CERN reviews plans to build new particle smasher three times bigger than the Large Hadron...

Lew Zealand said:

The best decision about particle collider physics the US made was canceling the SSC.

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The worst, you mean. It ensured that the best high-energy physicists in the world would flock to Europe (they did) and that any breakthroughs in the field would happen outside the US.

The last breakthrough in nuclear physics gave us an energy source 100,000,000 more powerful than the chemical sources we had before. Unlocking the secret of sub-nuclear forces could easily be an even larger advance.

Endymio said:

The worst, you mean. It ensured that the best high-energy physicists in the world would flock to Europe (they did) and that any breakthroughs in the field would happen outside the US.

The last breakthrough in nuclear physics gave us an energy source 100,000,000 more powerful than the chemical sources we had before. Unlocking the secret of sub-nuclear forces could easily be an even larger advance.

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That's what the LHC is for. Not everything needs to be done unilaterally in the US though many people want it to work that way.

Sabine Hossenfelder can, and has, explained repeatedly why "bigger collider" is a bad idea. Check out her Youtube channel. And her books, especially "Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray".

Lew Zealand said:

That's what the LHC is for. Not everything needs to be done unilaterally in the US.

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The LHC is far too small, which is why they're now planning to replace it -- the SSC would have been three times as powerful. And while the US may not "need" to perform basic science, if it wishes to be a leader in physics, it needs to ... well, lead.

Arbie said:

Sabine Hossenfelder can, and has, explained repeatedly why "bigger collider" is a bad idea. Check out her Youtube channel. And her books, especially "Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray".

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Nothing in that clip says "bigger collider is bad", or even anything remotely similar. As for her book, it makes the point that physicists may be overly dependent on esthetic beauty in their theoretical models, rather than hard experimental data ... which is just the sort of problem that a larger collider would obviate, by providing enormous quantities of new data with which to actually test those theories.

Endymio said:

The LHC is far too small, which is why they're now planning to replace it -- the SSC would have been three times as powerful. And while the US may not "need" to perform basic science, if it wishes to be a leader in physics, it needs to ... well, lead.


Nothing in that clip says "bigger collider is bad", or even anything remotely similar. As for her book, it makes the point that physicists may be overly dependent on esthetic beauty in their theoretical models, rather than hard experimental data ... which is just the sort of problem that a larger collider would obviate, by providing enormous quantities of new data with which to actually test those theories.

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One of Hossenfelder's major theses across her books and videos is that leading edge particle physics has become a self-licking ice-cream cone, the perpetuation of which is the only real reason for a larger collider.

As an expert in the field, Hossenfelder can decode the insanely complex technical papers and proposals to show that proponents of a new machine have only breathtakingly vague arguments at the level of "we can't begin to claim what it would find, and don't have much idea what it might find, but it would be way cool (and would employ me forever)". Almost incredible.

Her book "Lost in Math" - when you actually read it - explains that attempts to improve or extend the Standard Model are fundamentally based on a hope for more "naturalness", and this is a fading chimera providing only continual employment for those locked into the field eg. string theorists. The LHC did not confirm supersymmetry, the current holy grail of naturalness, which was one of the main hopes for it. To cross the "desert" of observable effects between what the LHC has achieved and a sure find in anything further would take a collider the size of the Milky Way. That's why, as an inveterate speaker of truth, Hossenfelder left that field.

Nobody except our new breed of alt-right science deniers is against science. The question is where to put the resources and where to obviously not waste any more. Especially on the monumentally expensive construction of a gigantic white elephant which can never be used for anything else.

I felt bad when the US dropped out of super-collider development. Years later I began to understand why that was the smart move.

Arbie said:

.... a gigantic white elephant which can never be used for anything else.

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You might as well claim we shouldn't build expensive telescopes, because they can never be used for anything else but looking at distance objects. Particle accelerators we built in the 1970s are still performing basic research -- half a century later.

Arbie said:

As an expert in the field, Hossenfelder can decode the insanely complex technical papers....

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Hossenfelder is a Youtube star because she doesn't (we won't be unkind and say "can't") contribute meaningful research to the field. Her bio lists herself also as "musician and singer", and her most popular Youtube video was entitled "do humans have souls?"

Arbie said:

..."we can't begin to claim what it would find, and don't have much idea what it might find...

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This is true of all basic research. Historically, it has been the genesis of *all* massive scientific discoveries. More than a century ago, the attempt to explain a tiny mathematical flaw in electromagnetic theory that predicted hot objects should emit infinite amounts of energy -- the so-called "ultraviolet catastrophe" -- created an explosion of new knowledge responsible for everything from the modern transistor to the high-speed laser fiberoptic system which people like you use to denigrate basic science.

Arbie said:

Nobody except our new breed of alt-right science deniers is against science.

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Are you talking about those people who believe a man can change into a woman by closing his eyes and wishing hard?

Endymio said:

Hossenfelder is a Youtube star because she doesn't (we won't be unkind and say "can't") contribute meaningful research to the field. Her bio lists herself also as "musician and singer", and her most popular Youtube video was entitled "do humans have souls?"

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"You won't be unkind". "She doesn't contribute." What outrageous and condescending BS !! Hossenfelder eats quantum mechanics for breakfast, particle physics for lunch, and astrophysics for dinner. Neither you nor I would be more than a crumb on that floor. If I'm wrong in this assumption, do list your works in those fields.

Lacking similar credentials you can't even follow, much less evaluate, any part of any of her many peer-reviewed papers. Except one which she simplified for lesser mortals, and that's not easy even with a working knowledge of PDEs and matrix ops (I've tried).

Hossenfelder is a very, very special type of person. It's exactly her unwavering honesty and remarkable personal openness that lets her post music fantasy vids right along with her science explainers - of which I've seen 100+. Nobody with a professional axe to grind or some hidden agenda would ever do that. Nor would they - as in her books - let the vested researchers have full say, and fairly and with empathy try to decode and present where they're coming from.

Your Cap'n Obvious contention that science can't proceed without investment, and your historical examples, are irrelevant to the question of WHERE to invest now. A gigantically expensive new collider is not the place because it almost no chance - none even predictable! - of finding anything of significant value to us. That's what Hossenfelder, who clearly lives for science, has explained. The countless "theories" it might "test" and provide "enormous data" for are churned out daily from what has become a stagnant academic pool for which "self-absorbed" is a cosmic understatement.

You are simply uninformed, and need to read more non-invested expert opinion, which isn't easy to find given the complexity of the topic and its long-burnished "leading-edge science" sheen.

Arbie said:

Hossenfelder is a very, very special type of person. It's exactly her unwavering honesty and remarkable personal openness that lets her post music fantasy vids right along with her science explainers - of which I've seen 100+...

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Do you purchase her music CDs and T-Shirts also? I don't normally argue with outraged fanboys, but I will say I have a Master's in the field, and was solving for eigenvalues of wave functions before there were personal computers to assist, much less an Internet to post the results to. But you are correct on one point: while I get around fairly well in quantum electrodynamics, my contributions to QCD, QFT, and post-standard model physics are exactly zero. However I listen to those who actually do work in the field -- and 999 out of 1000 agree. Physics is in a theoretical impasse, and the only way forward is more experimental data, at higher energy levels. That comes from particle accelerators.

Hossenfelder herself admits the entire field disagree with her. She describes herself as a lone "voice in the wilderness", and says that working physicists regard her as a "You-tuber", rather than an active researcher (NPR interview: Sept 23, 2023).

As for the utterly absurd idea that we shouldn't spend time and money on these because the researchers "don't know what they expect to find", words cannot express how misguided this viewpoint is. Literally every major advance in science came from the unexpected result of an experiment. Applied research is well and good, but the truly big finds come basic research in places we least expect it.

"Physics is in a theoretical impasse, and the only REASONABLY CLEAR way forward is more experimental data, at GALACTICALLY higher energy levels."

Fixed it for you.

Which still begs the questions (plural!) that this branch of physics - instead of infinite other science that could be funded - should get the giant open wallet. And that being at an impasse for decades isn't a red flag for further blind investment! And that "higher energy levels" somehow connote "higher real progress".

It's irrelevant that Hossenfelder isn't an active researcher because she actively follows research, and more precisely because the particle physics field has for years been at an impasse. She spent decades in it and decided to move to science explaining. And no surprise if that "entire field" disagrees with her, because it is almost entirely invested in having another gigantic toy.

You finally jump back to your equally irrelevant straw man of the value of experiment. Nobody is denying such value as a scientific tool - the question is where to investigate! The fact that we can't progress without experiment does not mean that experiment will lead to progress! How do you even have a technical degree with such weaknesses in logic? We can't build a multi-billion dollar dartboard. And then the next one on the same reasoning!

Since you can't begin to present today's particle physics as forming any signpost for the next real advance (in fact everything argues against that), you simply make the absurd claim that "every major advance has been an unexpected experimental result". Like... Newtonian dynamics? General relativity? How about the Higgs boson? Of course there have been some important accidental discoveries but those are the exceptions that prove the rule; and famous accordingly. Infinitely more progress has been made via experiments reasonably undertaken to confirm a reasonable theory, in that they did or did not.

Which of course was your earlier claim for the new collider, signally failing to mention that the only "theories" that can be tested with any conceivable collider are arcane concoctions not seriously intended to lead anywhere. That is the key point. Because by now testing any non-pointless theoretical conjecture would require energies infinitely larger than we can ever build. Which is exactly why a smart and forthright physicist like Hossenfelder would leave the field. The less-brilliant or less-independent stay on, hoping that the rice bowl will yet again be refilled.

And even if (!) experimentation is the be-all and end-all... every dollar spent on doing that in particle physics is one less spent on doing it in other science. Including medicine, where I would like to see it. And there's probably no competing field that requires such massive and largely if not totally unrecoverable physical plant.

Arbie said:

"Physics is in a theoretical impasse, and the only REASONABLY CLEAR way forward is more experimental data, at GALACTICALLY higher energy levels."

Fixed it for you.

Which still begs the questions (plural!) that this branch of physics - instead of infinite other science that could be funded - should get the giant open wallet.

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This.

It's all relative and a lot of Astro science didn't get funded because of James Webb and it's huge cost overruns. Yes it's a fantastic instrument and delivering on its promises but that comes at a COST.

Funding money for science is not quite a zero sum game but when it comes to federal money, it is. IMO some projects, however fantastic they are, are too big and costly to steal money from hundreds of other great scientific projects.

Arbie said:

Which still begs the questions (plural!) that this branch of physics - instead of infinite other science that could be funded

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An easy question to answer. Because, just as all other sciences can be considered to be simply specialized branches of physics, the Standard Model is the primal branch from which all of physics -- all of science itself -- descends. Particles, and the forces which bind them together. It is *the* instruction manual for how the universe is assembled. The discovery of new physics beyond the Standard Model would lead to a scientific revolution as large or larger than the one we experienced from the 19th century to today.

And how do we study the Standard Model? With particle accelerators.

Arbie said:

...every dollar spent on doing that in particle physics is one less spent on doing it in other science. Including medicine, where I would like to see it.

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You don't appear to realize that early work in particle physics led to -- among countless other advances -- x-ray imaging, CAT scans, MRIs, PET scans, and the use of radiation therapy for cancer treatment, bone inflammation, and others.

Arbie said:

you simply make the absurd claim that "every major advance has been an unexpected experimental result". Like... Newtonian dynamics? General relativity? How about the Higgs boson?

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Yes, all those. Einstein's SR sprang from the unexpected null result of many experiments designed to detect the aether, as well as the numerous inconsistencies between the experimental data on electromagnetic theory (which coalesced into Maxwell's equations) and Newton's laws -- and GR was his integration of gravity into SR. And Principia Mathematica came from Newton's attempts to describe the weird and unexpected results Kepler and Brahe were seeing in the sky -- objects that moved, not in epicycles, but in ellipses! And not just that, but apparently at continually varying velocities! I'll leave as an exercise to you to determine which unexpected results led Higgs to propose his eponymous field.

Arbie said:

testing any non-pointless theoretical conjecture would require energies infinitely larger than we can ever build.

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Sorry, but this just isn't true at all. The researchers planning this initiative (which isn't planning to come online until the 2040s, btw) have already printed two volumes of theoretical findings the FCC can prove or disprove.

I realize you're a Sabine fan. You're in the position of having listened to an accused criminal's lengthy explanation as to why they're innocent -- without spending even one minute listening to the 999 eyewitnesses who saw him in the act. Why not listen -- even briefly -- to what the *real* researchers in the field have to say on the subject?