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Particle accelerators are pinging the deepest layers of reality that we can possibly reach. Deeper than anyone could have imagined just a few generations ago. T

Particle accelerators are pinging the deepest layers of reality that we can possibly reach. Deeper than anyone could have imagined just a few generations ago. That anyone can be cynical about that is hard to understand.

fnord77 2y ago
which is why it was a crying shame the Texas Supercollider got canceled. It would have done more useful science than ISS
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Particle accelerators are pinging the deepest layers of reality that we can possibly reach Technically, yes. But imagine our focus is Earth science. The name of the game is drill the deepest borehold. Now, the Kola Superdeep team could rightfully claim they are digging into the deepest layers of our terrestrial reality that humans, heretofore, have ever reached. But if you only dig boreholes, you're not reaching our planet's iron core. At least not for, at the very least, centuries for materials science to catch up with science fiction. Instead, the secrets will be unveiled through seismology. Similarly, it's fair to ask whether building bigger and bigger synchrotrons is akin to trying to discover the secrets of Earth's interior by drilling deeper and deeper boreholes. (Disclaimer: I have zero background in particle physics.)
- Timon3 2y ago
  Do we currently have more promising experimental approaches to unveil new physics that are being ignored due to particle accelerators? My understanding is that we keep "building bigger and bigger synchrotrons" because it's really the only approach we have to probe new physics on earth. Other avenues are being explored (e.g. with the JWST or dark matter detectors), but there's only so much funding you can put into these experiments before hitting diminishing returns (a slightly improved JWST will cost a ton and not have a high RoI). I'd be happy to hear about other promising experiments we're ignoring, but unless there are very promising and expensive alternative experiments we're ignoring, there's no good reason not to keep pushing particle accelerators. Why stop following the best approach we have so far?
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    All current theories that make definite predictions have been confirmed or refuted by the LHC. We don't have any new theory that will be refuted if the FCC can't confirm it. And in fact that remains true for any collider smaller than, say, the circumference Earth, or maybe even of the solar system. And since nothing we know suggests that building a particle collider along the entiee equator, let alone along the outer solar system, is possible even given all the funding on Earth, building something slightly larger than the LHC doesn't really achieve anything. So, even if there is no alternative, there's no reason to spend the money. There is no rule of science or economics that if we spend 17bn euro on a new collider we'll get some new science. It's very much possible we'll get ~nothing, and thus the money is better spent on other research. If the astronomy community doesn't have a better use for it as you claim (I highly doubt that), then I'm sure some other important science does - maybe materials science, maybe in bio sciences etc. If particle physics has run its course with current technology levels, then we can put it on pause and invest in other more promising areas of physics.
    - Timon3 2y ago
      I'm very uninformed on the topic, so thank you for the response. Based on the FCC Wikipedia article I do however think your premise is flawed: 1) you presume a collider only brings value if it can definitively prove/refute a theory, but the Wikipedia article lists a number of incremental improvements (ruling out "a very broad class of models for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in the GeV – tens of TeV mass scale" as explanations for dark matter, improvements "in precision measurements of Electroweak precision observables" which supports other research, as well as "new avenues in the study of the collective properties of quarks and gluons"). Can you prove these incremental improvements have a lower RoI than other experiments that we're currently ignoring? 2) the 17bn euro don't disappear into a black hole. The development of these experiments requires R&D in areas (e.g. cryogenics & magnetics) that have produced a lot of value, but are often expensive to advance. Pushing these fields means that a portion of the budget will follow your suggestion, but it will be focused on important topics. It's hard for me to gauge the RoI of your suggested approach because you haven't suggested such a focus - can you give some examples? In conclusion: you're treating the RoI of accelerators as boolean, but it's not. There's a bunch of definitive incremental improvements as well as useful side effects, even when disregarding the potential for discovering unknown physics.

fnord77 2y ago

which is why it was a crying shame the Texas Supercollider got canceled. It would have done more useful science than ISS

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Particle accelerators are pinging the deepest layers of reality that we can possibly reach Technically, yes. But imagine our focus is Earth science. The name of the game is drill the deepest borehold. Now, the Kola Superdeep team could rightfully claim they are digging into the deepest layers of our terrestrial reality that humans, heretofore, have ever reached. But if you only dig boreholes, you're not reaching our planet's iron core. At least not for, at the very least, centuries for materials science to catch up with science fiction. Instead, the secrets will be unveiled through seismology. Similarly, it's fair to ask whether building bigger and bigger synchrotrons is akin to trying to discover the secrets of Earth's interior by drilling deeper and deeper boreholes. (Disclaimer: I have zero background in particle physics.)

Timon3 2y ago
Do we currently have more promising experimental approaches to unveil new physics that are being ignored due to particle accelerators? My understanding is that we keep "building bigger and bigger synchrotrons" because it's really the only approach we have to probe new physics on earth. Other avenues are being explored (e.g. with the JWST or dark matter detectors), but there's only so much funding you can put into these experiments before hitting diminishing returns (a slightly improved JWST will cost a ton and not have a high RoI). I'd be happy to hear about other promising experiments we're ignoring, but unless there are very promising and expensive alternative experiments we're ignoring, there's no good reason not to keep pushing particle accelerators. Why stop following the best approach we have so far?
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  All current theories that make definite predictions have been confirmed or refuted by the LHC. We don't have any new theory that will be refuted if the FCC can't confirm it. And in fact that remains true for any collider smaller than, say, the circumference Earth, or maybe even of the solar system. And since nothing we know suggests that building a particle collider along the entiee equator, let alone along the outer solar system, is possible even given all the funding on Earth, building something slightly larger than the LHC doesn't really achieve anything. So, even if there is no alternative, there's no reason to spend the money. There is no rule of science or economics that if we spend 17bn euro on a new collider we'll get some new science. It's very much possible we'll get ~nothing, and thus the money is better spent on other research. If the astronomy community doesn't have a better use for it as you claim (I highly doubt that), then I'm sure some other important science does - maybe materials science, maybe in bio sciences etc. If particle physics has run its course with current technology levels, then we can put it on pause and invest in other more promising areas of physics.
  - Timon3 2y ago
    I'm very uninformed on the topic, so thank you for the response. Based on the FCC Wikipedia article I do however think your premise is flawed: 1) you presume a collider only brings value if it can definitively prove/refute a theory, but the Wikipedia article lists a number of incremental improvements (ruling out "a very broad class of models for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in the GeV – tens of TeV mass scale" as explanations for dark matter, improvements "in precision measurements of Electroweak precision observables" which supports other research, as well as "new avenues in the study of the collective properties of quarks and gluons"). Can you prove these incremental improvements have a lower RoI than other experiments that we're currently ignoring? 2) the 17bn euro don't disappear into a black hole. The development of these experiments requires R&D in areas (e.g. cryogenics & magnetics) that have produced a lot of value, but are often expensive to advance. Pushing these fields means that a portion of the budget will follow your suggestion, but it will be focused on important topics. It's hard for me to gauge the RoI of your suggested approach because you haven't suggested such a focus - can you give some examples? In conclusion: you're treating the RoI of accelerators as boolean, but it's not. There's a bunch of definitive incremental improvements as well as useful side effects, even when disregarding the potential for discovering unknown physics.