making a calculation of that kind.
      - m0zg 6y ago
        Gambling is not "calculation".
chuckleMuscle 6y ago
If you assume that accelerator technology remains the same then you do of course have to keep making your accelerators bigger. There are a fairly large number of people working on plasma accelerators which are more compact because they support a greater accelerating potential. The AWAKE experiment [1] is an example of such a project. As an aside, I think this is a great example of a role which fundamental science plays in society: It can facilitate step changes in technological progress. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWAKE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWAKE

by czzr 6y ago

m0zg 6y ago

It's like engineers think about research. I worked in both engineering and research, so I could perhaps elucidate the difference. Basically if one idea out of a hundred major ones really takes off, that's considered a success for a researcher. We're talking one, maybe two real hits throughout the entire scientific career. Researchers are well aware that much of what they do and publish is of little consequence. And they have to make "empty promises" from time to time to continue getting funding from the easily distracted politicians and upper management. They also almost have to have lofty, aspirational goals to keep the motivation. Basically 99% percent of work of a good, hard working researcher consists of going down the alleys to see if they are blind, which they nearly always are. But the remaining 1% often makes the whole thing worthwhile to all parties involved. The question is, can you pull off that 1% hail Mary or not. The potential discoveries we're talking about in this case could upend industries, reshape the world economy, and bring about the post-scarcity future, at least when it comes to energy. If we're willing to strain credulity a little, they might even enable interstellar travel. Is that worth a few days of the Pentagon budget? To me, it is, as long as we maximize the chance of the aforementioned Hail Mary. In contrast, an engineer that doesn't succeed with her ideas at least 50% of the time would quickly find herself out of a job, so by definition the amount of risk engineers take on is as little as possible.

czzr 6y ago
I agree, but the issue here is different I think. The linked article is also arguing for open ended research, the claim is that other open ended research is likely to be more fruitful, and that we have reached the limit of what we can learn from the particle accelerator route. This is a fair debate to have, even if my personal preferred answer is “do both”.
- gus_massa 6y ago
  The problem is what "open ended" means. A typical experiment is to accelerate a lot protons and a lot of antiprotons (or other particle), make them collide, and see the "debris". The "debris" can be a lot of things. So you must filter some of them. For example pick only the one that produce exactly two photons and two "jets" of mixed particles that are difficult to identify. Now you calculate the energy of the photons and make a nice graph, of number of collisions versus energy of the photons. Using the standard theory you expect a smooth curve, but if there is a new particle you will see a peak somewhere. If you see something, you only see the peak. So good luck imagining what the particle can be and how it interact with the other particles. Another team peek another filter, like the experiment that produce two photons and electron and a positron. They make a nice graphic and hope to see an unexpected peak. Another team ... If the current theory predicts a peak somewhere you should find it, but if you find an unexpected peak yuo may have founded a new particle. The theoretical frameworks are useful to guess which filters may be interesting and give a chance to find a new particle. The problem is that there are just too many possible filters and you can't try all of them.
foldr 6y ago
I completely agree, but at some point you do have to make an economic risk/benefit calculation. Almost any person or organization can truly say that they might do something really amazing and important if given lots of money and resources.
- m0zg 6y ago
  You can't really make that calculation with truly open ended, fundamental research. Both the potential benefits, and the complexity/cost of obtaining these benefits (or finding out they can't be obtained) can be enormous. At best, you can improve the odds of getting something rather than nothing, by e.g. hiring the smartest people and letting them do their thing with ample funding, a-la the Space Race or Manhattan Project. It just pisses me off that we spend trillions on bombing random people in the desert, yet a few billion for e.g. fusion research is an insurmountable obstacle.
  - foldr 6y ago
    Well, any time you spend less than all of your money on fundamental research you're implicitly making a calculation of that kind.
    - m0zg 6y ago
      Gambling is not "calculation".

chuckleMuscle 6y ago

If you assume that accelerator technology remains the same then you do of course have to keep making your accelerators bigger. There are a fairly large number of people working on plasma accelerators which are more compact because they support a greater accelerating potential. The AWAKE experiment [1] is an example of such a project. As an aside, I think this is a great example of a role which fundamental science plays in society: It can facilitate step changes in technological progress. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWAKE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWAKE