
The World Doesn’t Need a New Gigantic Particle Collider - zekrioca
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-world-doesnt-need-a-new-gigantic-particle-collider
======
kashyapc
Related discussion here, from a few days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611738](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611738)
(CERN approves plans for a $23B, 62-mile long super-collider)

~~~
dang
Also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23577124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23577124)
from a few days earlier

~~~
njarboe
As quoted in this previous discussion, I think this is a key point:

"particle physicists should focus on developing new technologies that could
bring colliders back in a reasonable price range and hold off digging more
tunnels."

Creating just a bigger version of the current collider with incremental
advancements in technology is very likely a poor use of science euros. The
money should be used to investigate other methods for particle acceleration
and investigation. Some linear accelerator concepts could be much less
expensive than very large circular colliders, but I imagine research into
those areas are not funded due to the particle physics budget being mostly
consumed by CERN.

This type of problem has happened in fusion research. The fundamental physics
of how to build an economic fusion reactor still needs to be worked out, but
almost all funding has been cut in fusion research to pour concrete and build
magnets for the ITER project. It is clear that the $14 billion and rising
reactor cannot lead to economically viable fusion reactors on any kind of
reasonable timescale. ITER is currently planned to be fully operational in
2035 and, if the past is anything like the future, there will continue to be
more delays.

~~~
knzhou
> Some linear accelerator concepts could be much less expensive than very
> large circular colliders, but I imagine research into those areas are not
> funded due to the particle physics budget being mostly consumed by CERN.

That's not true; CERN has no particular commitment to circular colliders.
Scientists from CERN have proposed linear colliders, along with more exotic
options like muon colliders.

------
kiba
I do not know if building colliders should be considered increasingly futile.

However, there are other points the author made.

First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to
doing research on the fundamental nature of reality, at least not for a long
time. To me, it isn't necessary for every research to have social relevance.

Also, I thought climate change was pretty much a problem of social
coordination. What exactly do we gain from building better model of climate
change? Knowing where it's going to hit us hard? I supposed that could be
useful, but even more pressing was how to motivate the people of Earth to make
the necessary changes.

Also, the money offered doesn't seem that huge on scale of countries. 1
billion dollars per year for operating cost? I suppose we could make better
use of money that would otherwise go to making a new collider, but so we can
do so elsewhere as well.

~~~
TwoNineA
"First, I don't expect anything relevant to society at large when it comes to
doing research on the fundamental nature of reality"

This is an extremely narrowminded view. Lasers, MRI, X-Ray machines, etc ...
are all made by engineers after physicists tried to understand the fundamental
nature of reality. One would argue that modern electronics are possible
because research was done about Quantum Physics, a fundamental nature of
reality.

~~~
radioactivist
While I sympathize with this viewpoint, as a physicist I think there is a
fairly persistent misunderstanding in the public about just how disconnected
current particle physics experiments are from application to everyday life.

Essentially none of the particle physics done since the 1960s has had any
application outside of fundamental knowledge, with no prospects for it having
those applications in the future. At best, and even this is stretching a bit,
there are indirect benefits of developing the machines that are needed to
explore this frontier (i.e. like some of the argued benefits of space
exploration).

Whether that changes the calculus of whether these things are worth the price
is still a question (in my opinion: they are), but I don't think making
analogies to applications of discoveries of fundamental physics operating at
very different energy scales is a good argument. The development of quantum
physics (lasers, MRI, etc), while a frontier at the time, is essential to
understanding commonplace things like the cohesion of solids or the properties
of metals or semi-conductors (say) at room temperature. To my knowledge, there
is nothing outside of astrophysical objects and the early universe that
depends on knowing what is at the current frontiers in particle physics (or
even what was the frontier in 50 years ago).

~~~
grumple
Does quantum computing count as particle physics? It seems like this may be
the future of computing.

~~~
OkayPhysicist
Quantum computing will never be the future of computing. If we manage to make
it work, it will at best be something like a TPU: a specialized processor for
accelerating specific tasks. It will always be faster and easier to build more
powerful classical computers than an equivalently fast quantum machine.

~~~
needAnAltHN
Eli5

Quantum computing only solves a few specific problems. Like showing every
possible outcome. For instance print(x), and your goal is to get a through z.

But if the problem is linear, like 2+2, it doesn't help to have quantum
computing.

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coliveira
I disagree. Doing science is one of the best ways for us to spend money as a
society. The money spent there is not "wasted", a lot comes back in jobs,
training, better technologies. Moreover, it is money that goes into society,
not into the pockets of a few scoundrels linked to billionaires. This is an
extremely retrograde view of science, in my opinion.

~~~
BurningFrog
I'm all for spending money on science.

But I can't imagine that throwing ever more billions into this particular very
well funded science establishment is the best way to do it.

~~~
ozim
I think the problem is that this well funded science establishment is good at
getting money where other science people are not that good at it. Maybe better
to spend it on some science than on something else if other scientists would
not manage to get that funding anyway.

------
aduitsis
The article says something that is perfectly sensible. Reading it carefully,
it seems that the author is doubtful whether building a 100km collider is the
correct way forward, given its enormous cost. That is a very valid subject and
totally worthy of serious discussion.

In any case, we should never forget that without advancements in fundamental
physics we are going nowhere as a species. We might be able to come up with
better refinements, better techniques, slightly better computers, etc. But
sooner or later we are going to hit a physical limit, and we are going to need
to seriously enlarge our fundamental knowledge corpus of how the universe
operates if we are going to keep moving forward.

~~~
jacquesm
I would favor an argument not rooted in cost but in physics. Whether it is
costly or not is not a factor in whether it is the correct way forward, if it
gets results it is the way forward, even if it is costly unless a cheaper
alternative can be found. If it _can 't_ get results then it is wasted money
no matter what the cost.

~~~
dnautics
Sabine's point is rooted in physics. It's that there are no hypotheses that
are tested by the proposed energy levels of these colliders. It's just a
fishing expedition. Quite frankly, having seen tons of fishing expeditions in
biology (which individually cost way less, on the order of 100k to 1M), not
doing it is the correct decision. Come up with a testable hypothesis that the
collider will address, _then_ build it.

Here's the result of just one of the fishing expeditions I saw (Dr Murray is a
saint:
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pro.2339](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pro.2339))

~~~
jacquesm
So far the fishing expeditions in physics have been extraordinarily fruitful,
both in the discovery of behavior that had not been predicted as well as in
confirmation of theoretical results. But we are still far away from a UFT and
there is a lot of knowledge that is still to be discovered in this field. On
the total budget that humanity spends annually on far less productive things
(such as weaponry) this is a small drop in the bucket. Let's see where it
leads and if it turns out to be a dead end then we can all it a day. But as
long as every new level of energy seems to give more and novel insight I'd
much rather continue one step too far than to call it a day and maybe miss out
on something crucial that we just had not thought of yet.

And even _no result_ is a valid result!

~~~
dnautics
What fishing expeditions are you talking about? Every major physics
construction project to date has been justified by at least one, maybe more
specific expected result that is theoretically predicted. There are a handful
of we don't know things going on, like keeping a staff on hand for Voyager
probes, but the main project was a smashing success.

------
mikro2nd
The premise of this article is quite flawed. We _don 't_ need to spend the
money "researching threats such as climate change", we need to get off our
collective duff and _actually do something_ to stop dumping Carbon into the
air-ocean and to start _removing_ some of that which we've already put there.

Whether we build another giant particle accelerator or two (reminder: Not only
CERN is interested, but China is already well down that path) is almost
irrelevant if we don't fix our pollution and destruction of the ecosystems
that allow Homo sap. to live comfortably (or, possibly, at all).

~~~
philwelch
> We don't need to spend the money "researching threats such as climate
> change", we need to get off our collective duff and actually do something to
> stop dumping Carbon into the air-ocean and to start removing some of that
> which we've already put there.

Figuring out how to do that economically and at scale includes a number of
research problems. How do we generate power, produce concrete, do metallurgy,
transport goods, fly airplanes, etc. without greenhouse gas emissions? How do
we capture and sequester greenhouse gas emissions? How do we develop closed-
loop sources for chemical fuels? How do we store energy in the power grid?

~~~
adrianN
We have the technology to get at least to 80% carbon neutrality and we're on a
_very_ tight time schedule. Asking for "more research" before investing
massively into the things we already know how to do is stupid. Improving the
economics must come after we delayed the existential threat.

~~~
philwelch
We had the technology to get to 80% carbon neutrality for centuries.
Preindustrial society was 80% of the way to carbon neutrality compared to
today. The only problem is that people aren't willing to accept a
preindustrial standard of living. In other words, they are unwilling to live
materially poorer lives than they do today. So from that perspective, it's
purely a question of "improving the economics".

Perhaps what you meant was that we have the technology to do it without
completely abandoning industrial civilization--though maybe people will have
to sacrifice some things, like eating meat, driving private cars, or living in
climate-controlled private spaces. And maybe that's an easier sell. But it's
also a false dichotomy. Developing the technology to reach higher levels of
carbon neutrality more quickly and more economically can and must happen at
the same time that we do what we can today. Building more renewable power
generation can happen at the very same time that we prototype carbon capture
systems for natural gas power plants, battery-electric vehicles, or Sabatier-
process closed-loop carbon-neutral natural gas production (which,
incidentally, is also something we'll need on Mars). We can build Generation
III nuclear plants now while researching Generation IV nuclear plants to build
later. We can work now on making all of our technology more energy-efficient
while developing fusion power to deliver unlimited, carbon-neutral energy for
generations to come.

------
armitron
It's surprising to see so many comments here entirely miss the point, or
arguing against points Sabine never made.

She's not arguing for stopping scientific research, but finding more optimal
ways to do said research. She has continuously been pointing out that the
particle physics community behaves like a cabal. There is little if any
progress or evidence of future progress yet they keep increasing costs and
forging ahead with their -surely by now flawed- interpretation of scientific
research.

Sabine Hossenfelder outlined a lot of unexplored scientific areas that are
ripe for research and proposed a lot of alternatives.

The main issue is clearly the sunk cost fallacy. At some point, scientists
need to cut their losses short and re-align themselves with more promising
avenues. The reproducibility crisis and string theory debacle proves that
scientists are not immune to biases, short-termism and self-serving behavior.

~~~
henearkr
I'm curious why you call the string theory a debacle.

From what I followed, the debacle was rather with _supersymmetry_. And even
though, the research in this domain stimulated the development of new
mathematical tools.

Finally, as with all failed research, it would have been pretty hard to rule
it out without trying to search it before, so this negative result is as much
positive result in favor of rival theories.

(maybe super- _asymmetry_ ;)

~~~
istorical
Probably because for the amount of time and money its absorbed it seems to
produce very little of value in terms of applications, it's hard to perform
real experiments with, and string theory and high energy particle collision
physics both absorb the vast majority of grant money - and by extension - make
it harder to do work in physics that doesn't pay homage to those two large
bodies or continue that work.

~~~
lurkmurk
Also generations of students stuck in this hole because the supervisors that
have paid positions stick to string theory deadend -- a feedback loop.

------
knzhou
> particle physicists should focus on developing new technologies that could
> bring colliders back in a reasonable price range and hold off digging more
> tunnels

People keeping saying this, but we haven't been permitted to dig a single new
tunnel since 1983. Multiple proposed colliders have been shot down, with the
US's attempt defunded in the middle of construction. The LHC doesn't even have
its own tunnel; it was put in the 1983 tunnel to save money. To save more
money, the LHC is going to run for another 20 years, so any future collider's
tunnel won't be dug until 2040 at the earliest.

That is a nearly _60 year gap_ between new tunnels, which I find incredibly
depressing. What I find almost incomprehensible, though, is that the people
who successfully argued to defund earlier proposed colliders now argue to
defund the next one on the basis that our field is progressing slowly! I
wonder why that is?

~~~
pugworthy
Not a facetious question, but what is the purpose of the tunnel? To protect
the infrastructure of the collider?

~~~
knzhou
It helps shield the detectors from cosmic radiation, shields people living on
the ground from radiation produced by the collider, and helps with vibrational
isolation. But those are just nice bonuses.

The most important reason is that there are already lots of people living a
nice small-town life on the surface, and erecting a giant, dangerous ring
would wreak havoc. It would require land rights, cut towns in half, split
highways, trigger lawsuits, and probably end up costing more money and time
than just digging.

------
euix
I haven't read the article but when I left the field 5 years ago it seemed
like we were not going to find anything. By then most of the parameter space
for SUSY had been excluded, dark matter didn't look promising, my area of
expertise, strong gravity signatures was strongly excluded. So the margin for
discovery and career advancement in the field was not great.

Moreover if you didn't find anything around ~10 TeV you could make convincing
theoretical arguments based on the Hierarchy problem you wouldn't find
anything at 100 TeV or even 1000 TeV, the next energy regime where you might
think you could find things would be something like 10^9 TeV where microscopic
gravitational effects would become visible.

Of course you are already near the limits of human engineering building a
~10-100 TeV collider. The only way you can probe higher energy would be in
astrophysical processes or maybe cosmic rays.

The other option is instead of going for higher center of mass energy you go
for rates and try to channel high luminosity beams and do ultra precise
measurements of physical parameters and try to deduce significant deviations
from theory. That's the idea behind the ILC, electron beams are clean and with
a linear collider you don't have synchrotron radiation background to worry
about. Another way is the any number of fixed target neutrino experiments.
Basically you setup an extremely sensitive detector somewhere with low
background, like the bottom of a nickel mine and you wait to detect a once in
a blue moon neutrino that interacts with the nucleus of an atom. But they too
haven't found significant deviations from expectation to the best of my
knowledge in recent years.

All in all, I think high energy physics is in kind of a funk. Don't get me
wrong, the technology of the modern world, including much of the big data
techniques, what is used in the Big N tech companies was pioneered in particle
physics but as a scientific field we are in kind of a funk.

The LHC was supposed to guide the direction of theoretical research by
excluding some and supporting other ideas but in the absence of any new
discoveries the field is kind of without a clear direction. You have to have a
strong theoretical argument for why you want to build a bigger collider.

~~~
wespiser_2018
Great point. It seems like the money would go a lot further in advances
science if spent doing running down other avenues for hypothesis driven
research, not building a larger hammer.

------
turbinerneiter
I would really love to see other ideas for physics than going higher energy
colliders. Granted, my knowledge is limited, but to me it feels like in
experimental physics right now there is a bunch of expensive and complex
experiments that look like they reached diminishing returns.

Generally, in tech it feels like we keep eeking out small improvements in
efficiency, but there is nothing that jumps us up a level.

But also:

* govs and central banks all over the world are printing money like crazy so the economy doesn't tank

* important research projects still battle for funding

* climate change battling measures, like building clean power plants and storage, are not built at large enough scale because money is not there

Where is all the trillions going? Stock market and real estate? Cool. Do we
get any value out of it? Is pensions funds all that matters anymore?

------
earthicus
Here's a nice 20min presentation by Nima Arkani-Hamed in favor of a new
collider:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb4zv80qs3Q)

~~~
macleginn
TD;DL: we discovered Higgs, but we don't know much about it because LHC
doesn't give us enough resolution, and its exact properties are crucial for
the future of the whole of theoretical physics. Therefore, even if we do not
hope to discover new particles, there's motivation enough to build bigger
colliders.

------
exclipy
I would much rather see these billions spent on fusion research.

Right now, we don't even know if humanity as we know it will be around in 100
years to reap the potential benefits of particle physics knowledge.

------
guerrilla
Here's a video that she made on the subject in mid-2019 [1]. I really love her
other videos and her philosophical pragmatism [2][3], but honestly I don't
know why she's been spending so much energy on this particular subject.

Regarding climate change, do we need more research? I don't know but it seems
like if we're going to divert funds then maybe it should be toward action at
this point.

[1]. [https://youtu.be/WIMGAFL8DVk](https://youtu.be/WIMGAFL8DVk) [2]. "the
simplest assumption is no assumption" [3]. "an entity exists if it is useful
to explain observed phenomena"

------
fastball
Humanity loses so much potential when discouraged by people that don't have an
eye for the future.

This reminds me of all the people that think we should stop all nuclear energy
research because we have Wind, Solar, and Hydro.

What if I want energy somewhere where those things are in short supply / don't
exist at all (say, space?).

------
DrBazza
This is one person's opinion vs. many other physicists in favour of building
it.

Building it serves two purposes: if either demonstrates that there's no new
physics (within easy reach), or there is new physics. Both will trigger
research for decades, regardless.

~~~
jjtheblunt
Are you saying a purpose is to fund physicists with jobs?

~~~
craftyguy
Society generally gets more out of research than a bunch of gainfully employed
physicists.

~~~
jjtheblunt
i totally agree (scientifically trained myself, took physics at Fermilab in
fact); just wonder if that was the point

------
cesaref
I'm bothered by the attempt to suggest we either have a particle accelerator
_or_ a global warming research centre (or whatever it was called). I can't see
why they are related, and imagine there is room for both.

I don't think human knowledge and striving for it should be reduced to a
question of what the practical benefits of it are - that sort of thinking
didn't put man on the moon.

So overall, not a very well argued position from my perspective.

------
O5vYtytb
The same argument said over and over again throughout history. Why spend
effort on uncertain future outcomes when today's issues are most important?

~~~
lostmsu
You don't know that. What if tomorrow physics can solve today's problems with
nearly no effort?

~~~
ncmncm
What if tomorrow physics depend on funding not available because LHC2 ate the
budget?

Cf. "opportunity cost"

~~~
lostmsu
I did not say anything about LHC2 opportunity cost being better than no LHC2
for physics. I was giving a counterargument for specific flawed
reasoning/question.

------
rytill
Of all the expenditures to attack in order to fund climate change and emerging
viruses, you choose a particle collider?

------
stormdennis
This is very timely for me having just watched "Particle Fever" (2013) for the
first time last night. I just want to reiterate the answer one of the
theoretical physicists made when asked, what economic benefit the LHC will
provide. His answer was "No idea" and then went on to the say that when radio
waves were discovered, they weren't called "radio waves" and no one knew if
those would be of any benefit either. You do the research to extend your
knowledge for that reason alone. In a similar vein I heard an anecdote once,
supposedly a toast that used to be made by academics in Oxford or Cambridge.
"To pure mathematics and may it never be of any use to anyone". Later it
turned out that without Number theory, practical secure communication over the
internet would be impossible.

~~~
codethief
> "To pure mathematics and may it never be of any use to anyone"

That reminds me very much of G. H. Hardy. [0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._H._Hardy#Pure_mathematics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._H._Hardy#Pure_mathematics)

------
hartator
> But CERN’s plan, if fully executed, would cost tens of billions of dollars.

I am generally against gov. spending, but it doesn't seem much compared to the
waste on other industries.

~~~
HeadsUpHigh
It indeed is not much for such a project because CERN doesn't need grants.
Universities pay for staff positions instead.

------
beamatronic
Let's build telescopes in space instead. There's an endless variety of high-
energy events to observe.

------
jshaqaw
One of the stranger spinoffs was the world of quantitative finance. Many of
the physicists whose careers were killed when the SSC was cancelled found
their way to Wall Street where their data analysis skills were put to use.
Whether this was a net gain to society or not TBD.

------
karmakaze
Seems like a small price for trying to answer "What is the universe made of?"

Similarly for space exploration (even if we weren't in need of a contingency
plan) to know what's out there and satisfy natural curiosity.

If there were projects to answer "what is our purpose for existence?"/"why do
we exist?" or "do we exist?" I'd fund them too.

------
nxpnsv
Typical Hossenfelder.

~~~
pugworthy
What exactly is a "typical Hossenfelder"? Can you explain beyond the offhand
personal slight comment?

~~~
nxpnsv
Just read some of her science opinion articles. This one is a typical example.

------
blablabla123
> It would cost many billions of dollars, the potential rewards are
> unclear—and the money could be better spent researching threats such as
> climate change and emerging viruses

...and still there is no viable way to get rid of plastics out of the ocean,
on how to treat Nuclear waste that remains active for centuries or how to get
rid of the CO2 in the air. Not to speak of Nuclear fusion which would solve at
least the CO2 emission side. Physics that was once new actually enables solar
power, optical trash sorting with lasers and what not. New Physics could
advance quantum computing which in turn could enable better weather
simulations. The whole arguments seems pretty short-sighted and anti-
scientific to me...

------
vaidhy
I do not understand why it is a “either or” problem. We could fund CERN and
climate research and other things. It just comes down to political will.
Trying to phrase them as one for other is disingenuous and wrong. There is
also a hidden assumption that all science work should have immediate social
relevance and impact and one kind of science is replaceable by another. By
that logic, we should not think about space exploration since the marine
ecosystem is being over-fished.

~~~
ChrisLomont
>Trying to phrase them as one for other is disingenuous and wrong.

By this logic we can spend infinite money on infinite wants, but this is
simply not true. Money spent on one project forces there to be less for other
projects. As such it's reasonable to consider opportunity costs for a project.

~~~
vaidhy
I do not believe this to be a zero sum game. You can argue for the merits of
each one independently. Along with infinite wants, we also have infinite
problems.

~~~
ChrisLomont
It’s not zero sum in the long run. But the converse of zero sum is not
unlimited sum, especially in the foreseeable future. Thus spending on one
project limits Spending for other projects.

------
bawana
I would suppport the building of a supercollider if its main mission was
education. Imagine having dormitories on site where kids could live for 6
months while they learn by watching, doing, asking, helping. It could be a
model for how we reshape our arthritic educational system that is SO
INEFFICIENT. How many post docs actually get a job? And after what-30 years of
toiling in an educational system that recreates serf labor and the fiefdoms of
the Middle Ages?

------
nubero
It’s a mystery to me how people with an outlook as parochial as Sabine
Hossenfelder’s even get a job in the sciences. This is really mind bending and
quite frankly unsettling.

~~~
Barrin92
I'm not sure if you're being satirical or so unaware that you're actually just
proving her point without even noticing it. Physics has been captured by so
much rent-seeking activity that many people who feel like Hossenfelder don't
even speak up any more because they're afraid of killing their career.

------
at_a_remove
If we find something, that's success, a reason to build another, larger
collider. If we do not find something, we just didn't build big enough. The
real challenge is to come up with a pro-collider argument that terminates.
When do we stop?

Do we make one which girdles the world? Do we disassemble the planets and
encircle the Solar System for the one after that? Why not the Milky Way? The
Local Group?

------
jl6
I wonder if there is a way to identify the side-effects of fundamental
research and fund those instead? E.g. could the WWW have been created
independently and better as a stand-alone project, rather than as a side-
effect of CERN?

Or are these side-effects more elusive, and the only way to generate them is
to let smart people play with a problem?

------
amatic
Sabine is wonderful. Her blog has a recent guest post on the same topic by A.
Strumia: [http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/06/guest-post-who-
need...](http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/06/guest-post-who-needs-giant-
new-collider.html)

------
buboard
Maybe she has a point, but for the wrong reasons. There's something to be said
about "throwing more money" believing that it will end up in better science.
It's politically easy to pass a bigger, huger accelerator: tons of jobs,
recognizability of the effort by taxpayers , but scientifically it's a rather
predictable bet. It's similar to rich people throwing megatons of money on
startups believing that they are creating something useful. LHC size projects
are not that exciting projects. They are mostly a welfare package for the
hordes of decomissioned physicists who are left behind after the wild century
of Physics. It's probably more fruitul to seek innovative accelerator designs
or other kinds of stuff. Or, that money would probably better be spent if they
just paid the scientists to work and compete on whatever they like. Perhaps
physics needs more patent clerks who spent a lot of time thinking rather than
submitting grants, catching flights to perpetual meetings and publishing
500-author papers.

~~~
ncmncm
Indeed, big colliders are like the Space Shuttle of science.

The STS was an unmitigated disaster for everything associated with getting
space-related things done. It sucked up all the money and gave net nothing
back.

A big collider will be good at soaking up budget with not much detail
oversight needed, but will not deliver new insight. For that you need one a
hundred times bigger, say straddling the moon. Which we would be better-
equipped to build today, if not for the Space Shuttle.

------
fbn79
Reminds me of Interstellar synossy. Why spend money for the space when the
world need farmers.

------
fallingfrog
When it comes to science in general, I’m a pessimist. I think we’re getting to
the point of diminishing returns. But in this case, I’d say, do it- for this
reason: there won’t be any better time than now, because we have a whole
scientific and engineering community with experience building these things. If
we wait 30 years before we make the next one, all that experience will have to
be rebuilt from scratch. It’s a false premise that technology always marches
forward; expertise gradually gets lost and infrastructure degrades if it is
not used. In a sense, if you’re not moving forward, then you’re moving
backwards. If we don’t build this now, then in 30 years we will turn around
and discover that we couldn’t do it if we wanted to. Plus, we might actually
discover something useful!

------
pugworthy
Just to brainstorm a bit, could one build a space-based collider at some
point? Or lunar based?

Certainly there are power requirements, but that is solvable. Same for
structural rigidity, etc.

Would there be any advantages of such a thing?

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lumberingjack
This is exactly what I was thinking when they were saying they're building a
new one why are you wasting all of those resources

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RocketSyntax
"a machine to collide electrons and positrons at energies similar to that of
the LHC (which however uses protons on protons)"

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_ZeD_
I wonder what the opinion of the author of the article would have been if the
collider had to be built in the US and not in the EU

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dannykwells
Couldn't agree more. Obsession with fundamental physics as "the only way
forward as a species" is absurd. Do _any_ of our discoveries in CRISPR or
check point inhibitors rely on the knowledge of the Higgs Boson or the
fundamental theory? No.

Stop the obsession with quixotic physics quests. Spend the same (or more!)
resources on apied science focused on climate change, pandemics, longevity,
clean energy, etc. Far more rewards in that direction.

~~~
saagarjha
> Do any of our discoveries in CRISPR or check point inhibitors rely on the
> knowledge of the Higgs Boson or the fundamental theory? No.

Well, yeah, because they're advances in medicine…

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hacknat
The world doesn’t need anymore short-form opinion pieces, but here we are.

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blackrock
When can we build them in the vacuum of space?

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wizardforhire
Obligatory oldie but goodie from the days of internet past[1]

“WILLIAMSBURG DOESN'T NEED A SPACE ELEVATOR!”

[1] [https://boingboing.net/2005/02/01/brooklyn-
residents-j.html](https://boingboing.net/2005/02/01/brooklyn-residents-j.html)

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RocketSyntax
how much will it cost to maintain it?

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jeffrallen
Sour grapes.

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redis_mlc
> The World Doesn’t Need a New Gigantic Particle Collider

I can't comment on whether it's needed or not.

But now is a great time to build it. War is the natural state, not peace, so a
major international project like this should be done while possible.

To balance the risk that little new is found, a rider could be attached to
fund 10 small(er) projects. That would also allow continuous research while
the new collider is being constructed or undergoing maintenance.

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snissn
Isn't this article the textbook definition of concern trolling?

~~~
vikramkr
Isn't concern trolling when you pretend to support something but actually make
arguments against it? This article seems to be pretty firmly against the idea
of building a collider from the title on. I would think textbook concern
trolling would be indicated by an argument like "I want a bigger particle
collider, but I'm just concerned about the cost" while this article just says
a particle collider is not going to be useful, lets fund something else
instead of investing on inertia

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08-15
To Dr. Hossenfelder, climate change is more important that a bigger collider.
But to the people actually funding the research with their own money, the
perception may be the opposite.

Oh, wait, the "people" funding it are actually governments who fund research
using other people's money. That might explain why so much expensive nonsense
like colliders or Neanderthal genomes is funded! Maybe we should change that.

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ReptileMan
Actually climate change is the main reason we need bigger colliders - it's
happening, we won't coordinate until it is too late, so unless we find new
sources of energy of whole different magnitude we are doomed. I suggest we
move to acceptance stage already. Right now most people are in anger or denial
and it is getting boring.

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uaaiIbab
Objectively, spending the money on covid research would be more beneficial
than a particle collider. I don't see how anyone can even debate this. I know
CERN doesn't specialise in that, but my question is why is our society so
inefficient when it comes to spending money?

If you had 20 billion euros, you're telling me you can't buy anything else
more productive for physicists to work on with it? It's 20 billion euros. You
could buy a small country with that.

~~~
henearkr
Suppose you find a way to use some grand-unification energy source thanks to
some new high-energy physics discovery. Then that would mean way more energy
available to manufacture tests, medical supplies, synthetic coton and masks,
electricity to perform new drugs research on computational models, etc.

Of course, that's the best-case scenario, but the way progress goes has always
been quite impredictable.

~~~
uaaiIbab
A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. Having physicists continue work
using the current collider and literally spending the 20b on education, would
be a better use of their money than this.

~~~
henearkr
I understand your way of thinking, but if it had been meticulously followed
throughout history, don't you think that almost no scientific research would
have been made? Why should anyone spend time thinking when we have so much to
do with our hands and readily available knowledge?

~~~
uaaiIbab
The difference is that most scientific breakthroughs didn't cost 20 billion
euros. Not trying to be a smartass, i know the value of research without a
certain end goal or outcome, i just think this is one exception where money is
irresponsibly spent.

