China's Expensive Super Particle Collider Jeopardized By Criticism (scmp.com) 141
China's plan to build a particle collider that's four times the size of the Large Hadron Collider in Europe "may be in jeopardy" after criticisms of its cost went viral. Long-time Slashdot reader hackingbear quotes the South China Morning Post:
On Sunday, Dr Yang Chen-ning, co-winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1957...released an article on WeChat opposing the construction of the collider. He said the project would become an investment "black hole" with little scientific value or benefit to society, sucking resources away from other research sectors such as life sciences and quantum physics... Yang's article hit nearly all social media platforms and internet news portals, drawing tens of thousands of positive comments over the last couple of days...
Yang's main argument was that China would not succeed where the United States had failed. A similar project had been proposed in the U.S. but was eventually cancelled in 2012 as the construction far exceeded the initial budget... Yang said existing facilities including the Large Hadron Collider contributed little to the increase of human knowledge and was irrelevant to most people's daily lives. But Dr Wang Yifang, lead scientist of the project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of High Energy Physics, argued research in high energy physics lead to the world wide web, mobile phone touch screens and magnetic resonance imaging in hospitals, among other technological breakthroughs.
The collider is expected to cost $21 billion, and won't be completed until 2050.
Yang's main argument was that China would not succeed where the United States had failed. A similar project had been proposed in the U.S. but was eventually cancelled in 2012 as the construction far exceeded the initial budget... Yang said existing facilities including the Large Hadron Collider contributed little to the increase of human knowledge and was irrelevant to most people's daily lives. But Dr Wang Yifang, lead scientist of the project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of High Energy Physics, argued research in high energy physics lead to the world wide web, mobile phone touch screens and magnetic resonance imaging in hospitals, among other technological breakthroughs.
The collider is expected to cost $21 billion, and won't be completed until 2050.
Weaponization? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just wait til somebody works out how to fire a coherent beam of Higgs bosons.
The Higgs MASER will take out anything, once you pump a little extra mass at a concentrated spot.
This could, of course, be science fiction.
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The Higgs MASER will take out anything
Unless Han-Yung So Lee shoots first.
THAT, my boy, is science fiction.
Dr Yang Chen-ning (Score:2)
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This guy is 93. Yang married then 28-year-old Weng Fan in December 2004. You do the math.
What exactly is your point, and how is it relevant to this discussion?
Re: Dr Yang Chen-ning (Score:2)
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Re: Dr Yang Chen-ning (Score:5, Informative)
People should listen to him.
People do listen to him. Most Americans would be challenged to name a living Nobel laureate. But in China, everyone knows who Chen-ning Yang is. He is a national icon. He is as well known in China as Kim Kardashian is in America. When he married Weng Fan, it was huge news. An American equivalent would be like when Brad Pitt married Angelina Jolie.
If he is speaking out against the collider, that carries a lot of weight. There is no way he can just be silenced. He has too much stature for that. Even Xi Jinping would not want to butt heads with him.
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What are you talking about?
Our President is a Nobel Laureate.
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I disagree with his receiving it, but, I do acknowledge that he did. So yeah, AC here is not trolling.
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People should listen to him.
People do listen to him. Most Americans would be challenged to name a living Nobel laureate. But in China, everyone knows who Chen-ning Yang is. He is a national icon. He is as well known in China as Kim Kardashian is in America. When he married Weng Fan, it was huge news. An American equivalent would be like when Brad Pitt married Angelina Jolie.
If he is speaking out against the collider, that carries a lot of weight. There is no way he can just be silenced. He has too much stature for that. Even Xi Jinping would not want to butt heads with him.
If he is that famous, all you would have to do is associate him with drugs. In 2010, [Charlie] Sheen [wikipedia.org] was the highest paid actor on television. Now nobody respects him or cares about anything he says. Charlie Sheen actually is/was an addict but faking such a controversy can't be that difficult.
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I think he may be wrong about saying the US failed.
We didn't fail; our politicians put politics and money ahead of science.
The amount? A paltry 4.5 billion dollars.
Chump change when you consider the trillion we spent shoring up the banks and saving the economy, or the trillion+ spent on the F35, or the 2 trillion spent on the War on Terror.
Had we built the collider (or finished it, since 14 miles had already been bored) the advances that have come of the LHC could have come some 20 years sooner. China shoul
Re: Dr Yang Chen-ning (Score:1)
Cost benefit (Score:1)
Pure science is great, I think most geeks would agree, for a large number of reasons including eventual practical applications resulting from pure research.
Nevertheless, practicality is also important. A scientist can't objectively weigh the value of their own work to society as a while and neither can a politician. But, some kind of accounting clearly needs to take place.
Cost-benefit is an essential part of maximizing productive results in *any* endeavor in *any* industry, except perhaps, producing worthle
Re:Cost benefit (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a sneaking suspicion that there's simply no way to value any particular pure science project in any kind of precise terms. In aggregate pure science of course is a big part of our civilization's success.
Re: Cost benefit (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, I think it's almost impossible to justify any 10 billion dollar project in precise terms. Combine such a large cost investment with one pure science project/facility, and I think it's pretty fair to have some pointed questions and concerns before writing the check.
One particular question: what other science projects with tangible results may be underfunded or non-existant as a result of this one project?
Re: Cost benefit (Score:1)
Wow. The cost/benefit on religion is atrocious. No returns at all. Best scrap it.
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I'm all for.
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It's important to not simply look at the total cost figure vs. the likely final results when comparing projects, but also what technologies you'll be developing to achieve said results - because, apart from things like pouring concrete and such, that's where the money goes. For example, there's a lot of people here who hate ITER and see it as a waste of money. But regardless of whether or not tokamak fusion eventually becomes economically viable, the work on superconducting magnets that's been spawned bec
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But regardless of whether or not tokamak fusion eventually becomes economically viable, the work on superconducting magnets that's been spawned because of ITER is going to be of immense value.
Unless, it's not, of course. That's the problem with unfounded assertions.
And couldn't we have done the work you think is immensely valuable for a lot less than $14+ billion (ITER's cost in current US dollars)? Opportunity cost is the first sacrifice on the altar of Big Science boondoggles.
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Except, of course, I just spelled out the reasons why it is. It's like someone saying "hey, they invented a cheap 300mpg car as a side effect of this project, that's going to be immensely valuable" and you responded "Unless, it's not, of course".
Higher magnetic field strengths, at higher temperatures, out of materials that should be well cheaper in mass production, is not some little "maybe, maybe not" sort of thing. For anything that uses powerful magnets (and that's a lot of
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Except, of course, I just spelled out the reasons why it is. It's like someone saying "hey, they invented a cheap 300mpg car as a side effect of this project, that's going to be immensely valuable" and you responded "Unless, it's not, of course".
Which is a ludicrous comparison since higher magnetic fields at higher temperatures, using helium-cooled superconductors, just isn't that valuable compared to lowering effective ground transportation costs of humanity by a factor of ten. That's like getting two orders of magnitude return on investment (assuming you spent $14+ billion for it) - which you aren't going to get with ITER.
Research on magnetic materials is just a single example of a tiny fraction of that cost. How many more examples do you want? Or will you be equally dismissive to all of them? Where do YOU think that $14+ billion is going? Do you think there's just some bonfire where they burn it all? It's mostly spent on researchers, working on the technology behind the various subsystems. Much if not most of which is multi-application.
I sure will be equally dismissive of the whole lot of them. If there was a serious benefit to ITER, we would have known about
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Someone doesn't know what a high temperature superconductor is.
The whole point is that you don't have to use helium cooling anymore. Do you understand why that's important now? The new tapes operate at liquid nitrogen temperatures. You can get very high field strengths with a very compact magnet with very little cooling cost, with capital costs also expected to be low in mass production
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Yes, and what percent of mainstream fusion researchers do you see lining up to back cutting ITER funding to support some massive Polywell project?
There's this conflict of interest between most of the researchers (whose work is based on the tokamak reactor design) and the most promising research.
You can't just take Bussard's scaling claims at face value. Real-world phenomenon aren't limited to just linear and quadratic scaling curves. And the fact that the concept is 20 years old and has little peer-reviewed results doesn't exactly give it much credence vs. cutting something that's pretty well understood and which there's relatively little doubt about its ability to scale (ability to prove economic, that's a more up-in-the-air question).
We won't need to take Bussard's claims at face value when we can build a scaled-up Polywell for a small fraction of the cost of the ITER project and find out for ourselves.
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Why are you pointing out something I pointed out in my first post on the subject?
If ITER went and redesigned their magnets now after all of the other engineering work has been done the budget would go up and people like you would be raising hell about that. But you better bet that DEMO will use more advanced magnets.
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Why are you pointing out something I pointed out in my first post on the subject?
Because high temperature superconductors have been around longer than that. It's a fairly obvious bad design decision even for the 90s.
If ITER went and redesigned their magnets now after all of the other engineering work has been done the budget would go up and people like you would be raising hell about that.
Their budget did go up and their schedule did slide by a number of years anyway, let us note.
But you better bet that DEMO will use more advanced magnets.
I wonder how much overbudget DEMO will be. But I'm sure, we'll have a better idea what a commercial power plant won't be by the time we've run DEMO for a while.
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High temperature superconducting wires and tapes suitable for large superconducting magnets have most definitely not been around since the 90s. They went from 90 A-m to 300k A-m between 2002 and 2009, overwhelmingly due to research by and demand from high-energy plasma physics research projects, particularly tokamaks. But hey, I think it's wonderful how you feel qualified
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But hey, I think it's wonderful how you feel qualified to lecture physicists on how dumb they are in their magnet designs!
It's their designs. Being completely irrelevant to some future commercial operation is not my fault.
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They went from 90 A-m to 300k A-m between 2002 and 2009, overwhelmingly due to research by and demand from high-energy plasma physics research projects, particularly tokamaks.
I should add here, this technological innovation was quite foreseeable. And there shouldn't have been such a long lead time to the start of ITER. It's remarkable how low our standards for design of multi-billion dollar projects are these days!
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It absolutely was not "quite forseeable", any more than quantum computers and fusion power have been "quite foreseeable"; it was fraught with major technical challenges that had to be overcome, and there was no guarantee that they would be. High temperature superconductors are brittle and cannot be used as wires or tapes in any simple manner. More importantly, their grain boundaries act like "weak links" in their behavior; the more frequent the grain boundaries (aka, the smaller you make the grains, aka,
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It absolutely was not "quite forseeable", any more than quantum computers and fusion power have been "quite foreseeable"; it was fraught with major technical challenges that had to be overcome, and there was no guarantee that they would be.
Sorry, I don't buy it. ITER threw money at a superconducting technology they knew wouldn't work for commercial purposes rather than one that merely needed some development to work.
It's taken a lot of work to turn flexible, durable, long HTS wires suitable for magnets into a reality. And that doesn't come cheap.
I bet $!4 billion would have gone a long way here and still have enough left over to put together a few fusion reactors. Opportunity cost is invisible.
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Why not aim that development toward something that's also a major goal (fusion power), and kill two birds with one stone?
Re: Cost benefit (Score:1)
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I have a sneaking suspicion that there's simply no way to value any particular pure science project in any kind of precise terms.
That is a valid point. But, on the other hand, how many particle supercolliders does the world need? I think of myself as pro-science, but I'm also aware that funding is not unlimited. How much other basic, novel research projects could that $50 billion result in?
Countries should really find a way to maximize collaboration on huge-ticket items. It's not only a more efficient use of funds, but it also generates real world social and political benefits.
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This is especially true for projects such as this. Fifty billion dollars. This is a very real zero-sum game going on. At this scale, things must be weighed against what other benefits can be accomplished with those funds.
Re: Cost benefit (Score:2)
Hey, if it were me, I would like to see more money diverted to alleviating the abject poverty and suffering of so many across the world, in ensuring that everyone has enough to eat, a roof over their heads.
But I also respect that sometimes we also need positive, aspirational developments to inspire our schoolchildren and stretc
Re: Cost benefit (Score:2)
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A particular project, perhaps not. But in general, it's easy to see that "new" fields will produce more output than "old" fields. It's simply a matter of how deeply the field has been mined.
For instance, thermal expansion of metal wad one a very serious field of study, and about a century ago was the topic of a Nobel prize. However, today there is basically nothing left in that field to dio, and if you proposed spending 10 million to study it you'd be laughed at.
The standard model has remained largely uncha
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They did, and no Ireland wasn't able to do so.
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They did, and no Ireland wasn't able to do so.
This late in the piece, one can only assume you wish to remain willfully ignorant.
Have a nice day, and enjoy the rest of your trolling.
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There is no ignorance involved. They were given a tax rate to pay, and they paid it. Trying to act like they paid no taxes is silly, they paid all the taxes that the local government required them to pay.
Now, should Ireland raise the taxes on corporations to be more in line with other countries? Sure, but why is this suddenly an issue for a single company when there are thousands that do it? There is even a term for it, the double Irish, this is because it is so common in business as to have earned a te
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Are you at least a semi-intelligent person, living in a bubble of willful ignorance? Or did you just not have the understanding to comprehend what I wrote?
Purposefully implying I said Apple paid no taxes at all, just so you could argue, I would tend to think the former.
Lets see how well your bubble stands up to some information you don't wish to learn. POP [businessinsider.com]
Apple Operations International (AOI) is the company's primary offshore holding company.
Apple owns 100% of AOI either directly or through controlled foreign corporations.
AOI's income made up 30% of Apple's total world profits from 2009- 2011.
Shockingly, AOI doesn't pay taxes. Anywhere. The holding company had a net income of $30 billion from 2009 to 2012, but has not declared tax residency in any jurisdiction.
Apple has held billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries to pay little or no taxes to any government. The main subsidiary, a holding company
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Ireland is a sovern nation. If they set the tax rates on certain entities at whatever they like, they are welcome to do so. Apple paid every bit of tax they were legally required to pay. The EU has issues with Ireland, and they are taking it out on Apple because they are a juicy target. This has nothing to do with unpaid taxes, or they would be going after all of the companies using the Irish tax system to pay less taxes.
You actually contradict yourself repeatedly with what you wrote, do you even realiz
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Who would have guessed...
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Um, did you actually read anything I wrote? I know about the EU ruling, I understand what they are saying, there is no ignorance there. What I am saying is that the EU is out of line singling out Apple when there are tons of companies doing it.
If anyone is ignorant, it is people deriding Apple for this behavior, but ignoring Microsoft and Google who are using the exact same laws. There are many companies doing it, but Apple is evil!
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I read the first little bit, just to make sure my suspicions were correct. But you're right I didn't bother with the rest.
Like I said right at the start, you're just trying to troll and argue against things I never even mentioned. Bringing in totally irrelevant things and purposefully misunderstanding what I said even when I used baby words for you.
Ain't no one got time for that.
I showed you three clear examples of Apple not paying tax. I explained how if they did pay that tax, the place they paid it to
Average to reduce Bias (Score:2)
A scientist can't objectively weigh the value of their own work to society as a while and neither can a politician.
This is why giving any one scientist's voice - even one with a Nobel prize - too much weight is a very bad idea. We all have biases. This is why funding decisions nee to be made by committees where biases average out and the decisions are hopefully made on scientific merit (although no human process is perfect).
Cost-benefit is an essential part of maximizing productive results in *any* endeavor in *any* industry, except perhaps, producing worthless luxury items.
The problem is that you can't really do this with fundamental research because we have no idea what we will discover. Even after discovery it often takes 50+ years before the applications come out.
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QM would lead to computers.
How so? Computers existed before 1900. QM did not have anything to do with transistors. It's all about energy band gaps in semiconducting material which was also known a long time before QM.
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You mean mechanical computers, surely not semiconductor based ones. I'm not sure if the energy band gap of semiconductors were known before 1900, but surely that was a curiosity and not well understood.
The transistor was conceived in 1926 by Lilienfeld and implemented for the first time in 1947 by Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley, for which they won the Nobel prize. Notice that QM was the mainstay of physics by then, and that a complete explanation of semiconductor physics requires QM. In semiconductors, elec
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"Cost-benefit is an essential part of maximizing productive results in *any* endeavor in *any* industry, except perhaps, producing worthless luxury items."
Naive. "Cost/Benefit" is pure fiction, usually pushed by those who wish to cloak their motives and are lousy at Maths. "Cost" is easy to quantify, it is a quantifiable... quantity; time and resources usually predicted, (wrongly...), down to the second and the penny. "Benefit" is qualifiable; a matter of judgment as to whether the result of the Analysis is better or worse. This led to such nonsense as "Death Panels", a strictly Political talking point. This is dividing numbers by wishful thinking.
So you can't quantify the benefit of basic science research? Sounds like you have no business speaking of this topic then.
"Nevertheless, practicality is also important."
Unfortunately, you can't read the future, and neither can I. And that is the problem with practicality; what is pie-in-the-sky now may be essential to living a century from now, and there is just no way to know. Dick Tracy's Wrist Radio in 1946 was just cartoon nonsense for decades. Yet research in RF continued at a steady pace, along with the growth of technical and social infrastructures that have made cellphones ubiquitous. And yet we have no Flying Cars, which Henry Ford was tinkering with in the Twenties.
The wrist radio had obvious, significant value not "cartoonish nonsense". It just wasn't possible for decades.
I find it remarkable that our best understanding of the dynamics of human economics is assumed not to apply to basic scientific research because woo. We can't know for sure that indiscriminate funding of anything labeled research is going to be a disaster for human progress, b
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"The wrist radio had obvious, significant value not "cartoonish nonsense". It just wasn't possible for decades."
That was rather my point. Elude you much?
Then why not say that rather than "Dick Tracy's Wrist Radio in 1946 was just cartoon nonsense for decades"? It wasn't cartoon nonsense ever as I noted.
And of course, your rebuttal to my point about being ignorant of economics is non sequitur derping about Trump. Why aren't you voting for Trump? Deliberate stupidity and all that.
My take on this continues to be that we don't have to be economically stupid about R&D. We can't evaluate the far future impact of most scientific research or engineering
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If we spend research money only on the basis of near-future benefits, we might as well pack it in as a species. Learning more about how the Universe works tends to pay off very well in the more distant future. Disregarding those benefits because they're not easy to quantify is short-sighted and leads to bad decisions.
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Learning more about how the Universe works tends to pay off very well in the more distant future.
Unless, of course, you're just burning money and not actually learning more about how the universe works. Big projects which take money, people, and resources away from better approaches can be worse than doing nothing at all IMHO.
Disregarding those benefits because they're not easy to quantify is short-sighted and leads to bad decisions.
Who said anything about disregarding future benefits? My point is to use near returns as a proxy for those distant benefits. If you're not generating near future benefits, you're probably not generate far future benefits either.
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And here is where I completely disagree with you. Near-term benefits are absolutely not a proxy for far-future benefits. By your reasoning, nobody would do basic research, and that would, sometime down the line, cripple applied research. Things we found out about the Universe de
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By your reasoning, nobody would do basic research, and that would, sometime down the line, cripple applied research.
Why would that happen? The definition [cornell.edu] of basic research is not research that appears useless in the present.
Basic research is systematic study directed toward greater knowledge or understanding of the fundamental aspects of phenomena and of observable facts without specific applications towards processes or products in mind.
But OTOH, specific applications routinely create short term incentives for basic research. For example, the Black-Scholes model [wikipedia.org] of option pricing created an incentive to study stochastic differential equations. The communications industry created a huge incentive to study digital signal processing, information theory and thermodynamics, and a huge amount of supporting mathematics. Construction and min
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The other arguments against large-scale research funding are just a bunch of monkeys thumping their chests on computers they wouldn't have if the politicians had listened to their chest-thumping parents, while connected to a network that wouldn't exist.
Just because someone blew a lot of public funds doesn't mean that anything you just mentioned was dependent on that any more than beating drums during a solar eclipse keeps the sky serpent from eating the Sun.
Sure, if I was given a c
Spin-offs (Score:3)
But Dr Wang Yifang, lead scientist of the project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of High Energy Physics, argued research in high energy physics lead to the world wide web, mobile phone touch screens and magnetic resonance imaging in hospitals, among other technological breakthroughs.
And...those couldn't have been invented in a different type of research facility? The web surely could have arisen from any large-scale research effort, seeing as it's so universal. Likewise the invention of touch screens doesn't seem to have research in high energy physics as a prerequisite, and NMR existed before CERN.
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Could they? My opinion is as good as yours.
Did they? No.
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CERN created the need for it. Watt invented his steam engine to drain flooded mines, not to move trains.
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Such large scale ignorance should be addressed, so let's start here:
"...and NMR existed before CERN."
Medical NMR is the direct result of the Superconductor Magnet research done at Berkeley for the ESCAR, (Experimental Superconducting Accelerator Ring), Project back in the mid-Seventies. Until then, no large Superconducting Magnet designs for Industrial production had been attempted. Note that ESCAR was itself a failure; that it was allowed to be, shows just how successful it was in the long term, even thoug
Re: Spin-offs (Score:1)
Says the person using a device whose fabrication would be impossible if not for the earlier results of high energy physics. We've been smashing stuff together since the middle of the last century, and most modern tech relies in what we've already learnt. Who knows what cern will enable in the future?
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Funny thing those earlier accelerators were a hell of a lot cheaper. In dollars and constant dollars.
Hell the atomic bomb wasn't even the most expensive weapon syste
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He did, however, invent the environment and ride the mighty moon worm.
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Well, it relies on the magnet technology that was developed as a byproduct of building colliders. Of course, it's not unreasonable to assume that a research project targeted at developing the magnets would have accomplished the same thing, without the expense of building the colliders.
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Things get developed when they're needed. They were needed for the colliders before the MRI was developed. Had they not been, likely that work would have been done as part of MRI development.
Having the magnets available was convenient for the MRI developers, but they weren't a prerequisite. The theory behind MRI was developed independent of collider research.
http://www.two-views.com/mri-i... [two-views.com]
Sounds like Chinese Govt is having 2nd thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like Chinese Govt is having 2nd thoughts (Score:5, Funny)
You'd have second thoughts too if you saw a "Made in China" label on something capable of ripping a hole in the fabric of space-time.
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You'd have second thoughts too if you saw a "Made in China" label on something capable of ripping a hole in the fabric of space-time.
The great Chinese singularity of equality.
Not just visible from space. It engulfed all of it.
Breakthrougs ? (Score:2)
world wide web, mobile phone touch screens and magnetic resonance imaging in hospitals, among other technological breakthroughs.
NMR not so much, magnetic resonance was an old result that Damadian had the vision to move forward when people were saying it was impossible
Touch Screens ? BS Cern was hardly the only place working on the tech
WWW ? Few tens of million Frenchmen would argue minitel was well on its way. Teletext was available here. Personally I could live without the craptastic kluge of CSS/Javascript/Html.
Re: Breakthrougs ? (Score:2)
See ya then.
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He didn't say CERN, he said high energy physics. High energy physics has been studied many times and many places. Without pure research in that field, all those inventions would've been missing foundational research and couldn't have happened.
Well lets look at that. Two out of three of those mentioned were from CERN, and they are being mentioned explicitly in the context of "How building big accelerators benefits most people". The foundational research for all those inventions didn't come from brobdingnagian accelerators.
So no your statement is in error and at best a distraction from the question what is the best way to use research funds.
Chinese people... the new muricans... (Score:3, Interesting)
Building entire cities, with all utilities and buildings for every service needed, that no one will ever use: sure, why not!
Build something that's actually worth something, that would put them in a good position to advance science: nah, too expensive...
I need the Jackie Chan meme to express my frustration...
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Build something that's actually worth something, that would put them in a good position to advance science: nah, too expensive...
Read the criticism.
He said the project would become an investment "black hole" with little scientific value or benefit to society, sucking resources away from other research sectors such as life sciences and quantum physics...
If true, it doesn't advance science but instead hinders it. It's remarkable how people who supposedly are clued about science are clueless about the economics of science.
Highly political (Score:3)
The world of next generation high energy physics machines is highly political. There are plans for LHC luminosity and energy upgrades. The long delayed ILC (international linear collider) project, proposed for Japan. Competing designs for a lower energy circular lepton collider (maybe China) to be upgraded to a very high energy hadron collider. Laser and beam driven plasma accelerators - neither anywhere near practical yet. CLIC, Muon collider, VLHC, etc.
There really are two issues: Is it worth ~10B$ to build the next generation high energy physics machine, and if it is, which of the many machines should be built. With machine development likely to take a generation, people on any project know that success of another will doom their machine.
Neither question is easy to answer. There is no clear way to measure the value of fundamental physics measurements. The likely technological value is zero, though spin-offs can be valuable.
To me personally, learning about the most basic structure of the universe from high energy physics, or astrophysics is valuable, even if it has no imaginable application. I view learning about the universe as one of the goals of civilization, not a means.
Pocket change (Score:2)
US$21B over the next 35 years? Pocket change even if it ends up costing 10X as much. Better than building useless islands in the South China Sea.
See why China needs censorship? (Score:2)
With one message an unauthorised non-party member held up the entirety of the Chinese scientific leadership to ridicule! One can only suspect that his motives are thoroughly un-patriottic, aimed at fomenting dissent, perhaps even sedition, unrest, and a dispute of the Mandate of Heaven currently held by the Communist Party.
We must support China's censors and help them to monitor private communicatio
Yang does not understand it (Score:2)
> Yang said existing facilities including the Large Hadron Collider contributed little to the increase of human knowledge and was irrelevant to most people's daily lives
So what? Even if it were true, I'd like to quote Richard Feynman: "Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.".
Wrong info about cancelled US project (Score:2)
I think the post is confusing the shutdown of the Tevatron at Fermilab with the cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider. The Super Collider was cancelled in late 1993, which would have been larger than the Large Hadron Collider, comparable to the proposed collider in China. The Tevatron at Fermilab had been running from the 1980's until late 2011 when the project was ended once the LHC ramped up to higher energies.
Obligatory quote (Score:2)
Clarke's first law
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Tenure! (Score:1)
No doubt the Professor has tenure, he (and his successors) will never lose their jobs even if the project is a dismal failure.
Given the 34 year life span of construction. I'd look to see what relatives (and PLA Generals) have ties to the construction industry.
I say go for it.
Now if the Professor was based in North Korea, there is a different penalty for failure.
Re: (Score:2)
There's also the ILC, which is in the works, which will probably be built in Japan, and there are plans afoot for an even larger collider at CERN. But if China also wants to invest in a new collider, I have no problem with that. It's their money.
Re: (Score:2)
Not likely. [web.cern.ch] Anyway, particle physics isn't only about colliders. For example, Fermilab, former home of the Tevatron, is now primarily doing neutrino research. CERN will be around for a long, long time, even if they changed their focus away from colliders.
Re: (Score:2)
Kinda gives new meaning to keeping the kids off the streets.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Congratulations, you two just invented the "Large Troll Collider"
Re: (Score:1)
What utter gibberish. Have you any idea what the size of a LINAC would be to get to LHC Energies? This isn't SLAC, and these aren't Electrons. And WTF do "Phased Arrays" mean? Phased Arrays of... What? Little red cups?
First off, look up "LASER Plasma Accelerator." Second off, stop thinking you are qualified to speak about science.
What happens in Vegas... (Score:2)
Conferences. In Las Vegas.
In fact, forget the conferences!