5 ms·

Restarting the LHC: Why 13 Tev?

81 points by bmease 11y ago

melling 11y ago
Is 13 TeV exciting? It's too bad science isn't exciting to more people. http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4499048/joel-hefley-kill-ssc http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4499048/joel-hefley-kill-ssc If we had been we'd have had 40 TeV almost 2 decades ago. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider#Comparison_to_the_Large_Hadron_Collider http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collide...
- ISL 11y ago
  As a physicist, I'm compelled to note that the SSC was projected to exceed its initial budget by a huge margin, perhaps 300%. If we can't constrain costs, we don't get to have nice things. The loss of the SSC was a tragedy, but the fact that Congress was willing to allocate $4B for such a project (>$7B in today's dollars) would suggest that there was widespread national support for such a thing. At the time of proposal, that was $18 per person in the United States, ballooning to $54/person as projected. That's one heck of a bake sale.
  - IvyMike 11y ago
    True, it's sad that it was going to overrun costs. But it was ambitious--imagine how ahead of its time it was if it could have achieved 40TeV 20 years ago. It's also depressing when you consider what we did decide to spend money on. The cost of air conditioning alone in Iraq was $20B. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/air-conditioning-military-cost-nasa_n_881828.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/air-conditioning-mi... Edit: I'm not suggesting we go to war and not keep our troops air conditioned--it was a necessity given the conditions. I'm suggesting that when such a tiny fractional cost of the war more than the cost of the SSC, maybe our sense of relative costs was warped.
    - EpicEng 11y ago
      Go live in Iraq without air conditioning for a year and see how willing you'd be to give it up. There has to be a balance. Yes, we should invest in sciences. No, we will not convince people to give up things that may not matter in the long run, but matter very much in their day-to-day lives. Honestly, you should have used the defense budget as an example.
    - melling 11y ago
      Yep the SSC would have cost almost $20 billion in the end. I'm not sure how you put a price on the knowledge.
      - bsder 11y ago
        In addition, the SSC technologies spun out into many things and would have spun out into many more. Even such mundane things as "fire ant control" are important. People don't realize that science and space spin technology into general usage much faster than military.
    - timr 11y ago
      Just to play devil's advocate -- and taking several levels of cynicism as a given -- the energy security of the USA is worth far more than what we ended up spending on the Iraq war. For all the money that the EU has spent on the LHC, it hasn't really paid off to that extent. Even if you consider "the web" as part of that payoff, it's not the equivalent of guaranteeing every person in the western world stable access to cheap energy. (I'm not saying I agree with that rationale for our adventures in Iraq, I just don't think it's quite fair to make the comparison you're making. There's more at stake in Iraq than a stable democracy for a small country.)
      - btilly 11y ago
        FYI, "the internet" can be fairly credited to DARPA in the USA. It is "the web" that can be credited to the LHC.
        11y ago
  - mng2 11y ago
    Well, Reagan did tell them to "throw deep".
- IvyMike 11y ago
  There's a science fiction book, Einstein's Bridge, which (MINOR SPOILER) occurs in a universe where the SSC was built. (MAJOR SPOILER) The SSC allows an intelligence from another universe to invade and destroy Earth. But at the same moment, two scientists are able to travel back in time, where they use their knowledge of the future to interfere in politics and prevent the SSC from being built. That's our timeline. While it's obviously fiction, there's a corner of my brain that almost wishes it was true, because the reality (it was just political posturing) is so much more depressing to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_Bridge_%28novel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_Bridge_%28novel%2...
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    It's amusing that when War of the Worlds was written, we were worried about neighboring planets. If telescope technology has improved to the point that we need only worry about other universes, that must be progress! Although the story you describe reminds me a bit of Asimov's The Gods Themselves, so maybe the frontier has been pushed back that far for some time.

81 points by bmease 11y ago

Is 13 TeV exciting? It's too bad science isn't exciting to more people. http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4499048/joel-hefley-kill-ssc http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4499048/joel-hefley-kill-ssc If we had been we'd have had 40 TeV almost 2 decades ago. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider#Comparison_to_the_Large_Hadron_Collider http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collide...

ISL 11y ago
As a physicist, I'm compelled to note that the SSC was projected to exceed its initial budget by a huge margin, perhaps 300%. If we can't constrain costs, we don't get to have nice things. The loss of the SSC was a tragedy, but the fact that Congress was willing to allocate $4B for such a project (>$7B in today's dollars) would suggest that there was widespread national support for such a thing. At the time of proposal, that was $18 per person in the United States, ballooning to $54/person as projected. That's one heck of a bake sale.
- IvyMike 11y ago
  True, it's sad that it was going to overrun costs. But it was ambitious--imagine how ahead of its time it was if it could have achieved 40TeV 20 years ago. It's also depressing when you consider what we did decide to spend money on. The cost of air conditioning alone in Iraq was $20B. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/air-conditioning-military-cost-nasa_n_881828.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/21/air-conditioning-mi... Edit: I'm not suggesting we go to war and not keep our troops air conditioned--it was a necessity given the conditions. I'm suggesting that when such a tiny fractional cost of the war more than the cost of the SSC, maybe our sense of relative costs was warped.
  - EpicEng 11y ago
    Go live in Iraq without air conditioning for a year and see how willing you'd be to give it up. There has to be a balance. Yes, we should invest in sciences. No, we will not convince people to give up things that may not matter in the long run, but matter very much in their day-to-day lives. Honestly, you should have used the defense budget as an example.
  - melling 11y ago
    Yep the SSC would have cost almost $20 billion in the end. I'm not sure how you put a price on the knowledge.
    - bsder 11y ago
      In addition, the SSC technologies spun out into many things and would have spun out into many more. Even such mundane things as "fire ant control" are important. People don't realize that science and space spin technology into general usage much faster than military.
  - timr 11y ago
    Just to play devil's advocate -- and taking several levels of cynicism as a given -- the energy security of the USA is worth far more than what we ended up spending on the Iraq war. For all the money that the EU has spent on the LHC, it hasn't really paid off to that extent. Even if you consider "the web" as part of that payoff, it's not the equivalent of guaranteeing every person in the western world stable access to cheap energy. (I'm not saying I agree with that rationale for our adventures in Iraq, I just don't think it's quite fair to make the comparison you're making. There's more at stake in Iraq than a stable democracy for a small country.)
    - btilly 11y ago
      FYI, "the internet" can be fairly credited to DARPA in the USA. It is "the web" that can be credited to the LHC.
      - 11y ago
- mng2 11y ago
  Well, Reagan did tell them to "throw deep".
IvyMike 11y ago
There's a science fiction book, Einstein's Bridge, which (MINOR SPOILER) occurs in a universe where the SSC was built. (MAJOR SPOILER) The SSC allows an intelligence from another universe to invade and destroy Earth. But at the same moment, two scientists are able to travel back in time, where they use their knowledge of the future to interfere in politics and prevent the SSC from being built. That's our timeline. While it's obviously fiction, there's a corner of my brain that almost wishes it was true, because the reality (it was just political posturing) is so much more depressing to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_Bridge_%28novel%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%27s_Bridge_%28novel%2...
- jessaustin 11y ago
  It's amusing that when War of the Worlds was written, we were worried about neighboring planets. If telescope technology has improved to the point that we need only worry about other universes, that must be progress! Although the story you describe reminds me a bit of Asimov's The Gods Themselves, so maybe the frontier has been pushed back that far for some time.