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> You’d have to explain what should be done about that. Well, there should be something that follows from the assumption that there are huge amounts of particl

> You’d have to explain what should be done about that. Well, there should be something that follows from the assumption that there are huge amounts of particles that only interact via gravity. What's the prediction that this model makes? If it doesn't make any useful prediction, it's pretty much worthless. > That’s living in the 19th century, basically - which admittedly, many people still seem to want to do. I think this attitude is inappropriate. The scientific progress made with 19th century methods, and that includes most of the stuff discovered until the 1950s, is massive. Maybe scientists should focus more on a clear nay or yea? I mean, the LHC is certainly a significant achievement, but compared to the detection of gravitational waves or even just exoplanets it doesn't seem to deliver as much bang for the buck.

YawningAngel 4y ago
Indulge the counterfactual for a second. Suppose that dark matter really does exist, and we can't ascertain that fact with any certainty. What do you want Physics as a whole to do about that? I think everybody agrees a simple answer would be great, we're just unable to provide one in this context
- naasking 4y ago
  > Suppose that dark matter really does exist, and we can't ascertain that fact with any certainty. What do you want Physics as a whole to do about that? Be more bold in exploring alternative gravity theories and conceiving of tests we can perform to check how gravity behaves in regimes that are not yet well tested.
cauch 4y ago
> I mean, the LHC is certainly a significant achievement, but compared to the detection of gravitational waves or even just exoplanets it doesn't seem to deliver as much bang for the buck. Well, first, LHC was "unlucky": they could have observed a lot of new particles if they would have been there. It feels unfair to say "this experiment that looked at X and had 50% chance of seeing something was a waste of money because they haven't found anything, this experiment that looked at Y and had 50% chance of seeing something was not because they saw something": both experiments are as worth a try. LHC still have observed the Higgs boson, which is still quite a big thing. LHC has also constrained a lot of theories (seeing that a particle predicted by a given theory is not there is very useful scientifically). But more importantly, I have the feeling that the notion of "bang for the buck" is pretty different from a scientific point of view and a layman point of view. For example, you mention exoplanets. Scientifically, those are really not a big deal. We already know that planets can exist, there are 8 around the Sun, so finding others around other stars is really not a big deal: everybody was expecting them to exist and knew the only reason they were not seen yet was the limits of the technology. One could even argue that using money to detect things that are pretty trivial is in fact the worst delivery of bang for the buck. Don't get me wrong, this is still nice to see them, but it's the same level as pentaquark (discovered at LHC). It is sometimes surprising to see the public/media reactions to discoveries. I'm still not sure why layman people were so excited about gravitational waves but not much about the tau neutrino.

YawningAngel 4y ago

Indulge the counterfactual for a second. Suppose that dark matter really does exist, and we can't ascertain that fact with any certainty. What do you want Physics as a whole to do about that? I think everybody agrees a simple answer would be great, we're just unable to provide one in this context

naasking 4y ago
> Suppose that dark matter really does exist, and we can't ascertain that fact with any certainty. What do you want Physics as a whole to do about that? Be more bold in exploring alternative gravity theories and conceiving of tests we can perform to check how gravity behaves in regimes that are not yet well tested.

cauch 4y ago

> I mean, the LHC is certainly a significant achievement, but compared to the detection of gravitational waves or even just exoplanets it doesn't seem to deliver as much bang for the buck. Well, first, LHC was "unlucky": they could have observed a lot of new particles if they would have been there. It feels unfair to say "this experiment that looked at X and had 50% chance of seeing something was a waste of money because they haven't found anything, this experiment that looked at Y and had 50% chance of seeing something was not because they saw something": both experiments are as worth a try. LHC still have observed the Higgs boson, which is still quite a big thing. LHC has also constrained a lot of theories (seeing that a particle predicted by a given theory is not there is very useful scientifically). But more importantly, I have the feeling that the notion of "bang for the buck" is pretty different from a scientific point of view and a layman point of view. For example, you mention exoplanets. Scientifically, those are really not a big deal. We already know that planets can exist, there are 8 around the Sun, so finding others around other stars is really not a big deal: everybody was expecting them to exist and knew the only reason they were not seen yet was the limits of the technology. One could even argue that using money to detect things that are pretty trivial is in fact the worst delivery of bang for the buck. Don't get me wrong, this is still nice to see them, but it's the same level as pentaquark (discovered at LHC). It is sometimes surprising to see the public/media reactions to discoveries. I'm still not sure why layman people were so excited about gravitational waves but not much about the tau neutrino.