
Richard Milner on a new U.S. particle accelerator - 0xbxd
http://news.mit.edu/2018/3q-richard-milner-new-us-particle-accelerator-0724
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tlb
Much more detail about the EIC:
[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.1701.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.1701.pdf)

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solotronics
why not finish the one in Texas? yes the facility probably needs repairs but a
lot of initial work is done I would think?

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SkyMarshal
I wish that would happen, the SSC design is even more powerful than LHC. But
not sure Texas is culturally the optimal place for such high science these
days. Part of the opposition to SSC back in the day was religious. CA or NV
might be better.

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imglorp
They might give physicists a hard time, yeah.

    
    
      http://rmitz.org/freebsd.daemon.html
    

It seems like the SSC was located there as more of a congressional boondogle
than serious science?

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specializeded
It's impossible to copy and paste that link on mobile Safari fwiw, fixed width
scroll area.

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imglorp
Sorry...
[http://rmitz.org/freebsd.daemon.html](http://rmitz.org/freebsd.daemon.html)

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sovande
I thought particle physics were coming to an end? After CERN found the Higgs
boson then nothing. The ROI of a more powerful accelerator is abysmal. It is
impossible to know how large a new collider needs to be and if anything
interesting will be found. Use the money on a moon-base instead and then mars.

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rurban
They still cannot explained gravity, and the standard model is unsatisfactory.

They know exactly what they are searching for, read the paper. Esp. in QCD
there's a lot still missing. Sea quarks, gluons.

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thekingofh
Forgive me for the naive question, but I thought we had proper models for
gravity since General Relativity.

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rurban
At the quantum level gravity is not explained properly yet. My favorite rant
is from Heisenberg in his autobiography.

But even on the astronomic level GR leaves the dark matter hole, which is a
non-satisfactory explanation to many. Elegant yes, but certainly not proper.

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_Codemonkeyism
Required reading "Lost in Math" about the possibility that those scientists
search for something that doesn't exist.

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wyattpeak
While Hossenfelder is well within her wheelhouse criticising the search as
wrongheaded, members of the public reading and forming an opinion on the
proper course of physical research is less than useless.

It's exactly the same thinking that leads people to conclude that global
warming isn't a problem, because they found a climate scientist who also
disagrees.

Unless we all, en masse, want to go get physics degrees to properly critique
the arguments, the only responsible thing for a member of the public to do is
trust majority opinion. It can be wrong, certainly, but it's vastly less
likely to be than any of the dozens or hundreds of minority opinions which
oppose it.

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_Codemonkeyism
"It's exactly the same thinking that leads people to conclude that global
warming isn't a problem, because they found a climate scientist who also
disagrees."

No it isn't.

You've read the book?

The point is, particle scientiests have shown no fundamental progress in the
last decades, and claimed several times there will be progress for sure with
the next billion EUR. But this has not materialized.

Hossenfelder argues that the "for sure" part comes from the perception of
beauty by the scientists, and they have no other basis for being convinced
there is possible progress than that the current theories are not beautiful
(e.g. no quantum gravity, no unified theory, no super symmetry).

Climate scientists have shown massive progress over the last decades.

"[...] because they found a climate scientist who also disagrees."

It's not that "one" scientist says there is no progress, all scientists agree
there is no progress in particle science (except showing a particle exists
that everyone was sure existed already and waves that everyone also was sure
exist, no new insights). So listen to the scientists about their progress,
when billions of EURs and broken promises have not brought any progress and
decide if they should get more, or the billions are better spend on scientists
that make progress (climate, health, AI, ...).

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whyever
She is criticizing a subset of the theoretical physics community, not the
experiments.

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iamgopal
Is there any important theory yet to be proved ? Is fusion reactor/any such
advance tech required this ? i.e. do we have a vague idea of end goal here ?
Is current theory predicts successful fusion reactor ? Can this help uncover
any ?

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davrosthedalek
We would really like to understand how the proton works, for that matter.

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wpasc
Find a way to call it "The largest/most powerful/biggest ever accelerator"
otherwise you won't get Trump to do it

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sandworm101
Personal politics is a larger dynamic than scientists like to admit. When you
are planning something big, something international, you have to think about
access. In 2030, will this facility be accessible to the international
community? Will Chinese involvement become a security issue? Will data be
shared openly? Those decisions are made by the executive branch, subject to
the whims of whoever is in charge at the time. Planners think about this
stuff.

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whyever
It's fundamental research. What security issues are you talking about?

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sandworm101
Some of the sensor tech is subject to export controls. The stuff that could be
used for nuke research/development.

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madengr
Sigh, the only thing guaranteed is political fighting over the pork.

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giardini
Shouldn't we consider other possible ways of spending the moneys required,
such as an AI endeavor perhaps?

Wouldn't most alternatives be significantly cheaper and more likely to provide
new scientific information?

Finally, after seeing the politics of the Superconducting Super Collider, I
don't envision any hope of a significantly larger accelerator within the next
100 years unless some incredible theoretical breakthrough makes it
irresistable.

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richk449
Yea, isn't it about time someone spent some money on AI?

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giardini
Well, that's the point. Its called "irony". Likely were the money spent on AI,
it would be better spent.

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adventured
The top 20 universities in the US are sitting on over a quarter of a trillion
dollars in endowment money (including MIT at $15b), which continues to
perpetually increase. I'd like to see them step up and almost entirely fund
the creation of the EIC (the US Government could still kick in billions of
dollars with little hassle). Far better to be directing their wealthy donors
toward important projects like this, than another building on campus.

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tanderson92
This is an argument against public investment in science and a reliance on
private donor-based science. Is that really the direction we want for our
country and the entities in which we want to entrust the future R&D decisions
of our country?

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oh_sigh
It sounds more like just an argument for private donor-based science than an
argument against public investment.

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tanderson92
It is an argument for private donor-based science _instead of_ public
investment.

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oh_sigh
But OP said that the government could also pony up billions of dollars for the
project. The main point seemed to be that universities are wasting their
endowment with fancy buildings instead of doing science.

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3rdAccount
New fancy buildings entice more students with heavy student loans to spend.

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davrosthedalek
New buildings and the possibility not to penny-pinch every time also makes a
much nicer work/study environment.

