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Note to people who haven't read the paper: This isn't seriously about building a nuclear bomb destroying super-ray. The authors even admit that this is waaaay b

Note to people who haven't read the paper: This isn't seriously about building a nuclear bomb destroying super-ray. The authors even admit that this is waaaay beyond our current technology. The whole paper feels like a con attempt by the authors to talk governments into building smaller muon colliders as an intermediate step. Of course these smaller colliders could also be used to study concepts of a higher energy collider that could produce anti-nuke rays. But for the most part, these smaller colliders would be incredible physics discovery machines. Muon colliders are basically the holy grail of experimental particle physics. They offer higher energy collisions than electron colliders because muons are much heavier, but they also offer higher precision than proton colliders because muons are elementary particles. The difficulty is sourcing and accelerating them. This is insanely complicated, which is why noone has done it yet. But if you can talk some government knobheads into building it to study forced nuclear disarmament or whatever, the reason why they do it doesn't really matter. In some sense the authors were already successfuly by triggering all this discussion here on HN about the purely theoretical implications on geopolitics (rather than the very real, down-to-earth implications for modern particle physics).

kaptainscarlet 3y ago
Thank you for reading it for us. It's not uncommon these days for one to comment on a piece of writing after glancing at the title.
bluish29 3y ago
I agree with that. But this was expected reaction of HN. I will take your comment as a chance to quote the P5 report [1] > There is a compelling physics case for constructing a 10 TeV or more pCM collider. Such a collider would search for direct evidence and quantum imprints of new particles and forces at unprecedented energies. There are several approaches: a 10 TeV muon collider, a 100 TeV proton-proton collider such as FCC-hh at CERN, or possibly a 10 TeV high-energy e+e– or γ-γ collider based on the wakefield acceleration technology. Any of them would enable a comprehensive physics portfolio that includes ultimate measurements in the Higgs sector, a broad search program providing access to new hidden sectors by producing a substantially higher mediator mass or probing even smaller coupling, and opportunities to produce new particles directly. All options for a 10 TeV pCM collider are new technologies under development and R&D is required before we can embark on building a new collider. [1] https://www.usparticlephysics.org/2023-p5-report/the-recommended-particle-physics-program https://www.usparticlephysics.org/2023-p5-report/the-recomme...
- sigmoid10 3y ago
  Mind that the original paper is 20 years old. Of course we could construct a more powerful intermediate collider today than the sub-TEV one suggested in this old paper. I think most proposals these days target ~10 TeV to study the Higgs and probe the rest of the weak scale for supersymmetry. But these are just the fancy high-end goals. There's a plethora of other things we could learn simply from building such a machine, because it requires so many new technologies.
boffinAudio 3y ago
>This isn't seriously about building a nuclear bomb destroying super-ray. What a pity. Imagine how peaceful the world would be today if we could suddenly and irrevocably destroy every single nuclear weapon, across the globe, in one fell swoop. Well, we better leave them entombed in their casings for a more advanced society to develop the technology to do this .. if we can do it for scrolls, we can do it for bombs.
- clawoo 3y ago
  Really? That's an interesting world view. On the contrary, the existence of nuclear weapons makes significant conflicts between large nations less likely, as both fear nuclear escalation. Just a year ago, Chinese and Indian soldiers engaged in a free-for-all melee at the border using nothing but sticks and stones. Both are nuclear states, and they feared an escalation to a proper armed conflict if actual weapons were involved. Pakistan and India, also both nuclear states, have a localized conflict in Kashmir that has been ongoing for decades. However, neither state dares to fully commit to a decisive military intervention there. If Russia didn't possess nuclear weapons, it's not unimaginable to think that the US would have intervened directly in Ukraine, maybe even with boots on the ground. The US and Russia have been in conflict for the last 70ish years through proxy wars, yet neither has thought of pushing the big red button. I believe that nuclear weapons, terrible as they are, bring about peace to a certain extent, as long as rational actors are involved. Nobody wants to die in a fiery ball of plasma.
  - raccoonDivider 3y ago
    Isn't there a middle ground? Suppose we could make ICBMs useless (known storage sites for bombers and ground-based missiles, lots of time and distance to track and destroy them in the air) while shorter-range weapons stayed relevant (smaller, easier to move, maybe spread over a battlefield). This could both keep the cost of a war too high to consider for great powers, while greatly lowering the civilizational risk caused by thousands of high-yield weapons on hair trigger. For example, a border war between India and Pakistan or China would be a disaster that no side wants to see. But a massive ICBM launch due to tensions and miscalculations between the three biggest arsenals would have a much lower impact. These arsenals might even become irrelevant enough that they stop being maintained. Seems like a win-win?
lukan 3y ago
I disagree, that the authors aren't serious about it. They are just aware and state it clearly, that it is not realistic with current tech. But I do believe, they would like to see it being build one day. They are from Japan btw. the only country that suffered from 2 direct nuclear hits. "The whole paper feels like a con attempt by the authors to talk governments into building smaller muon colliders as an intermediate step. Of course these smaller colliders could also be used to study concepts of a higher energy collider that could produce anti-nuke rays. But for the most part, these smaller colliders would be incredible physics discovery machines." So why a con attempt, when it is just logical to get there step by step by building smaller colliders, that also enable awesome new research? If they would not have stated clearly, that the concept is too futuristic currently, then it would be a con attempt. But they did.
- sigmoid10 3y ago
  You should really read the whole paper. They even talk about some of the other amazing possibilities these smaller colliders would offer despite being orders of magnitude away from providing anything close to what the paper's title suggests. Also, the authors are all particle physicists and some of them worked on future colliders like the ILC - which was supposed to be built in Japan, but is currently put on hold (practically cancelled) by the Japanese government due to economic reasons. That must have really sucked for them. If you worked with any particle physicists, you'd know that they don't really care much about politics. They wouldn't care more or less about nuclear disarmament than other physicists. But they definitely do care a lot about their experiments.
  - lukan 3y ago
    Can't it be both? Can't they be excited to do more interesting research now or as soon as possible, but with the prospect of getting rid of the nuclear fear in the future?
    - sigmoid10 3y ago
      [flagged]

kaptainscarlet 3y ago

Thank you for reading it for us. It's not uncommon these days for one to comment on a piece of writing after glancing at the title.

bluish29 3y ago

I agree with that. But this was expected reaction of HN. I will take your comment as a chance to quote the P5 report [1] > There is a compelling physics case for constructing a 10 TeV or more pCM collider. Such a collider would search for direct evidence and quantum imprints of new particles and forces at unprecedented energies. There are several approaches: a 10 TeV muon collider, a 100 TeV proton-proton collider such as FCC-hh at CERN, or possibly a 10 TeV high-energy e+e– or γ-γ collider based on the wakefield acceleration technology. Any of them would enable a comprehensive physics portfolio that includes ultimate measurements in the Higgs sector, a broad search program providing access to new hidden sectors by producing a substantially higher mediator mass or probing even smaller coupling, and opportunities to produce new particles directly. All options for a 10 TeV pCM collider are new technologies under development and R&D is required before we can embark on building a new collider. [1] https://www.usparticlephysics.org/2023-p5-report/the-recommended-particle-physics-program https://www.usparticlephysics.org/2023-p5-report/the-recomme...

sigmoid10 3y ago
Mind that the original paper is 20 years old. Of course we could construct a more powerful intermediate collider today than the sub-TEV one suggested in this old paper. I think most proposals these days target ~10 TeV to study the Higgs and probe the rest of the weak scale for supersymmetry. But these are just the fancy high-end goals. There's a plethora of other things we could learn simply from building such a machine, because it requires so many new technologies.

boffinAudio 3y ago

>This isn't seriously about building a nuclear bomb destroying super-ray. What a pity. Imagine how peaceful the world would be today if we could suddenly and irrevocably destroy every single nuclear weapon, across the globe, in one fell swoop. Well, we better leave them entombed in their casings for a more advanced society to develop the technology to do this .. if we can do it for scrolls, we can do it for bombs.

clawoo 3y ago
Really? That's an interesting world view. On the contrary, the existence of nuclear weapons makes significant conflicts between large nations less likely, as both fear nuclear escalation. Just a year ago, Chinese and Indian soldiers engaged in a free-for-all melee at the border using nothing but sticks and stones. Both are nuclear states, and they feared an escalation to a proper armed conflict if actual weapons were involved. Pakistan and India, also both nuclear states, have a localized conflict in Kashmir that has been ongoing for decades. However, neither state dares to fully commit to a decisive military intervention there. If Russia didn't possess nuclear weapons, it's not unimaginable to think that the US would have intervened directly in Ukraine, maybe even with boots on the ground. The US and Russia have been in conflict for the last 70ish years through proxy wars, yet neither has thought of pushing the big red button. I believe that nuclear weapons, terrible as they are, bring about peace to a certain extent, as long as rational actors are involved. Nobody wants to die in a fiery ball of plasma.
- raccoonDivider 3y ago
  Isn't there a middle ground? Suppose we could make ICBMs useless (known storage sites for bombers and ground-based missiles, lots of time and distance to track and destroy them in the air) while shorter-range weapons stayed relevant (smaller, easier to move, maybe spread over a battlefield). This could both keep the cost of a war too high to consider for great powers, while greatly lowering the civilizational risk caused by thousands of high-yield weapons on hair trigger. For example, a border war between India and Pakistan or China would be a disaster that no side wants to see. But a massive ICBM launch due to tensions and miscalculations between the three biggest arsenals would have a much lower impact. These arsenals might even become irrelevant enough that they stop being maintained. Seems like a win-win?

lukan 3y ago

I disagree, that the authors aren't serious about it. They are just aware and state it clearly, that it is not realistic with current tech. But I do believe, they would like to see it being build one day. They are from Japan btw. the only country that suffered from 2 direct nuclear hits. "The whole paper feels like a con attempt by the authors to talk governments into building smaller muon colliders as an intermediate step. Of course these smaller colliders could also be used to study concepts of a higher energy collider that could produce anti-nuke rays. But for the most part, these smaller colliders would be incredible physics discovery machines." So why a con attempt, when it is just logical to get there step by step by building smaller colliders, that also enable awesome new research? If they would not have stated clearly, that the concept is too futuristic currently, then it would be a con attempt. But they did.

sigmoid10 3y ago
You should really read the whole paper. They even talk about some of the other amazing possibilities these smaller colliders would offer despite being orders of magnitude away from providing anything close to what the paper's title suggests. Also, the authors are all particle physicists and some of them worked on future colliders like the ILC - which was supposed to be built in Japan, but is currently put on hold (practically cancelled) by the Japanese government due to economic reasons. That must have really sucked for them. If you worked with any particle physicists, you'd know that they don't really care much about politics. They wouldn't care more or less about nuclear disarmament than other physicists. But they definitely do care a lot about their experiments.
- lukan 3y ago
  Can't it be both? Can't they be excited to do more interesting research now or as soon as possible, but with the prospect of getting rid of the nuclear fear in the future?
  - sigmoid10 3y ago
    [flagged]