
The uncertain future of particle physics - ComputerGuru
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/opinion/particle-physics-large-hadron-collider.html
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tobias2014
A collection of responses can be found at
[https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10768](https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=10768)

I agree along the lines of Peter's comment: "These hard-won null results are
not a failure of the experimental program, but a great success of it. The only
failure here is that of the theorists who came up with bad theory and ran a
hugely successful hype campaign for it. I don’t see how the lesson from seeing
an experimental program successfully shoot down bad theory is that we should
stop funding further such experiments. I also don’t see how finding out that
theorists were wrong in their predictions of new phenomena at the few hundred
GeV scale means that new predictions by (often the same) theorists of no new
phenomena at the multiple TeV scale should be used as a reason not to fund
experimentalists who want to see if this is true."

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T-A
Nobody sane is predicting "no new phenomena at the multiple TeV scale". The
correct statement is "no credible predictions of new phenomena at the multiple
TeV scale". Not so much because such predictions come from "(often the same)
theorists", but because the available data really doesn't offer much of a clue
as to what might lie beyond the LHC's reach.

There may be new phenomena at the multiple TeV scale, but it is also quite
possible that there is nothing there, and nothing all the way up to the Planck
scale. Without even naturalness to lean on, the only guiding principle left is
"pay and pray".

