7 ms·

Sure, discovery outside the standard model would be bigger news, but this is still very exciting, imo, for a few reasons. It shows that the LHC has real value a

by shaggy 15y ago

Sure, discovery outside the standard model would be bigger news, but this is still very exciting, imo, for a few reasons. It shows that the LHC has real value and is working. It shows that the science is right and now it's been confirmed. It also shows that we can continually gain understanding of how everything works which makes us smarter as a whole. It may not be sensational, but it sure is fantastic to see the progress being made.

cobrausn 15y ago
I might get downvoted for this, but so be it. What value does the LHC have outside of the scientific community? It's not, as you say, 'progressing our understanding', it's more or less just giving us empirical evidence that the long-dead giants of physics were correct. It's like a very expensive unit test for reality. Is it just me, or are we, as a species, just 'spinning our wheels' scientifically? I'm hoping to see major scientific advancement that pushes us forward sometime within my lifetime, but I'm beginning to have doubts that all of the new 'super science' will ever leave the theoretical...
- mattheww 15y ago
  No, measurements at the LHC really are, and will, progress our understanding. Let me give the measurement of the Higgs as an example. There is very strong evidence that a Higgs boson should exist. An observation of the Higgs boson would provide empirical confirmation of that idea. However, the fact there's a Higgs boson doesn't expand our understanding very much, since after all, we strongly suspected it was there. Measurements of the Higgs boson quantum numbers, on the other hand, provide very useful expansions of our understanding. The parameter space of possible Higgs bosons is so large that its impossible to know where it could be and different regions correspond two very different possible physics. So the measurement of the Higgs' mass, spin, couplings, and even the number of Higgs bosons are actually quantitative improvements to our understanding. The problem is that if you're not a physicist, it is very difficult to explain to you why this measurement is something more than empirical. Lay people can easily understand that a new particle has been observed, but not so much how that expands our understanding. I'd also like to point out that most of the people who came up with the ideas that are being tested are still alive. The standard model as we know it didn't really start taking shape until the 1970s.
  - cobrausn 15y ago
    Out of curiosity, then, what potential applications could be had from these physical measurements of the Higgs, i.e., where could we see any real-world benefits of our newfound knowledge? Everything I have ever read about it never divulges any of this information, so if you know, I'd like to know. I should also point out that I'm not 'against' these kinds of projects, merely dubious about their usefulness outside of the scientific community (and hoping I'm wrong).
    - moonchrome 15y ago
      Well that's actually a logical question. If you need a multi billion dollar collider size of a small town to even observe these events it's not likely to get practical use any time soon.
      - wnight 15y ago
        We don't need anything to observe the effect of 'mass'. We may need a multi-billion dollar machine to observe a tiny little thing happening at the middle of the effect so that we can better understand it. What you're saying is like "if this watch gear is too small for me to touch, it's too small to matter".
        moonchrome 15y ago
        No, if watch gear is too small to have any observable effect no matter what I do - it's irrelevant.
        wnight 15y ago
        You work very hard at maintaining your irrational thoughts.
    - mattheww 15y ago
      Honestly, nobody knows what kind of potential applications could come from these measurements. But by the same token, nobody knew that Fermi's splitting of the atom would lead to nuclear power (and weapons), measurement of Hydrogen line splittings would eventually lead to semi-conductors, and the study of bacteria would eventually lead to antibiotics. Besides the giving us applications that we can literally not imagine today, the "engineering" feats required to do cutting edge science always brings new technologies that benefit the real world. Just think that accelerators that would have been used for cutting-edge particle physics 50 years ago are now commonly used in hospitals to treat cancer.
- zerostar07 15y ago
  Spending money in order to expand the limits of usable human knowledge? Pretty good value if you ask me, what better alternatives can you suggest? You might ask though, why they didn't fund megaprojects in less "developed" disciplines, like life sciences, or materials, or brain sciences. Maybe LHC will be the last of a series of non-life-sciences projects, like the ISS or Hubble.
jessriedel 15y ago
All true as far as that goes. But I can tell you that they wouldn't have spent ~$10 billion on the LHC for this...

by shaggy 15y ago

cobrausn 15y ago

I might get downvoted for this, but so be it. What value does the LHC have outside of the scientific community? It's not, as you say, 'progressing our understanding', it's more or less just giving us empirical evidence that the long-dead giants of physics were correct. It's like a very expensive unit test for reality. Is it just me, or are we, as a species, just 'spinning our wheels' scientifically? I'm hoping to see major scientific advancement that pushes us forward sometime within my lifetime, but I'm beginning to have doubts that all of the new 'super science' will ever leave the theoretical...

mattheww 15y ago
No, measurements at the LHC really are, and will, progress our understanding. Let me give the measurement of the Higgs as an example. There is very strong evidence that a Higgs boson should exist. An observation of the Higgs boson would provide empirical confirmation of that idea. However, the fact there's a Higgs boson doesn't expand our understanding very much, since after all, we strongly suspected it was there. Measurements of the Higgs boson quantum numbers, on the other hand, provide very useful expansions of our understanding. The parameter space of possible Higgs bosons is so large that its impossible to know where it could be and different regions correspond two very different possible physics. So the measurement of the Higgs' mass, spin, couplings, and even the number of Higgs bosons are actually quantitative improvements to our understanding. The problem is that if you're not a physicist, it is very difficult to explain to you why this measurement is something more than empirical. Lay people can easily understand that a new particle has been observed, but not so much how that expands our understanding. I'd also like to point out that most of the people who came up with the ideas that are being tested are still alive. The standard model as we know it didn't really start taking shape until the 1970s.
- cobrausn 15y ago
  Out of curiosity, then, what potential applications could be had from these physical measurements of the Higgs, i.e., where could we see any real-world benefits of our newfound knowledge? Everything I have ever read about it never divulges any of this information, so if you know, I'd like to know. I should also point out that I'm not 'against' these kinds of projects, merely dubious about their usefulness outside of the scientific community (and hoping I'm wrong).
  - moonchrome 15y ago
    Well that's actually a logical question. If you need a multi billion dollar collider size of a small town to even observe these events it's not likely to get practical use any time soon.
    - wnight 15y ago
      We don't need anything to observe the effect of 'mass'. We may need a multi-billion dollar machine to observe a tiny little thing happening at the middle of the effect so that we can better understand it. What you're saying is like "if this watch gear is too small for me to touch, it's too small to matter".
      - moonchrome 15y ago
        No, if watch gear is too small to have any observable effect no matter what I do - it's irrelevant.
        wnight 15y ago
        You work very hard at maintaining your irrational thoughts.
  - mattheww 15y ago
    Honestly, nobody knows what kind of potential applications could come from these measurements. But by the same token, nobody knew that Fermi's splitting of the atom would lead to nuclear power (and weapons), measurement of Hydrogen line splittings would eventually lead to semi-conductors, and the study of bacteria would eventually lead to antibiotics. Besides the giving us applications that we can literally not imagine today, the "engineering" feats required to do cutting edge science always brings new technologies that benefit the real world. Just think that accelerators that would have been used for cutting-edge particle physics 50 years ago are now commonly used in hospitals to treat cancer.
zerostar07 15y ago
Spending money in order to expand the limits of usable human knowledge? Pretty good value if you ask me, what better alternatives can you suggest? You might ask though, why they didn't fund megaprojects in less "developed" disciplines, like life sciences, or materials, or brain sciences. Maybe LHC will be the last of a series of non-life-sciences projects, like the ISS or Hubble.

jessriedel 15y ago

All true as far as that goes. But I can tell you that they wouldn't have spent ~$10 billion on the LHC for this...