Huge Atom Smasher.........

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68172162

Ok perhaps CTG can help with this one, I think I'm right in saying that the LHC collisions are at 99.9999991% of c. No doubt the new one will get even closer to c but what else could come out of that that we are not already getting with the LHC?

Note I am in no way against this contruction I am all in favour of the spend just need bit more info.

[ClareTG0ld]

As for the question, there are two benefits that a larger "LHC" could bring:

1) Higher energies could mean higher accessibility to exotic particles that are currently, just, out of reach of our experiments;

2) Higher energy is in some way a distraction, since no given collision at the LHC ever comes close to using the entire available energy. Another benefit is higher "luminosity", which basically means more collisions, and so more data to analyse.

The thing is, too, that for good particle physics measurements you often need a lot of data: certain rare processes, which are the ones that can tell you how good our understanding of the Standard Model really is, happen maybe once or twice every billion or so events, so if you want to see significant deviations from prediction then you might need squillions of events.

As far as I'm aware, anyway, the rare processes we were hoping might show up a failure in the SM (which is to say, a hint of something new), haven't yet, at least not convincingly - but maybe that's just a lack of data, and maybe that could be addressed with more of it.

This case probably doesn't sound compelling, and that's fair, but there are I think two points worth noting:

i) if we knew what we'd find then there'd almost be no point in building it;

ii) investment in research and development is not a waste of money, even if we find nothing new at the end of it. Because that investment is ultimately in people, who learn stuff and buy stuff and develop new skills to solve these and related problems.

I'd be wary of anybody assuring you that we'll solve Dark Matter or whatever with this machine, but it isn't a waste of time because of that. The technology alone could have huge benefits elsewhere.

[ToraToraTora]

ctg: "I was considering spending a good amount of time rebutting the video Hymie posted, but I shan't bother. It's not worth it. " - yes we have learnt that hymie only posts videos from clueless idiots, good choice.

[Hymie]

If you listen to the video from around 9 minutes in (12 years ago) Michio Kaku announced what would be discovered as the LHC finally became operational.

 

These discoveries included:-

·         Unravelling the secrets of the big bang

·         What happened before creation

·         Where we came from

·         Answer whether time travel is possible

·         Are there other dimensions

·         Are there parallel universes, other universes

 

Since the LHC has now effectively reached the end of its useful life, perhaps you could give me the answers to the above six discoveries that were promised from the LHC.

[ClareTG0ld]

Michio Kaku oversold things. He shouldn't have spoken as if it were certain what the LHC would find. On the other hand, he was speaking on a TV interview, and that's not at all a definitive source for accurate science. It's fair to say that a good number of people expected the LHC to provide more concrete progress on those or related questions, but they were wrong to have expected it to start with, and such people didn't necessarily represent the voice of the community as a whole, who were more tempered (and sensible) in their expectations.

It is also worth stressing that "negative" answers are still answers. A bunch of our ideas were, at least in large part, ruled out, and that will likely force physicists in future to have to try different theories.

[ClareTG0ld]

// Since the LHC has now effectively reached the end of its useful life ... //

Also, this isn't true. At minimum there's still a huge amount of data to sort through from what's already been collected, and there are likely to be analyses for years based on that. Also, LHC even in its current state is still gathering data, and has a few years of useful life yet; even without these plans, a more modest upgrade might keep it going through to about 2040.

So your challenge is anyway based on a false premise, and, as I say, takes too seriously the "promises" of a few overeager salesmen.

[Hymie]

But that was the whole point of my post (and the video), that what people were claiming the LHC could do was nonsense, so you are now agreeing with me?

[Atheist]

Whatever people were claiming, maybe Clare is right about the actual real-life usefulness of the LHC?

What's your motive for trying to squiddle with Clare, when your issue seems to be with those who were claiming things?

[ClareTG0ld]

The point of the video is not that some people were making grandiose claims, though, is it? It's that every physicist was - and still is. And that's not true. It wasn't true then, and isn't true now.

Also, the video goes still further, and its creator does, in arguing that high-energy physics as a subject has been broken since the 1930s or so. Didn't you notice his plug of his book "The Higgs Myth" or whatever it's called, which argues that the Higgs boson was not discovered and does not exist?

It doesn't do you credit that you don't even understand the message of your own video. If it had been confined to arguing that a "future circular collider" might be the wrong direction for particle physics, I'd be happy to engage with that argument and even accept that there was some merit to it. But a video that dismisses the existence of the Higgs, from a creator who doesn't understand anything at all about the subject, and who asks simplistic questions with perfectly adequate answers if only he were willing to listen, is not a video to engage seriously with.

[Hymie]

So will the FCC answer any of those 6 questions, or will it be just another waste of money?

[ClareTG0ld]

If those are the only six questions you find interesting then you don't understand what the point of science even is.

[Hymie]

If the claims for the FCC are nonsense, what is the point of building it?

[Hymie]

Maybe so, but an answer to any of them would be interesting.

[ClareTG0ld]

First of all, there are multiple aspects of the Standard Model that would very likely be clarified with the data an FCC could provide. This includes, but isn't limited to: rates of rare processes; particle lifetimes for the heavier particles; new particles that we expect to exist but haven't seen yet because they are heavy and so harder to detect, including further examples of exotic hadrons (tetraquarks/pentaquarks/hexaquarks) -- in all these aspects alone, there are literally hundreds of separate measurements that would shed light on the limitations of the Standard Model. 

All of these are interesting, at least to particle physicists, even before you get to the New Physics searches, and independently of how successful such a search even would be. I've already addressed the side benefits, which would be plentiful, and again come from the fact that ultimately an experiment like this is an investment in people, and technological and engineering breakthroughs. It's far from the first time this has been brought up, but the world wide web is an offshoot of the LHC's predecessor, and the benefits haven't stopped there, even if that's the easiest to explain. See, eg 

https://physicsworld.com/a/what-have-particle-accelerators-ever-done-for-us/

 

[ToraToraTora]

CTG I admire your patience but you may as well try and play monopoly with a sausage dog! In computing terms Hymie is a ROM. All his knowledge has been set and is unchangeable.

[ToraToraTora]

I hope CTG won't be offended but I can answer all of these right now:

These discoveries included:-

·         Unravelling the secrets of the big bang

There is no secret, Eddie Redmayne knows all aboout it.

·         What happened before creation

I assume you mean the big bang, that was a big crunch

·         Where we came from

Evolution, Darwin etc

·         Answer whether time travel is possible

No because Ladbrokes exist, time travell will never be possible

·         Are there other dimensions

Yes, 11 in total according to some string theorists

·         Are there parallel universes, other universes

Yes and in some of them Hymie voted Brexit.

This is all TIC in case the pedants, nitpickers and contrarians are having a fit.

 

[Hymie]

And we spent all that money on the LHC to find the answers to those questions, when TTT knew the answers all along !!!

[ToraToraTora]

Clearly you did not read CTGs posts Hymie.

[Hymie]

Yes I did read CTG’s posts; that scientists were making false claims for the discoveries the LHC would give us.

 

Why would the scientists now start being truthful about the FCC, when they stand to gain personally from its funding (as they did with the LHC)?

[ClareTG0ld]

//...that scientists were making false claims for the discoveries the LHC would give us. //

That's not what I said. It's what you said. Maybe read again, and this time try to read and understand.

// Why would the scientists now start being truthful about the FCC, when they stand to gain personally from its funding (as they did with the LHC)? //

Scientists have, in fact, been "truthful" about what the FCC/LHC can do -- a few have oversold, but the initial pitch made clear what was hoped would be achieved -- not "promised", nor guaranteed, but hoped. So whatever lie you think was told is coming to you from a source who does not understand at all what he's talking about, who's quoting experts out of context, and who has his own book to sell. This idea that the only people with an agenda are the particle physicists (or scientists in general for that matter) is complete nonsense, and comes from people who have an inability to apply any scrutiny to their own positions.

[ClareTG0ld]

Incidentally, the whole idea of a financial motivation is easy to trot out when you have nothing usfeul to say on the substance of the topic. Perhaps, if you'd researched high-energy physics for a decade or so, you'd be able to understand somewhat better why some scientists expected certain results from the LHC - and, not incidentally, why others were more cautious. The point of the experiment, then, isn't to find what we "already knew" to be there, but to show us whether our theories and predictions were right or not.

 

It turns out that a lot of those earlier ideas weren't quite correct, at least in their simplest form; but that is to take nothing away from the motivations, nor the research. As one physicist told me, he spent his entire career doing calculations that he "hoped to be wrong" in some way - being wrong, after all, is far more exciting and revealing than being right all the time. Especially when it comes to understanding the universe - if we knew what the answers were then either we've run out of questions, or we've lacked the imagination needed to ask the right questions.