67 replies to this topic

[PWAIN]

Ok, so here is my view of the series of events.

Machine is switched on - news around the world.

Higgs is found - news around the world.

Propertys are found and documented.

Textbooks and papers updated.

Nothing - no major invention, no breakthrough, no change other than a few numbers for physicists to puzzle over.

Announcement of need to create even bigger and more expensive machine to find more particles.

Rinse and repeat.

The justification of big iron such as this and fusion "research" is just feeding the over inflated egos of a few so called scientists.

We need to focus more money on results and objectives based research. Although we will find out some fundemental stuff from this, it is of very limited value. Sure Nestafor you go dream about your anti gravity ships but the rest of us on earth have more real and important issues to deal with.

When we run out of issues that need addressing then we can go for the more esotherical stuff.

Wait and see whether I am wrong.

[nefastor]

Sure Nestafor you go dream about your anti gravity ships but the rest of us on earth have more real and important issues to deal with.

Hold your horses a second, pal.

First, you're basic saying something I've already said myself there:

You know what would be fun ? What if the Higgs particle is confirmed... but it only does half of what it's supposed to do, and hints at the existence of another dozen heretofore unpredicted particles ?

So you don't score points for originality. Plus, you'll have to show me where I posted about any dreams regarding anti-gravity ships. I think I'd remember, and I don't.

You have more important issues to deal with. Sure. That's why you're posting on a forum instead of working 24/7 to lobby your government in the name of unlimited lifespans. Thanks for taking time off to patronize me : I obviously know less than you do about, say, fusion research. Say... would you bet on that ?

You shouldn't act as if anything that gets said on an internet forum has any sort of major impact on real life. We're not doing any "work" here, we're just throwing ideas around. Our discussion of particle physics isn't going to result in mankind's failure to find a cure for aging before your die. So chill out and let everybody speculate to their hearts' content.

And please don't insult scientists. If you think they are all about "ego" and having a big-ass toy, you obviously haven't met enough. Or you've seen too many movies. You don't realize how much time and effort and humility it takes for an army of scientists to get a bunch of stupid lawyers (I mean politicians) to cough out a few billions that aren't theirs to begin with. Don't make it sound like they just had to ask and got their funding on account of their smart looks. Because most politicians see scientists as you do. I've been there myself.

Oh, and contrast 6 billion dollars (the cost of the LHC) with the 62 billion dollars of the F-22 Raptor program, an aircraft which everyone knew was pretty much obsolete before it entered service, in the age of drones and with the F-35 coming out soon. The LHC is better value for tax-money, that's not even a debate. If you want to talk about important issues and egos, go to the Pentagon, not the CERN.

I could name a lot of tax-funded things that cost upwards of 6 billion dollars and which are less important that defeating death. So let's cut the LHC some slack. And even if it proves useless, we'll still cut it some slack because hindsight is 20/20 and makes none of us experts in particle physics.

Nefastor

[Shepard]

Physics/Math is definitely not my strongest area at the moment, but even I can notice they are at the base of the pyramid that all science builds off of. I don't see how you can really conclude discoveries in one of these areas are of little consequence to anything else. I don't know whether it's directly applicable to anti-aging research, but I'm just happy to see money spent on any type of worthwhile research.

[Andrew Shevchuk]

Ok, so here is my view of the series of events.

Machine is switched on - news around the world.

Higgs is found - news around the world.

Propertys are found and documented.

Textbooks and papers updated.

Nothing - no major invention, no breakthrough, no change other than a few numbers for physicists to puzzle over.

Announcement of need to create even bigger and more expensive machine to find more particles.

Rinse and repeat.

The justification of big iron such as this and fusion "research" is just feeding the over inflated egos of a few so called scientists.

We need to focus more money on results and objectives based research. Although we will find out some fundemental stuff from this, it is of very limited value. Sure Nestafor you go dream about your anti gravity ships but the rest of us on earth have more real and important issues to deal with.

When we run out of issues that need addressing then we can go for the more esotherical stuff.

Wait and see whether I am wrong.

I'm trying not to take too much offense at this comment. You make it sound like it's the fault of scientists that we still have unsolved global issues, that the money going towards certain research objectives is poorly spent because it doesn't have an obvious impact on improving the lives of everyone. Should we instead force all scientists to do research whose results directly improve everyone's lives? I think that we should consider ourselves very lucky as a species to have such diversity among the talents of our intellectuals and that we should support their creativity and drive to explore the universe on humanity's behalf whatever that subject of exploration may be. You and I owe the chance at immortality in the 21st century to centuries of scientists from all disciplines, not centuries of biogerontologists.

And I doubt that anyone realized the "fundamental stuff" we learned from quantum mechanics when it was developed in the 1920s would have such "limited value" more than half a century later, so I'll forgive you for that out of an ignorance of the future we all share.

[Karomesis]

and the Higgs is found ....and then, there are yet more particles to discover to explain the Higgs.

it seems as if the universe is a cruel joke; perpetrated by an intelligence that finds sadistic amusement in our frustrations with its genesis.

already, they are pondering plans for the successor to the LHC.

wake me up when we figure it all out, and the tables turn.

[nefastor]

I think that we should consider ourselves very lucky as a species to have such diversity among the talents of our intellectuals and that we should support their creativity and drive to explore the universe on humanity's behalf whatever that subject of exploration may be.

Amen to that, brother ! With you 200% !

Nefastor

[PWAIN]

Sorry Nestafor,

That should have read:

Sure Knite you go dream about your anti gravity ships but the rest of us on earth have more real and important issues to deal with.

In relation to his comment:

Understanding mass may lead to control of mass, and that is unbelievable power to shape our world.

The rest of what I said stands.

I am not against investing in good science, just in huge projects with likely little or no payoff.

Can someone list 3 major changes to our world as a result of discovering each of the following:

Muon
Tau
Pion
slepton
squark
kaon

We need to pick the low hanging fruit first.

[niner]

I am not against investing in good science, just in huge projects with likely little or no payoff.

Can someone list 3 major changes to our world as a result of discovering each of the following:

Muon
Tau
Pion
slepton
squark
kaon

We need to pick the low hanging fruit first.

Exactly. I'm very much in favor of investing in good science. Big science does not, however, automatically equal good science. The ISS would be the poster child of this fact. As a general rule, you get a lot more return from small science than big science. Every once in a while, you hit a big science project that really works out. The Hubble might be one example, or maybe the Mars rovers. The Human Genome Project is an example of a Big Science project, while Craig Venter's approach to sequencing was Small Science. Look who really won there... Anyway, the LHC looks kind of interesting. It might turn out to be worthwhile. I still would be amazed if it resulted in any anti-aging science that wouldn't have happened sooner if the LHC money had been directly invested in anti-aging, but that's not my real point. If any truly revolutionary engineering results emerge from the LHC, like control over gravity and inertia, you can pretty much bet they would be applied to warfare before anything else. I am not even remotely expecting anything like that to come out of all this, but it's fun to dream.

[nefastor]

Sorry Nestafor, (...)

Allow me to go Darth Vader on you : "apology accepted, Captain Needa." (Heh, I actually kinda like the idea of space ships )

(...) The rest of what I said stands.

...and for that one I'll give your the Force Choke that Vader gave Needa when he said those immortal words.

Andrew Shevchuk said it better than I could (sorry for being French) :

I'm trying not to take too much offense at this comment. You make it sound like it's the fault of scientists that we still have unsolved global issues, that the money going towards certain research objectives is poorly spent because it doesn't have an obvious impact on improving the lives of everyone.

Even if you had won three physics Nobel Prizes, Resvhead, I still don't think you (or anyone) would be able to tell us what's "good science" before we actually try it. See, that's the thing with science : as opposed to religion, you don't know you're doing it right until after you've done it (and survived). This unpredictability is actually my argument for proving people who believe in God are cowards.

Even Nobel winners often make incredibly stupid predictions : here's a couple I find delightful :

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will" said Albert Einstein in 1932.

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom", said Robert Millikan, Physics Nobel Prize winner, 1923.

So when I say we cut the LHC team some slack, I really mean it. Do you want to insist and risk looking as stupid as a Nobel Prize physicist ?

We need to pick the low hanging fruit first.

That assumes no human can reach higher than another. Me, I think particle physicists are the giraffes of the scientific world : they can only pick the fruits that hang too high for the rest of us.

Niner : the ISS is not "science", it's engineering. Science was when Mir and Skylab were launched. We now know everything we need to know about keeping a manned craft in orbit, and as a science lab, you'll find unmanned satellite are a lot cheaper and more popular. I've read a few articles on the ISS last year : turns out there isn't a single state in the US where you couldn't find a few corporations that contributed to it. The ISS has been more effective for business than for science so far, and there's not indication that's ever gonna change.

Proof that you don't need NASA to launch a space station : there's a private company doing it ! And you can bet they don't spend as much as NASA.

By comparison, the LHC is something we haven't tried before as a SPECIES.

Nefastor

[nefastor]

If any truly revolutionary engineering results emerge from the LHC, like control over gravity and inertia, you can pretty much bet they would be applied to warfare before anything else.

That's a good cliché, and it seems like a real no-brainer, but I don't think it would go down that way.

Artificial-gravity weaponry is one of those ideas that sounds really cool on paper but when you try to make it real, you realize it's not gonna be practical or even useful.

Remember what happened with the jetpacks : at first, every general loved the idea of soldiers who could fly around the battlefield. Then when the prototypes took off, the generals noticed a flying trooper makes one hell of a good target for everyone else.

I've worked in the military industry. Plus, every man in my family as far as anyone can remember has served in the army, myself included. And I'm a weapons freak. I can't think of a single weapon we have today that could be vastly improved by controlling gravity, and I don't think you realize how great our weapons are.

The only valuable military application might be in deflecting incoming ordnance away. So it would actually make it harder for people to kill each other. Unless the attacker decides to use a nuke or good-old small pox. Or fuel-air bombs. Or air-bursting gunshells, missiles and rifle-grenade. Or just plain old flame throwers. Or lasers. Or landmines... should I stop there ?

At any rate, any weapons designer will tell you : "better" tends to be the enemy of "good". Kinda like each new version of Windows.

It's a bit off topic but if anyone's interested we could start a thread about gravity-based warfare. Sounds important enough, or it could be if the LHC yields the results I'm hoping for.

EDIT : I started that thread.

Nefastor

Edited by nefastor, 14 April 2008 - 02:23 AM.

[niner]

I'm trying not to take too much offense at this comment. You make it sound like it's the fault of scientists that we still have unsolved global issues, that the money going towards certain research objectives is poorly spent because it doesn't have an obvious impact on improving the lives of everyone.

Even if you had won three physics Nobel Prizes, Resvhead, I still don't think you (or anyone) would be able to tell us what's "good science" before we actually try it.

Nefastor, it sounds like you are proposing that we do "random science". It's ridiculous to think that competent scientists can't make reasonable value judgements about new proposals. They will not be correct 100% of the time, but when something is truly idiotic, most scientists will realize it.

Niner : the ISS is not "science", it's engineering. Science was when Mir and Skylab were launched. We now know everything we need to know about keeping a manned craft in orbit, and as a science lab, you'll find unmanned satellite are a lot cheaper and more popular. I've read a few articles on the ISS last year : turns out there isn't a single state in the US where you couldn't find a few corporations that contributed to it. The ISS has been more effective for business than for science so far, and there's not indication that's ever gonna change.

The ISS was sold as a platform for doing science. It has been insanely expensive, but little science of value has been done. That money would have been better spent on Small Science.

By comparison, the LHC is something we haven't tried before as a SPECIES.

Well, there's the Tevatron, but the LHC is an order of magnitude more energetic and brighter. I expect some good science to come out of it. I think the odds of something of major practical value coming from the LHC are small, but not zero.

[nefastor]

Nefastor, it sounds like you are proposing that we do "random science". It's ridiculous to think that competent scientists can't make reasonable value judgements about new proposals. They will not be correct 100% of the time, but when something is truly idiotic, most scientists will realize it.

You're mistaking uncertainty with randomness. Not the same thing. Scientists and engineers are trained to decision-making under uncertainty. It only looks like randomness when you don't know which parameters are involved in a decision.

There's no randomness about the LHC : it's the logical continuation of a long series of particle accelerators. Same way new airliners get bigger and more efficient. I would think you'd be a lot more focused on ITER, which has much less scientific value than the LHC. ITER started in 1988 and at this time there's still no certainty it's even going to work, but we're still building it (at great cost).

FYI, it's expected that by 2016 ITER will be able to sustain operation for 400 seconds, to produce 500MW. At a cost of 8 billion dollars.

I think the odds of something of major practical value coming from the LHC are small, but not zero.

Hey, it's not like mankind hasn't had success with long shots before. When Volta demonstrated his battery to Napoleon Bonaparte, he was so impressed he made him a count, but even he didn't imagine someday electricity would be as vital to civilization as air and water. Had he believed so, he would probably have done a lot more than give a title to Volta. Napoleon created one of the best engineering schools in the world (Polytechnique), so you can be sure he would have funded research if he could see a practical value to electricity.

We have to accept that some people (scientists) can see things we can't, and trust them to make it visible for us. That doesn't mean we won't make mistakes, or that scientists are infallible, it just means we should accept there's a good chance they know what they are doing.

That being said, I love small science better (because I can do it at home, for starters). Projects like ITER make me cringe because it makes everyone forget about a much simpler type of fusion reactor : the Farnsworth Fusor.

Nefastor

[solbanger]

See, that's the thing with science : as opposed to religion, you don't know you're doing it right until after you've done it (and survived).

Let's hope we can survive the egoes of these collider scientists. Apparently some physicists are concerned that the Hadron's speed of light collisions may create a mini black hole! No really. There're serious questions as to what we could expect at such tremendous power levels. It could spell the end of life on earth as we know it.

http://www.latimes.c...0,3318434.story

Sometimes I wish I could just slash up the university budgets with a samurai sword and pencil in legitimate budgeting as they pick up the pieces. I mean screw the Higgs field theory, the guys in charge are quite literally mad scientists that are willing to gamble OUR SOLAR SYSTEM on reckless academic musings. It's theoretical hamstringing at its worst. When professors are so wrapped up in theoreticals that the consequences of reality don't seep in. This has happened before. We discovered anti-matter using a multi-million dollar collider, but where are the gains of that research? Save for some intellectual back patting and anti-matter anectdotes which fizzle away in .00023 seconds?

Maybe, just maybe, the money would have been better spent on making grandma rosy-cheeked again and not on attempting to create a Halo ring. Get a load of this quote from Michaelangelo Mangano, a particle physicist working on the Hadron assembly -

Still, if a black hole were produced at all, "that would be an extremely spectacular result," he said, a half-smile creeping across his face.

[modelcadet]

This thread has me thinking about other CERN level projects for the advancement of basic knowledge, pooling an unprecedented mass of resources. Looking at this superexpensivesupercollider from a social engineering perspective, the project has already had much value, mentioned above (my personal favorite is "the Grid").

What's the opportunity cost of CERN (assuming CERN and some other high level science are substitute goods). What would you do with 6 billion dollars? What goal could you feasibly reach? What other effects would such substantial research entail?


1. Simulating the human brain: For this project, investment could flow towards cloud computing/storage and fatter pipes across university, laboratory, or office environments.
Such simulations could provide massive amounts of data for the AGI and narrow intelligence fields, psychology, and philosophy.
2. Cold Fusion. Energy wants to be free.


Thoughts: Prizes make great incentives for creating markets in engineering sectors. I believe, for the advancement in quality of life, the DARPA Grand Challenge has been more cost effective means of increasing quality of life. We'll see, of course. Especially for engineering projects, I believe contests are a great way to promote science and engineering. Is this really high level science? Probably not. But it's pretty cool for the amount of money put into it, especially with all of the data provided by developers of the also-rans.

[nefastor]

It could spell the end of life on earth as we know it.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

If we create an Earth-swallowing black-hole, we probably won't notice until we're all dead, at which point we won't be able to care anymore because either atheists are right and there's nothing after death (so, no awareness of our stupidity) or the Jesus-freaks are right and it's the Rapture.

Do you know that when the first atomic bomb was built, many scientists believed there was a chance its explosion would set the atmosphere on fire, creating a chain-reaction that would consume any and everything on the entire planet ?

Somehow it didn't stop us from testing dozens of nukes (not to mention nuking people here and there).

I don't know about you, but eggheads and a large underground pipeline somehow don't scare the shit out of me as much as generals and atomic bombs do. Not even close.

I think we're scared because we have all seen too many episodes of Futurama : remember the one where they harvest "chromaton particles", tearing holes in the fabric of time in the process ? And Nixon's head giving the Harlem Globetrotters a check that reads "all the money on Earth" to solve the problem ?

Seriously people, chill out... it's probably better to die from black holes than from whatever might come next (like an accidental release of military-grade ebola, or the next Y2K computer bug )

When professors are so wrapped up in theoreticals that the consequences of reality don't seep in.

Now you're just being rude. Last time I checked, scientists weren't the only people who voted for a President who invaded Iraq without thinking of the consequences (or failed planning an exit strategy beforehand).

Tell you what, the day people like you (Joe Average) stop voting for people like Bush without measuring "the consequences of reality", maybe you can start lecturing about responsibility. But you still won't be on the level of a scientist. because being responsible won't give you the scientific knowledge to determine what's a safe experiment or not.

You want to save the world ? Go tell your government to stop funding bio-weapon research. Because that's a lot more likely to kill you than some freak accident in a particle collider.

Geez, what is it with people who think they know better than scientists how to invest money in science ? You guys like to talk about the ego of scientists, well maybe you should look out for your own ego : it's gone through the roof and its now headed for the stratosphere.

Nefastor

Edited by nefastor, 15 April 2008 - 01:52 AM.

[niner]

Nefastor, it sounds like you are proposing that we do "random science". It's ridiculous to think that competent scientists can't make reasonable value judgements about new proposals. They will not be correct 100% of the time, but when something is truly idiotic, most scientists will realize it.

You're mistaking uncertainty with randomness. Not the same thing. Scientists and engineers are trained to decision-making under uncertainty. It only looks like randomness when you don't know which parameters are involved in a decision.

No I'm not. You suggested above that a scientist with three Nobel prizes wouldn't be able to tell us what "Good Science" is, and I don't think that's right. It's the idea that no one can tell what's a good scientific investment that would lead to "random science", since by that guideline, we would just fund whatever experiment comes down the pike, no matter how ridiculous or obviously wrong it might be.

I would think you'd be a lot more focused on ITER, which has much less scientific value than the LHC. ITER started in 1988 and at this time there's still no certainty it's even going to work, but we're still building it (at great cost).

FYI, it's expected that by 2016 ITER will be able to sustain operation for 400 seconds, to produce 500MW. At a cost of 8 billion dollars.

I think you've misunderstood me; I'm not opposed to the LHC. I just think we should be realistic about what is likely to come out of it. I have never been in favor of fusion energy due to its problems of extreme centralization of resources and high capital cost. If ITER can actually sustain half a GW for 400 seconds in 8 years, I would be kind of impressed, but when the cost per kwh is less than existing environmentally benign energy sources, then I would be really impressed. I don't think that is going to happen.

I think the odds of something of major practical value coming from the LHC are small, but not zero.

Hey, it's not like mankind hasn't had success with long shots before. When Volta demonstrated his battery to Napoleon Bonaparte, he was so impressed he made him a count, but even he didn't imagine someday electricity would be as vital to civilization as air and water. Had he believed so, he would probably have done a lot more than give a title to Volta. Napoleon created one of the best engineering schools in the world (Polytechnique), so you can be sure he would have funded research if he could see a practical value to electricity.

Volta's work wasn't a "long shot", it was a very interesting bit of science. It also cost very little money.

We have to accept that some people (scientists) can see things we can't, and trust them to make it visible for us. That doesn't mean we won't make mistakes, or that scientists are infallible, it just means we should accept there's a good chance they know what they are doing.

I couldn't agree more. Since I'm a scientist by training, it would stand to reason that I'd agree...

[Luna]

If LHC would have made a black hole it would have been known by scientists by now and not built.

People are scared of advancements and new things, don't worry and hope we will achieve way higher level of knowledge than we expect to find when we turn LHC on.

[solbanger]

It could spell the end of life on earth as we know it.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

If we create an Earth-swallowing black-hole, we probably won't notice until we're all dead, at which point we won't be able to care anymore because either atheists are right and there's nothing after death (so, no awareness of our stupidity) or the Jesus-freaks are right and it's the Rapture.

Your nihilism shines through like a black light through your pores.

[nefastor]

Nefastor, it sounds like you are proposing that we do "random science". It's ridiculous to think that competent scientists can't make reasonable value judgements about new proposals. They will not be correct 100% of the time, but when something is truly idiotic, most scientists will realize it.

You're mistaking uncertainty with randomness. Not the same thing. Scientists and engineers are trained to decision-making under uncertainty. It only looks like randomness when you don't know which parameters are involved in a decision.

No I'm not. You suggested above that a scientist with three Nobel prizes wouldn't be able to tell us what "Good Science" is, and I don't think that's right. It's the idea that no one can tell what's a good scientific investment that would lead to "random science", since by that guideline, we would just fund whatever experiment comes down the pike, no matter how ridiculous or obviously wrong it might be.

And your point is ? I'm afraid you lost me, or I lost you, but if you read what I wrote and you quoted, I said : scientists may make uncertain choices, but they are NOT random. I didn't write we should just fund everything that comes to mind, I said it takes a scientist to assess what's good science. That's why, in this thread, I've been saying we have no place telling whether the LHC is good or bad science : because AFAIK none of us are particle physicists.

Scientists' choices may look random to us because WE don't have the necessary knowledge to share their understanding of their work. That doesn't mean no one has that understanding : the aforementioned scientists do ! Same way when you were a little kid and watching mommy drive, you might have concluded she was pressing the pedals at random, because you didn't know what a "clutch" is or does, or what "brakes" do. Same way C++ code looks like gibberish to all but the programmers who use it.

And my Nobel quotes were just a way of saying even a scientist can be wrong on predicting the value of an experiment. I meant for you to take it as a reminder that you're not as smart as Einstein and even he could be wrong on science. So your opinion as to the LHC's scientific merits is more likely to be wrong that that of scientists.

My whole point was (and I'm glad you agreed) : we have to trust scientists to know what they are doing, because most of us don't have the first idea about it. We're not helping anyone by debating the value of an experiment we understand next to nothing about... except its cost.

Look at it that way : you have a job for which you've trained. How would you like it if people who don't know the first thing about it started telling you how you could use cheaper tools, and blaming your EGO, or all things, for your choice of tools ? My guess is, you wouldn't have a lot of love for these people. Neither do I.

It could spell the end of life on earth as we know it.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

If we create an Earth-swallowing black-hole, we probably won't notice until we're all dead, at which point we won't be able to care anymore because either atheists are right and there's nothing after death (so, no awareness of our stupidity) or the Jesus-freaks are right and it's the Rapture.

Your nihilism shines through like a black light through your pores.

ROFL I love that image

Nefastor

[niner]

Nefastor, it sounds like you are proposing that we do "random science". It's ridiculous to think that competent scientists can't make reasonable value judgements about new proposals. They will not be correct 100% of the time, but when something is truly idiotic, most scientists will realize it.

You're mistaking uncertainty with randomness. Not the same thing. Scientists and engineers are trained to decision-making under uncertainty. It only looks like randomness when you don't know which parameters are involved in a decision.

No I'm not. You suggested above that a scientist with three Nobel prizes wouldn't be able to tell us what "Good Science" is, and I don't think that's right. It's the idea that no one can tell what's a good scientific investment that would lead to "random science", since by that guideline, we would just fund whatever experiment comes down the pike, no matter how ridiculous or obviously wrong it might be.

And your point is ? I'm afraid you lost me, or I lost you, but if you read what I wrote and you quoted, I said : scientists may make uncertain choices, but they are NOT random. I didn't write we should just fund everything that comes to mind, I said it takes a scientist to assess what's good science. That's why, in this thread, I've been saying we have no place telling whether the LHC is good or bad science : because AFAIK none of us are particle physicists.

[Comments on the nature of randomness]

[Reminding me that I'm not as smart as Einstein]

[Must trust scientists because we know nothing]

[Morons telling you what to do is annoying]

Nefastor, you are contradicting yourself. First you said that a scientist (with 3 Nobels) could not tell what is good science, now you are saying we must let the scientists decide what is good science. I agree with the latter, I was arguing against the former. I am not opposed to the LHC. I mentioned that before but I'd like to keep it out there. It has been my experience that Small Science is more productive than Big Science. Therefore, when someone proposes to spend a very large amount of money on one Big Science project, I expect to see a lot of scientists weigh in on the merits of it. I'm not proposing that we give veto power to internet buffoons who know nothing about it.

[nefastor]

Nefastor, you are contradicting yourself. First you said that a scientist (with 3 Nobels) could not tell what is good science,

Either my memory is failing me or you're imagining things. Can you point me to where I said that ?

Because I'm pretty sure my thought on the matter is scientists can't ALWAYS tell what is good science. Little word, hell of difference.

It has been my experience that Small Science is more productive than Big Science.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't do big science. Otherwise we wouldn't have nuclear power plants today. Both scales of science (big and small) have to be pursued.

And really, you need to stop saying 6 billion USD is a very large amount of money. It's not. It's the cost of the latest nuclear aircraft carrier purchased by the US Navy, which doesn't serve ANY useful purpose because :
- you already have 12, which is more than enough
- the CVN design is now obsolete and plans have been made for years to create a new carrier class (CVX)
Speaking of "useless", I find it ironic that this CVN was christened "George H.W. Bush". And they say sailors don't have a sense of humor...

Nefastor

[niner]

Nefastor, you are contradicting yourself. First you said that a scientist (with 3 Nobels) could not tell what is good science,

Either my memory is failing me or you're imagining things. Can you point me to where I said that ?

It was this:

Even if you had won three physics Nobel Prizes, Resvhead, I still don't think you (or anyone) would be able to tell us what's "good science" before we actually try it.

It has been my experience that Small Science is more productive than Big Science.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't do big science. Otherwise we wouldn't have nuclear power plants today. Both scales of science (big and small) have to be pursued.

I'm not saying big science shouldn't ever be done. I just think it should be done judiciously. I think the LHC is ok. The ISS and ITER, not so much.

And really, you need to stop saying 6 billion USD is a very large amount of money. It's not.

It's not a lot in the context of military spending. When compared to the (non-military) science budget, it's a pretty good chunk of money. That's a legitimate concern; we don't want to squeeze out small science and we want the best return on our science investment. I would prefer to see our science budget go up and our military budget go down. Our military spending is now more than every other country in the world combined, and Americans still don't feel safe. Curious, isn't it?

[nefastor]

It was this:

Even if you had won three physics Nobel Prizes, Resvhead, I still don't think you (or anyone) would be able to tell us what's "good science" before we actually try it.

I stand by those words.

I know I'm French but my English can't possibly be that bad : what you quoted means "absolutely no one can predict for sure the result of an experiment that has never been tried before."

Is that what you are challenging, or did was original post less clear than I thought ?

I think the LHC is ok. The ISS and ITER, not so much.

We definitely have that in common.

And really, you need to stop saying 6 billion USD is a very large amount of money. It's not.

It's not a lot in the context of military spending. When compared to the (non-military) science budget, it's a pretty good chunk of money. That's a legitimate concern; we don't want to squeeze out small science and we want the best return on our science investment. I would prefer to see our science budget go up and our military budget go down. Our military spending is now more than every other country in the world combined, and Americans still don't feel safe. Curious, isn't it?

Well, you're taking the words right out of my mind there.

Nefastor

[niner]

It was this:

Even if you had won three physics Nobel Prizes, Resvhead, I still don't think you (or anyone) would be able to tell us what's "good science" before we actually try it.

I stand by those words.

I know I'm French but my English can't possibly be that bad : what you quoted means "absolutely no one can predict for sure the result of an experiment that has never been tried before."

Is that what you are challenging, or did was original post less clear than I thought ?

Nefastor, I guess this is just a semantic issue. My interpretation of "good science" is asking a sensible question, or performing an experiment that is likely to tell us something useful. Whether the results are positive or negative, we would learn something useful. Obviously, if we could predict for sure the result, we wouldn't even need to do the experiment. I think that the LHC is sufficiently likely to tell us something useful that it's worth doing, so to my mind it qualifies as good science.

[nefastor]

Nefastor, I guess this is just a semantic issue. My interpretation of "good science" is asking a sensible question, or performing an experiment that is likely to tell us something useful. Whether the results are positive or negative, we would learn something useful. Obviously, if we could predict for sure the result, we wouldn't even need to do the experiment. I think that the LHC is sufficiently likely to tell us something useful that it's worth doing, so to my mind it qualifies as good science.

Actually all we're doing in this thread is discuss semantics (and personal biases), since we're not qualified to discuss particle physics or the finer points of research funding.

And in that light, I was just stating that you can't assess the value of the LHC until after we power it up and get some results (or none). Right now, it's equally likely that the LHC will give us nothing, or that will lead to (say) minor improvements in cell-phone technology, or that it will lead to artificial gravity and change the face of the universe and life as we know it.

Still, all things considered, the LHC is not a bad investment, even if it leads to nothing. Like you said, even an absence of result can be a valid, valuable result. Since we can't make predictions, let's have a look at things we're more qualified to talk about :

- If the LHC gives no result, we won't build another one. The money spent on it is a one-time-only thing, unlike most of the useless things we do (such as building coal-burning power plants instead of cleaner nuclear ones). Considering the money we waste as a society (i.e. using cars instead of telecommuting) throwing 6 billion out the window doesn't sound so bad. I'm sure more money gets lost in Las Vegas within a single year.

- Building the LHC and similar megaprojects (like ITER) usually requires many advances in engineering that have real-world applications. For instance, ITER's supra-conducting electromagnets could lead to better railguns for the military. I know this doesn't sound too good, but keep in mind that today, cannon shells and rockets are propelled by some of the world's most corrosive and dirty chemicals you can imagine, and armies don't give a damn about pollution (look-up the gas mileage of a tank). And magnets are just one example among many : machines like ITER use a lot of materials and manufacturing techniques that are at the edge today but will be common-place tomorrow. Today my glasses are made of titanium alloy... titanium was reserved to airplane construction when I wore my first pair of glasses.

What I'm trying to say is, beyond the scientific value of the machine, there's always something to be learned from building something new and complicated. Shooting particles against each other is not the only experiment that has been done (or will be done) at the LHC, I'm sure of it.

Anyway... you're probably right when you say I misunderstood you, Niner. You said it several time so I finally got the hint and checked your posts in the thread to find which of your words I could have misconstrued as being anti-LHC. And I found this :

While the investment in the LHC could arguably be justified on the basis of improving our understanding of physics, to make that investment expecting an anti-aging payoff would be insanity.

I believe a better understanding of the building blocks of the universe can only have a positive impact on all of science, including life sciences. I figure I felt you were calling me insane for thinking so. That's where I must have attributed you an anti-LHC sentiment, for which I apologize.

That being said, I think you need to agree it's not "insanity" to link a better understanding of physics and an increase in our lifespans. Or to fund physics research expecting anti-aging payoffs, in your own words.

Nefastor

[niner]

Nefastor, I guess this is just a semantic issue. My interpretation of "good science" is asking a sensible question, or performing an experiment that is likely to tell us something useful. Whether the results are positive or negative, we would learn something useful. Obviously, if we could predict for sure the result, we wouldn't even need to do the experiment. I think that the LHC is sufficiently likely to tell us something useful that it's worth doing, so to my mind it qualifies as good science.

Actually all we're doing in this thread is discuss semantics (and personal biases), since we're not qualified to discuss particle physics or the finer points of research funding.

Well, there are a number of scientists on this forum, and some of us have been on both sides of the funding question, as both fund users and fund spenders, so on the question of research funding, at least, some of us do have some qualifications.

And in that light, I was just stating that you can't assess the value of the LHC until after we power it up and get some results (or none). Right now, it's equally likely that the LHC will give us nothing, or that will lead to (say) minor improvements in cell-phone technology, or that it will lead to artificial gravity and change the face of the universe and life as we know it.

I'd be surprised if you could find a competent particle physicist who would agree that the likelihood of a life-changing result is equal (or even remotely close to equal) to the likelihood of either a minor or non-useful result.

Still, all things considered, the LHC is not a bad investment, even if it leads to nothing. Like you said, even an absence of result can be a valid, valuable result. Since we can't make predictions, let's have a look at things we're more qualified to talk about :

I didn't say the absence of a result, I said a negative result. The absence of a result would tell us nothing, whereas a negative result would tell us "the Higgs boson doesn't exist; go back to the drawing board".

- If the LHC gives no result, we won't build another one. The money spent on it is a one-time-only thing, unlike most of the useless things we do (such as building coal-burning power plants instead of cleaner nuclear ones). Considering the money we waste as a society (i.e. using cars instead of telecommuting) throwing 6 billion out the window doesn't sound so bad. I'm sure more money gets lost in Las Vegas within a single year.

I suspect we would build another one. It's already being planned, in fact. We could just say "this one wasn't big enough. Please give us more money. Very little money is lost in Las Vegas. It is transferred from the rubes to the casino owners.

- Building the LHC and similar megaprojects (like ITER) usually requires many advances in engineering that have real-world applications. For instance, ITER's supra-conducting electromagnets could lead to better railguns for the military. I know this doesn't sound too good, but keep in mind that today, cannon shells and rockets are propelled by some of the world's most corrosive and dirty chemicals you can imagine, and armies don't give a damn about pollution (look-up the gas mileage of a tank). And magnets are just one example among many : machines like ITER use a lot of materials and manufacturing techniques that are at the edge today but will be common-place tomorrow. Today my glasses are made of titanium alloy... titanium was reserved to airplane construction when I wore my first pair of glasses.

What I'm trying to say is, beyond the scientific value of the machine, there's always something to be learned from building something new and complicated. Shooting particles against each other is not the only experiment that has been done (or will be done) at the LHC, I'm sure of it.

I don't really buy the spin-off argument. It is mostly marketing from people who want more funding for mega projects. If you follow up the claims, they usually are not as grand as they are made to sound. If the spin-off argument was a good one, then investing half of our budget in warfare would be a "good" idea, since there should be lots of spin-offs from such advanced, money-is-no-object technology.

Anyway... you're probably right when you say I misunderstood you, Niner. You said it several time so I finally got the hint and checked your posts in the thread to find which of your words I could have misconstrued as being anti-LHC. And I found this :

While the investment in the LHC could arguably be justified on the basis of improving our understanding of physics, to make that investment expecting an anti-aging payoff would be insanity.

I believe a better understanding of the building blocks of the universe can only have a positive impact on all of science, including life sciences. I figure I felt you were calling me insane for thinking so. That's where I must have attributed you an anti-LHC sentiment, for which I apologize.

That being said, I think you need to agree it's not "insanity" to link a better understanding of physics and an increase in our lifespans. Or to fund physics research expecting anti-aging payoffs, in your own words.

Let me illustrate this with an example. Suppose I was in charge of the DOE budget for High Energy Physics. I decide to invest all of this year's budget in anti-aging research, because that will result in people living longer, so they can learn more about particle physics and will thus advance the field. How long do you think I would be in charge of the physics budget?

Here's another one: Suppose I am an investment manager, and have been presented with two investments. One has a 10% chance of paying off, and the other has a 0.01% chance of paying off. If I invest all my client's money in the second investment, they would probably think that I was insane, and they would fire me. If we want a useful anti-aging technology, a multi-billion dollar investment in anti-aging research would probably have a 10% chance of being successful, if not more than that. If we invested the same amount in particle physics, we would probably have a 0.01% chance of a useful anti-aging result coming out of that investment in a reasonable time frame. So while I certainly don't think you are insane, I can't in good conscience withdraw my judgement that it would be insane to fund a particle physics experiment with the expectation of (meaning a significant probability of) an anti-aging breakthrough.

[Shepard]

A video from a tour of the LHC:

http://www.badastron...ture-the-video/

[nefastor]

I just watched the latest episode of "The Big Bang Theory" (hilarious comedy show for geeks, I recommend it ! It's kinda like "The IT Crowd")

The episode starts with two scientists talking :

Leonard : "Some physicists are concerned that if the LHC actually works it will create a black hole that will swallow Earth, ending life as we know it."
Raj : "What a bunch of crybabies... no guts no glory, man !"

Topical humor for geeks, gotta love it !

Nefastor

Edited by nefastor, 06 May 2008 - 07:46 AM.

[eternaltraveler]

from a old thread on a similar subject, Jay did a few calculations. Micro black holes are nothing we need to worry about whether they evaporate or not. It doesn't matter if Hawking radiation is real.

Luckily, such a small black hole would take a very, very long time to swallow the earth. Probably billions, if not trillions of years. At first, its surface area would be smaller than a proton: it would have a hard time swallowing the occasional atom.

By the time the black hole could work itself up to the size of a large atom (say, a nanometer in diameter), it would have a mass oon the order of 10^15 kg, the merest fraction of the earth's mass. At that size, even if we assumed that material was being sucked in at the speed of light, through a surface area of about 12.5 nm^2, the rate of mass consumption would only be about:
1.25x10^-17 m^2 * 3x10^8 m/s = 3.8x10^-9 m^3/s

That's 4 cubic millimeters per second. That's nothing. After a billion seconds, about 30 years, that's four cubic meters. Still nothing. After 30 million years, that'd be 4 million cubic meters, less material than is spewed from a large volcanic eruption.

We don't need to worry about black holes this small, even if Hawking radiation doesn't exist.

Of course it would accelerate. By the time the black hole could double in mass, it would have four times the surface area, so the rate of mass consumption would increase by a factor of four. So four cubic millimeters per second would go up to 16 cubic millimeters per second! To get a lower bound on the time it would take to double in mass from 10^15 kg to 2x10^15 kg, let's assume the full 16 cubic millimeters per second, and let's assume a density of 25 grams per cubic centimeter.

At 1.6*10^-8 m^3/s * 2.5*10^4 kg/m^3, we get 4*10^-4 kg/s. So it would take about, oh, 2.5*10^18 seconds to double in mass, as a lower bound. That's billions of years, to accelerate by a factor of four. The next factor of four would take half the time (twice the mass through four times the surface area), so the acceleration itself would accelerate. But it would take billions of years before the acceleration had any meaningful effect.

The bottom line is, a black hole this small is effectively insignificant, at least as far as the fate of earth is concerned.

from this thread:

http://www.imminst.o...&...st&p=138019

[Shepard]

I just watched the latest episode of "The Big Bang Theory" (hilarious comedy show for geeks, I recommend it ! It's kinda like "The IT Crowd")

The episode starts with two scientists talking :

I saw it. When they started talking about the anxiety disorders...I found it kind of funny considering our nootropic forum.