CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider(home.cern)
home.cern
CERN releases report on the feasibility of a possible Future Circular Collider
https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/cern-releases-report-feasibility-possible-future-circular-collider
144 comments
>hey plan to provide experiment agnostic and unified framework that is actually unified and user accessible. The field really need something like that, it is usually the pain point of most junior graduate student. The field suck at documentation and keep coherent software and write code in a bad way most of the time. I think they can have much better framework than Fermilab's art [2].
I don't think that I've ever heard of an area of software where folks say "it's got great documentation and the code's really good". In fact many programmers react allergically to any code that they review (including code that they wrote themselves but have forgotten about).
I don't think that I've ever heard of an area of software where folks say "it's got great documentation and the code's really good". In fact many programmers react allergically to any code that they review (including code that they wrote themselves but have forgotten about).
I'd echo this somewhat. Wading into other people's projects I'm often like "wtf is this mess.. why are your variables named a, b and c?"
BUT.. some of the code that LLMs have spit out at me is absolutely wild in how well it is constructed, and it gives me real imposter syndrome when I see the occasions when the code is so much tighter and better than I would have personally crafted.
BUT.. some of the code that LLMs have spit out at me is absolutely wild in how well it is constructed, and it gives me real imposter syndrome when I see the occasions when the code is so much tighter and better than I would have personally crafted.
A large part of that is just following style guides. It's crazy how few people actually read things like PEP8 despite writing tons of code in python. It's not even that much to learn and most is quite logical - all while making your code not just appear professional but also be more readable by others.
Also before the discussion goes off in a random direction such as software frameworks, I want to point everyone to volume 37, book 5, chapter 72, pages 8843-9023 (2022 incremental update) of their feasibility report. In it, they introduce a new cryptocoin known as "HIGGSCOIN" which will help fund the reactor. It has some interesting innovations for realtime payment systems, something that can be a pain point for bitcoin
This is unreasonable spending. And I am saying this as someone who did his PhD at CERN, so I am shitting my old bed.
CERN is wonderful but the physics studied there are eons away from applications. This is not solid state physics where you can suddenly discover a great material. This is physics at such energies that we will not have anyone soon. Kinda like quasar astrophysics, about objects that are really far away.
The usual response is that this is core science. Yes it is, but not the core science we need today. We have a limited budget for science and a mammoth like CERN cannot swallow it all.
The other argument is that technology will get better. True. It can get better without the accelerator, though, if we really need it.
I loved my time there, truly fantastic but the costs are not sustainable with current budgets for science
CERN is wonderful but the physics studied there are eons away from applications. This is not solid state physics where you can suddenly discover a great material. This is physics at such energies that we will not have anyone soon. Kinda like quasar astrophysics, about objects that are really far away.
The usual response is that this is core science. Yes it is, but not the core science we need today. We have a limited budget for science and a mammoth like CERN cannot swallow it all.
The other argument is that technology will get better. True. It can get better without the accelerator, though, if we really need it.
I loved my time there, truly fantastic but the costs are not sustainable with current budgets for science
All is relative. 16 billions of EUR looks like a lot. But are spent in 12 years, so 1.3 Billions of Eur year. To compare Italy alone has spent 1 billion to have empty immigrant centers in Albania in less than two years.
Of course, everything is relative. When I finished my PhD, getting a postdoc was easy and money was not really a concern. I did a "double PhD" (in two schools) and there were no problems for me to travel between the two (and associated costs).
Now the world is fundamentally different and it is much more difficult. Not to mention that people move from academia to industry, sometimes fro financial reasons.
When you put 16 B€ in front of that to study stuff that may be useful in 1000 years if we do a breakdown before (otherwise it won't) and you look at the site of budgets in universities, there is another relativity to be taken into account
Now the world is fundamentally different and it is much more difficult. Not to mention that people move from academia to industry, sometimes fro financial reasons.
When you put 16 B€ in front of that to study stuff that may be useful in 1000 years if we do a breakdown before (otherwise it won't) and you look at the site of budgets in universities, there is another relativity to be taken into account
Ecco il comunista
This makes me think of The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), I remember a scientist working there in an interview right after the first discovery telling the reporter how back in the day he was dissuaded by his teacher to go into the field because "there's nothing there, it's not a serious field of research" or something along those lines.
Maybe a bigger collider is exactly what we need, and if it fails that's also useful as a confirmation to go in other directions. To build it right now instead of other things is the difficult question because that's politics.
Maybe a bigger collider is exactly what we need, and if it fails that's also useful as a confirmation to go in other directions. To build it right now instead of other things is the difficult question because that's politics.
So I'm normally a fan of science but I'm torn on this one because, as far as I can tell, there's no clear objective with this collider. It just seems to be bumping up collision energy (to ~100TeV) and hoping something interesting pops out.
The LHC had a clear objective: to experimentally validate the Higgs boson, which it did. There have been a ton of experiments since but AFAIK all those have really done is invalidated various theories. That has value, for sure.
But it really seems like we need to play catch up and work out a theoretical model in what we'd actually search for with a bigger collider, rather than hoping higher energies will break something significant in the Stnardard Model in such a way that it'll give us a clue to a theory beyond the Standard Model.
Think of it like looking for a treasure ship. As a salvager you may know from historical records that a given Spanish ship, carrying gold and silver from the New World, sunk on its way back to Spain. You may have developed a model to really narrow down where on the ocean floor you want to search. That's what the LHC was. But this seems like throwing a dart at a map and searching the ocean floor to see if anything interesting shows up.
The LHC had a clear objective: to experimentally validate the Higgs boson, which it did. There have been a ton of experiments since but AFAIK all those have really done is invalidated various theories. That has value, for sure.
But it really seems like we need to play catch up and work out a theoretical model in what we'd actually search for with a bigger collider, rather than hoping higher energies will break something significant in the Stnardard Model in such a way that it'll give us a clue to a theory beyond the Standard Model.
Think of it like looking for a treasure ship. As a salvager you may know from historical records that a given Spanish ship, carrying gold and silver from the New World, sunk on its way back to Spain. You may have developed a model to really narrow down where on the ocean floor you want to search. That's what the LHC was. But this seems like throwing a dart at a map and searching the ocean floor to see if anything interesting shows up.
What you're actually saying is that there is no single and symbolic issue it is tackling, you know landing on the moon type stuff.
That however is not how modern particle physics operates. A particle accelerator of the scale of CERN runs many experiments at once as with higher energies more becomes measurable. The idea here isn't that we have a hypothesis of a small thing existing and therefore we build a giant microscope, the idea is that we know we do not have a complete understanding of what happens in thst domain, so we build a giant mkcroscope to look at it. I am pretty damn sure there is a line of theoretical physicists who already know what to try once a bigger accelerator is around. And we have other benefitial developments coming out of that.
The fact that you write this on the internet, a thing which was in no small part created by CERN should probably also tell us something.
That however is not how modern particle physics operates. A particle accelerator of the scale of CERN runs many experiments at once as with higher energies more becomes measurable. The idea here isn't that we have a hypothesis of a small thing existing and therefore we build a giant microscope, the idea is that we know we do not have a complete understanding of what happens in thst domain, so we build a giant mkcroscope to look at it. I am pretty damn sure there is a line of theoretical physicists who already know what to try once a bigger accelerator is around. And we have other benefitial developments coming out of that.
The fact that you write this on the internet, a thing which was in no small part created by CERN should probably also tell us something.
Sabine is skeptical [0]. Is it really true that there a no theories that are proven or dicarded with this experiment, and that the Chinese have plans to do it much faster? Her video is pretty damning.
[0] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2025/04/why-cerns-new-coll...
[0] https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2025/04/why-cerns-new-coll...
She seems to base her content on how good of a Mr-beast-style thumbnail she can make to get clicks.
I have repeatedly heard from people who work in physics research that she's optimized her content for maximum rage/anger/emotional response rather than accuracy, particularly as of late. The tidbits of truth and warranted skepticism lend the rest of it undue credibility. Sadly, good science reporting doesn't get the advertising revenue that manufactured-scandal tabloid-style reporting does. I think her critical perspective can be useful, but it's important to keep in mind while considering it that you're being presented a warped telling of reality.
But one of her points is that many of the jobs of current physicists depend on the status quo. That seems almost tautological. She then alleges that that clouds their judgement on the best use of research funding.
I'm sure that if you asked a range of physicists if _their_ area of research should receive more funding instead of the FCC, you would see less support for the FCC.
So we, as outsiders, are stuck not knowing what to believe - and ultimately an outsider, a politician, must make the decision for funding.
I'm sure that if you asked a range of physicists if _their_ area of research should receive more funding instead of the FCC, you would see less support for the FCC.
So we, as outsiders, are stuck not knowing what to believe - and ultimately an outsider, a politician, must make the decision for funding.
But if you don't trust the budget priorities that the scientist themselves create, why would you trust Sabine's opinion on those priorities?
I don't know what Sabine would spend $40B on instead, but intuitively that seems like it could buy a lot of research in a lot of areas, rather than picking particle physics.
And it doesn't have to be physics, it could be cancer research, or not even research: each country involved could upgrade their sewage system instead.
But Sabine doesn't have to have all the answers to be right to point out that there's an enormous conflict of interest if you ask particle physicists whether they'd like $40B. Of course they'll say yes.
And it doesn't have to be physics, it could be cancer research, or not even research: each country involved could upgrade their sewage system instead.
But Sabine doesn't have to have all the answers to be right to point out that there's an enormous conflict of interest if you ask particle physicists whether they'd like $40B. Of course they'll say yes.
> there's an enormous conflict of interest if you ask particle physicists whether they'd like $40B
That's not a conflict of interest, like at all. What are you talking about?
That's not a conflict of interest, like at all. What are you talking about?
I think they are confusing "conflict of interest" and just "in their interest".
If you asked me if my friend Bob should get a free $100 or if I should get a free $100; of course I'm going to choose myself, as that's in my best interest. There is no conflict though.
I believe the core point being "of course particle physicists want more funding of particle physics"
If you asked me if my friend Bob should get a free $100 or if I should get a free $100; of course I'm going to choose myself, as that's in my best interest. There is no conflict though.
I believe the core point being "of course particle physicists want more funding of particle physics"
>But if you don't trust the budget priorities that the scientist themselves create, why would you trust Sabine's opinion on those priorities?
Her argument is that very particular niches of science receive extreme funding leading to advanced results in particular areas, which other areas can not meaningfully engage with. This funding imbalance is not "decided by the scientists", in any meaningful way.
Nowhere does she imply that she should decide who gets funding, in fact she wants an end to publicly funded research. I really dislike it if people criticize other based on made up arguments about them, like you did.
Her argument is that very particular niches of science receive extreme funding leading to advanced results in particular areas, which other areas can not meaningfully engage with. This funding imbalance is not "decided by the scientists", in any meaningful way.
Nowhere does she imply that she should decide who gets funding, in fact she wants an end to publicly funded research. I really dislike it if people criticize other based on made up arguments about them, like you did.
These days she's independent of the field financially, and has been pretty forthright about condemning bad behavior within it. It's inevitable that insiders will turn on her, because she turned on them. They being angry about it doesn't mean anything by itself, you'd need to decide if her points are legitimate or not without reference to those she's criticising.
I wouldn't say they are angry about it, just disappointed that there's another mass media misinformation source to add to the pile. It's much harder to debunk poor quality material than it is to generate it, and I suspect many of them are busy enough as it is + would rather do something more productive with their time. Nobody gets into science to have low-grade spats with talking heads on the internet.
I have found that academics invite criticism--- indeed, peer review is founded on it--- but well-done scientific debate rarely generates the same click-through rate. It's hard, technical material rather than something to idly watch while you're eating, which is the caliber of the content here. Just compare it to, say, literature reviews from the field or comparisons with prior work in publications. It's not remotely as rigorous or well-founded.
I have found that academics invite criticism--- indeed, peer review is founded on it--- but well-done scientific debate rarely generates the same click-through rate. It's hard, technical material rather than something to idly watch while you're eating, which is the caliber of the content here. Just compare it to, say, literature reviews from the field or comparisons with prior work in publications. It's not remotely as rigorous or well-founded.
I just won't give my eyeballs to science content like that. I don't care if she has anything useful to say.
That's a fundamentally biased attitude though. It's not very different from saying: "oh, that guy's got tattoos, I'm not going to engage because he's probably a gangster."
Unless someone has proven to you that they are not trustworthy, you choosing not to listen is a... personal choice at best. So don't try to chalk it up like if it's not presented in a certain way that's to your taste it's not real science and/or it's fake news.
Unless someone has proven to you that they are not trustworthy, you choosing not to listen is a... personal choice at best. So don't try to chalk it up like if it's not presented in a certain way that's to your taste it's not real science and/or it's fake news.
I disagree with this analogy. Fearing all tattoos is mostly built on prejudice. If you knew the tattoos were gang tattoos, there might be reason for caution.
Choosing to engage with the attention economy and optimizing for engagement/rage as Sabine does undermines the validity of what she says because the incentive structures in the media environment she’s chosen to embrace.
I think it’s more like Sabine joined a gang, and while it’s possible that she has useful things to say, it’s also difficult to know where her allegiances lie, and which things she says are to keep the gang leaders happy.
Audience capture is real, and she’s been on that path for awhile now I think.
Choosing to engage with the attention economy and optimizing for engagement/rage as Sabine does undermines the validity of what she says because the incentive structures in the media environment she’s chosen to embrace.
I think it’s more like Sabine joined a gang, and while it’s possible that she has useful things to say, it’s also difficult to know where her allegiances lie, and which things she says are to keep the gang leaders happy.
Audience capture is real, and she’s been on that path for awhile now I think.
> Unless someone has proven to you that they are not trustworthy, you choosing not to listen is a... personal choice at best.
And? Not sure how that matters.
And? Not sure how that matters.
> her content for maximum rage/anger/emotional response rather than accuracy
Yes. The content mirrors the thumbnail style.
Yes. The content mirrors the thumbnail style.
I've started to watch one or two videos of hers, but I don't respond very well to emotional rants. So I stopped.
You can read her book from ~2014 where she describes the same arguments that she also does on her channel, but in much more depth. She didn't make videos back then.
She also has great talks at universities and discussion panels.
The utter lack of significant discoveries at the LHC after the Higgs (2012!) is a pretty telling sign. Any bigger collider is riding purely on the hope that something will make the effort worth while.
There's been plenty of significant discoveries, many, many. (O(10)s hadrons, consistent standard model discrepancies are really big news, those weren't expected)
There hasn't been a significant new particle discovery, but none was expected other than Higgs, as far back as 2006 when I was still screwing around in graduate physics.
I honestly can't remember the last time a new particle was randomly discovered by experiment that wasn't already proposed and agreed to as sound-in-theory. It's much cheaper and faster to do theory, then built what you need to verify, than to crank up energy as high as you can and hope for the best (I'd hazard a guess this ran out of steam by the 50s/60s at the latest)
There hasn't been a significant new particle discovery, but none was expected other than Higgs, as far back as 2006 when I was still screwing around in graduate physics.
I honestly can't remember the last time a new particle was randomly discovered by experiment that wasn't already proposed and agreed to as sound-in-theory. It's much cheaper and faster to do theory, then built what you need to verify, than to crank up energy as high as you can and hope for the best (I'd hazard a guess this ran out of steam by the 50s/60s at the latest)
> There hasn't been a significant new particle discovery, but none was expected other than Higgs
The word "expected" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
At least one kind of Higgs had to be found unless the mass generation mechanism of the Standard Model and all its proposed extensions (MSSM etc) was categorically wrong; the LHC was designed to cover the entire mass range where it had to be. In that sense, the Higgs was strictly expected.
But if you had asked a bunch of phenomenologists "What new thing do you expect to be found first at the LHC?", most would have gone for one or more superpartners. The Higgs' hierarchy problem [1] was believed to require electroweak-scale SUSY, which in turn implied the existence of electroweak-scale supersymmetric partners to the known SM particles. Those would have been easier to find than the Higgs, so they would have shown up earlier in the data, before there was enough of it to also discern a Higgs bump.
You could argue that superpartners were not expected with the same degree of certainty as some kind of Higgs, but the absence of any sign of SUSY was a big disappointment, and the beginning of the end for what had become the dominating scenario for Beyond Standard Model physics.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_problem#Supersymmetr...
The word "expected" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
At least one kind of Higgs had to be found unless the mass generation mechanism of the Standard Model and all its proposed extensions (MSSM etc) was categorically wrong; the LHC was designed to cover the entire mass range where it had to be. In that sense, the Higgs was strictly expected.
But if you had asked a bunch of phenomenologists "What new thing do you expect to be found first at the LHC?", most would have gone for one or more superpartners. The Higgs' hierarchy problem [1] was believed to require electroweak-scale SUSY, which in turn implied the existence of electroweak-scale supersymmetric partners to the known SM particles. Those would have been easier to find than the Higgs, so they would have shown up earlier in the data, before there was enough of it to also discern a Higgs bump.
You could argue that superpartners were not expected with the same degree of certainty as some kind of Higgs, but the absence of any sign of SUSY was a big disappointment, and the beginning of the end for what had become the dominating scenario for Beyond Standard Model physics.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_problem#Supersymmetr...
I'm not much of a particles guy but isn't the lack of "expected" discoveries itself a discovery?
Yes, but it's a weak one.
One of the problems we have is that we are generally inculcated by our educational system to just think "science is good", without asking how good. But when we're talking about things like massive supercolliders, which cost things that start looking less like "a grant from the National Science Foundation" and more like "the entire economic output of a small country for a couple of decades", we need to ask whether we're getting enough science bang for our science buck, because not even science is actually immune to that question.
The LHC is honestly pretty questionable on that front. One can debate what was expected, but what is perhaps easier to wrap your mind around is certainly the LHC would have been immensely more valuable if it had found all sorts of supersymmetric particles, right?
Personally I think the most potent criticism of building yet another, even larger collider is just that such a collider requires essentially strangling the entire rest of the field for decades on end, and indeed, at this level of expense, strangling neighboring fields for decades on end, to fund something that doesn't have a terribly clear through-line on its value, on any dimension, practical or purely scientific. It's almost like "let's build a larger collider" is just a reflex at this point. There's a lot of interesting things bubbling on the fringe right now, and I don't mean the crazy fringe, I mean the scientific fringe. Maybe we should take a bit of a break from particle colliders for a bit and put some money into those things for a while.
We don't have infinite money, and we don't have guaranteed money; pouring vast, vast quantities of money into a new collider could well inhibit future research monies. It is still important to think about not whether we "should" spend the money in this or that way, because that always produces more "yes" answers than we actually have money for. The question is, is this the best way to spend money? And given the staggering amount we're talking, it's a high bar for this to be "best". Personally I'd really rather see at least a decade or so of just spreading things around a bit more, rather than pouring all of that into what is essentially a single project.
One of the problems we have is that we are generally inculcated by our educational system to just think "science is good", without asking how good. But when we're talking about things like massive supercolliders, which cost things that start looking less like "a grant from the National Science Foundation" and more like "the entire economic output of a small country for a couple of decades", we need to ask whether we're getting enough science bang for our science buck, because not even science is actually immune to that question.
The LHC is honestly pretty questionable on that front. One can debate what was expected, but what is perhaps easier to wrap your mind around is certainly the LHC would have been immensely more valuable if it had found all sorts of supersymmetric particles, right?
Personally I think the most potent criticism of building yet another, even larger collider is just that such a collider requires essentially strangling the entire rest of the field for decades on end, and indeed, at this level of expense, strangling neighboring fields for decades on end, to fund something that doesn't have a terribly clear through-line on its value, on any dimension, practical or purely scientific. It's almost like "let's build a larger collider" is just a reflex at this point. There's a lot of interesting things bubbling on the fringe right now, and I don't mean the crazy fringe, I mean the scientific fringe. Maybe we should take a bit of a break from particle colliders for a bit and put some money into those things for a while.
We don't have infinite money, and we don't have guaranteed money; pouring vast, vast quantities of money into a new collider could well inhibit future research monies. It is still important to think about not whether we "should" spend the money in this or that way, because that always produces more "yes" answers than we actually have money for. The question is, is this the best way to spend money? And given the staggering amount we're talking, it's a high bar for this to be "best". Personally I'd really rather see at least a decade or so of just spreading things around a bit more, rather than pouring all of that into what is essentially a single project.
Additionally, while you're talking about budget in a practical manner, spending money on science to discover science isn't something that people outside of science generally love spending money on. I am nearly certain that part of the hope for people spending that kind of money on the LHC is not only might they discover something amazing but that it might also be practically useful to someone else.
There are other scientific fields that produce much more tangible results that the finite funding could go to. Even something like materials science which could not only produce more useful discoveries but could also make the next collider cheaper.
There are other scientific fields that produce much more tangible results that the finite funding could go to. Even something like materials science which could not only produce more useful discoveries but could also make the next collider cheaper.
Only if you have a finite set of theories. If you have infinitely many theories that could explain a phenomenon, eliminating some swath of them brings you 0 new information, in information theoretical terms. The problem with SUSY and String theory and other similar physical theories is that they have many free parameters that can have any value that hasn't yet been ruled out by experiment. So if you build a collider twice as large and find nothing, you'll find that your parameter that today has possible range [n, +Inf) will now be known to have range [2n, +Inf). That doesn't actually mean anything at all, though. That doesn't actually tell you anything: you'll need infinitely more experiments to know what's the value of that parameter.
You nailed it.
In addition, they're absolutely correct, some subset of particle researchers were wish-casting for SUSY stuff.
In addition, there's a significant substantive difference between "$X was defined and built for discovering $Y" and "some subset of $X hoped for proof of their theory $Y via $Z being discovered" -- there was also some subset that hoped for proof of string theory, or innumerable other things.
In general they're right and know their stuff if they're able to have this detailed of a take, but the actual claim "The word "expected" is doing a lot of work.", is doing a lot of work. And I was there. In a graduate physics lab with multiple faculty members on the LHC before it opened, including a big SUSY fan who thought that'd be a bank shot on a bank shot outcome, maybe. Hoped for by some? Yes. Expected by a majority? Absolutely not.
In addition, they're absolutely correct, some subset of particle researchers were wish-casting for SUSY stuff.
In addition, there's a significant substantive difference between "$X was defined and built for discovering $Y" and "some subset of $X hoped for proof of their theory $Y via $Z being discovered" -- there was also some subset that hoped for proof of string theory, or innumerable other things.
In general they're right and know their stuff if they're able to have this detailed of a take, but the actual claim "The word "expected" is doing a lot of work.", is doing a lot of work. And I was there. In a graduate physics lab with multiple faculty members on the LHC before it opened, including a big SUSY fan who thought that'd be a bank shot on a bank shot outcome, maybe. Hoped for by some? Yes. Expected by a majority? Absolutely not.
Experimenters always were more skeptical; I hypothesized asking phenomenologists for a reason. I like Adam Falkowski's description of what it was like in [1] (about the end of dedicated SUSY working groups at CERN):
the existence of SUSY was almost a fact for a bulk of researchers working on the topic. This certainly was reflected in hiring practices, and you had a large group of top researchers whose entire publication list was tied to supersymmetry
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/supersymmetrys-lo...
the existence of SUSY was almost a fact for a bulk of researchers working on the topic. This certainly was reflected in hiring practices, and you had a large group of top researchers whose entire publication list was tied to supersymmetry
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/supersymmetrys-lo...
I don't disagree but you choosing contrarianism to show you're clever and know a lot here (which worked!) made it sound like CERN was expecting a SUSY particle or whatever (which it wasn't)
> you choosing contrarianism
?
> to show you're clever and know a lot
?!?
I contribute to discussions when I have the time and think I have something relevant to say. HN is hardly the right place to show off about physics, and trying to do so anonymously would be particularly pointless.
> made it sound like CERN was expecting a SUSY particle
That's not what I wrote. My point was explicitly about expectations on the theory side.
Perplexed.
?
> to show you're clever and know a lot
?!?
I contribute to discussions when I have the time and think I have something relevant to say. HN is hardly the right place to show off about physics, and trying to do so anonymously would be particularly pointless.
> made it sound like CERN was expecting a SUSY particle
That's not what I wrote. My point was explicitly about expectations on the theory side.
Perplexed.
Neat!
Thanks for sharing your insight and fancy words :)
Thanks for sharing your insight and fancy words :)
It invalidated some flavors of string theory, but my understanding is that you have almost infinite numbers of free params you can tweak.
In other words super symmetry wasn't excluded, just excluded for XeV where X is what LHC is able to produce.
In other words super symmetry wasn't excluded, just excluded for XeV where X is what LHC is able to produce.
Negative results are valuable results.
SUSY is excluded. Like completely at these scales.
Extra dimensions the same.
SUSY is excluded. Like completely at these scales.
Extra dimensions the same.
Sure, but there was never any firm reason to believe SUSY should be true, and certainly no evidence that it should happen at these scales specifically. This is like saying that burning a billion dollars in cash is valuable science, because it conclusively proved that money can't spontaneously reform out of ash, at least not at the scale of a billion dollars.
I'm not a physicist, but if I understand correctly there's likely new-ish physics to be found in Higgs-Higgs interactions.
There is a _hope_ that there's new physics there. But so far, nothing indicates that the next collider will find something.
There is definitely new physics to be discovered, but it might need a collider the size of the Solar system for the discovery.
There is definitely new physics to be discovered, but it might need a collider the size of the Solar system for the discovery.
FilosofumRex(1)
The report has about 100 pages with summaries of experiments they want to test there, if you want to see for yourself.
Personally, I'm skeptical too, but the new ideas have been piling up since the time she started talking about this. Things have changed a lot since then.
Personally, I'm skeptical too, but the new ideas have been piling up since the time she started talking about this. Things have changed a lot since then.
[deleted]
Sabine is something other-than a good source on how physicists actually think about things at this point, unfortunately.
It's not true at all.
I'll come back and write some up over the next 20 minutes.
It's not true at all.
I'll come back and write some up over the next 20 minutes.
Sabine also have wasn't the only physicist that thinks FCC would be dead on arrival.
[deleted]
Claim: $A made false claims $B and $C to support conclusion $D.
Your claim, IIUC, please correct me: Not all who conclude $D make false claims.
I can agree with that for sure
Your claim, IIUC, please correct me: Not all who conclude $D make false claims.
I can agree with that for sure
My argument is that more people agree with statement X the likelier it will be. Even more if they are from a field that is closely related.
Not sure who you are and why would your opinion matter here but I'll take you on your comment. Looking forward to your write up.
It's already here by the time you wrote - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43668292.
[deleted]
I look forward to it. I listened to her a lot recently because YouTube decided ever “next video” bump while I drove should be her.
My view- she, like many, has been conditioned by social media to optimize for clicks by having contrarian and anti-establishment views. She's not positioned to have a particularly well-researched opinion on 95%+ of the topics she covers (which is understandable considering how many hundreds of videos she has made). I watched her for a bit, but stopped when I researched a topic deeper and found her analysis very superficial. Physics is a huge field. Think it is always better to find experts in a particular subfield and hear their views, rather than follow the feed of someone who repeatedly expresses the "everyone else is wrong" schtick
I'm not sure that is fair. I've been reading her blog for over a decade, and she has always taken a contrarian view.
I think it's fairly accurate, it's true that she was always contrarian, but back in the 2010's it was a more respectable type of questioning.
These days she's clearly rage baiting with titles, which is typical algorithm submission behaviour.
These days she's clearly rage baiting with titles, which is typical algorithm submission behaviour.
Every time I tried to listen to her she was peddling a book. Her stick is it to criticize current research, first in her field (where the mainstream seem to disagree with her), but now in more and more fields of physics/science. She clearly has an agenda.
I agree. I enjoyed her physics content. Then she made a few videos about AI, a field where I have more expertise than her, and I found her opinions very shallow and without much nuance. Ever since, my trust in her other videos went down as well. She is just trying to be overly sceptical and everything that is done in science is some sort of conspiracy.
> I listened to her a lot recently because YouTube decided ever “next video” bump while I drove should be her.
I hope there was _any other criteria_ at play here? Why would I not be surprised that the answer is "NO" for 99.9% of the population? The world is really doomed...
I hope there was _any other criteria_ at play here? Why would I not be surprised that the answer is "NO" for 99.9% of the population? The world is really doomed...
> The world is really doomed...
Sadly, it absolutely 100% is. She's an amazing case of this. I'll spend the next 2 years gently walking people down from her clickbait, and I'll end up with net-negative karma for it.
I honestly had given up entirely until I saw a subthread about a month ago where people who knew the area were exchanging info of lesser-known youtubers who come and clean up her messes after.
The sad news is, they are getting more and more attention (I saw one over 400K+ views), but a lot of that just comes from being loud, proud, and aggressive, as well as having 30 minutes of video to justify the up front "hey, she's at best a not even wrong contrarian, and honestly, lets be clear at this point, shes a liar for views!!!!"
Thankfully I'm old enough to see this stuff happens in waves, within 2 years it'll become common wisdom that she's X, Y, and Z, and even if I disagree and just think she's misguided, that'll be enough for the tide to ebb.
Sadly, it absolutely 100% is. She's an amazing case of this. I'll spend the next 2 years gently walking people down from her clickbait, and I'll end up with net-negative karma for it.
I honestly had given up entirely until I saw a subthread about a month ago where people who knew the area were exchanging info of lesser-known youtubers who come and clean up her messes after.
The sad news is, they are getting more and more attention (I saw one over 400K+ views), but a lot of that just comes from being loud, proud, and aggressive, as well as having 30 minutes of video to justify the up front "hey, she's at best a not even wrong contrarian, and honestly, lets be clear at this point, shes a liar for views!!!!"
Thankfully I'm old enough to see this stuff happens in waves, within 2 years it'll become common wisdom that she's X, Y, and Z, and even if I disagree and just think she's misguided, that'll be enough for the tide to ebb.
Can you share the info about these other youtubers, or this subthread?
I can't find the subthread, oddly. Really oddly...
They linked out to this Professor Dave @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70vYj1KPyT4 IIRC. (1M views!) He's got a couple more on it.
Note I'd never say she was a fraud but I also don't know what to do with someone who has grown into being Not Even Wrong regularly. This might be the only way, fire with fire, but it makes me squeamish.
They linked out to this Professor Dave @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70vYj1KPyT4 IIRC. (1M views!) He's got a couple more on it.
Note I'd never say she was a fraud but I also don't know what to do with someone who has grown into being Not Even Wrong regularly. This might be the only way, fire with fire, but it makes me squeamish.
Blissfully, I found an IEEE article that collects the stuff I'm aware of in one neat package. https://spectrum.ieee.org/supercolliders
The shell games are:
1. claiming it is a proton collider[^1 source] designed to look for new particles [^2 comment].
2. false equivalence between China putting in their latest 5 year plan to make a plan to make something that will transition to being a proton collider. And it's worse than that:
If they immediately started after the plan was complete and on schedule, they'd be done in 2048 and transition from e/p to protons in 2066.
CERNs plan is to be done with e/p in 2042 and transition to protons in 2070. That's 4 years later, but it's comically irrelevant. That's not getting done sooner, that's just transitioning to doing stuff we already can do faster, the cool thing and why both are interested in building one is the electron/positron collider stuff, not scaled up proton collider stuff.
Content: - The project would transition to a proton collider at the end of its lifespan as a novel tool, in 2070.
- It is proposed to operate by 2042, assuming funds dispersed over 12 years, starting in 2030.
- It will operate as a electron-positron collider for the intervening ~3 decades before transitioning to essentially LHC with 4x power.
- Electron / positron is a unique collision form, chosen to allow for more precise measurement, such as the LHC discoveries of discrepancies in the Standard Model.
- This is very important work. The more precise you nail down these uncertainties, the more theorists can do to verify their work, allowing the experimentalists to know where to look for new stuff, if any.
[^1 source] Via Sabine link: "CERN wants to build a new particle collider which will smash protons together at roughly 6 times the energies seen at the Large Hadron Collider."
[^2 comment] This is the undercurrent of the whole criticism, I cannot explicitly source it to one sentence. It's also bizarre: I can't remember the last time experimentalists got to discover something without the theorists telling them where to look. It's cheaper that way! LHC was a failure too by that standard. There simply aren't any candidates in the theory that are accessible at humanities near-term energy levels, the Standard Model's worked beautifully, modulo these tantalizing discoveries at LHC of small discrepancies that electron/positron collisions let you explore.
The shell games are:
1. claiming it is a proton collider[^1 source] designed to look for new particles [^2 comment].
2. false equivalence between China putting in their latest 5 year plan to make a plan to make something that will transition to being a proton collider. And it's worse than that:
If they immediately started after the plan was complete and on schedule, they'd be done in 2048 and transition from e/p to protons in 2066.
CERNs plan is to be done with e/p in 2042 and transition to protons in 2070. That's 4 years later, but it's comically irrelevant. That's not getting done sooner, that's just transitioning to doing stuff we already can do faster, the cool thing and why both are interested in building one is the electron/positron collider stuff, not scaled up proton collider stuff.
Content: - The project would transition to a proton collider at the end of its lifespan as a novel tool, in 2070.
- It is proposed to operate by 2042, assuming funds dispersed over 12 years, starting in 2030.
- It will operate as a electron-positron collider for the intervening ~3 decades before transitioning to essentially LHC with 4x power.
- Electron / positron is a unique collision form, chosen to allow for more precise measurement, such as the LHC discoveries of discrepancies in the Standard Model.
- This is very important work. The more precise you nail down these uncertainties, the more theorists can do to verify their work, allowing the experimentalists to know where to look for new stuff, if any.
[^1 source] Via Sabine link: "CERN wants to build a new particle collider which will smash protons together at roughly 6 times the energies seen at the Large Hadron Collider."
[^2 comment] This is the undercurrent of the whole criticism, I cannot explicitly source it to one sentence. It's also bizarre: I can't remember the last time experimentalists got to discover something without the theorists telling them where to look. It's cheaper that way! LHC was a failure too by that standard. There simply aren't any candidates in the theory that are accessible at humanities near-term energy levels, the Standard Model's worked beautifully, modulo these tantalizing discoveries at LHC of small discrepancies that electron/positron collisions let you explore.
[1] Sabine says "It’s a two-phase project, the first one, called the FCC-ee would collide electrons and specifically measure the properties of the Higgs boson." approximately 20 seconds into the video.
It's unfair to merely critique the headline. If you do not wish to watch the video, here is a transcript: https://www.youtube-transcript.io/videos/elvEcWc7U7c
"This is very important work." is just an opinion.
"The more precise you nail down these uncertainties, the more theorists can do to verify their work, allowing the experimentalists to know where to look for new stuff, if any." Sabine's point is that there are countless theories and parameters that can be changed to fit any measurement. New results will eliminate some, but it will not reduce the total number of possible theories, as others will be constructed to fit the results without having any reason to think one is more true than another.
It's unfair to merely critique the headline. If you do not wish to watch the video, here is a transcript: https://www.youtube-transcript.io/videos/elvEcWc7U7c
"This is very important work." is just an opinion.
"The more precise you nail down these uncertainties, the more theorists can do to verify their work, allowing the experimentalists to know where to look for new stuff, if any." Sabine's point is that there are countless theories and parameters that can be changed to fit any measurement. New results will eliminate some, but it will not reduce the total number of possible theories, as others will be constructed to fit the results without having any reason to think one is more true than another.
I'm not sure why you're addressing me or telling me I didn't watch the video, but I humbly request, on behalf of the community, that next time you've figured out what someone else did and want to announce it, you pause and reflect on: A) exactly what and whose words you're taking umbrage with B) if you are attempting to mind read.
Concretely:
If you don't think OP got the right understanding from the video, so their questions were fundamentally Wrong and Shouldn't Be Asked and Impugned Sabine by their very nature of being asked, that's fine. Own that.
If you think it's unfair of me to quote Sabine without quoting the entirety of a 30 minute transcript, well, more power to you.
But that doesn't mean I didn't watch it or whatever other crock is being imagined.
Just ask! :) Curiosity and discussion are why we're here. :)
Concretely:
If you don't think OP got the right understanding from the video, so their questions were fundamentally Wrong and Shouldn't Be Asked and Impugned Sabine by their very nature of being asked, that's fine. Own that.
If you think it's unfair of me to quote Sabine without quoting the entirety of a 30 minute transcript, well, more power to you.
But that doesn't mean I didn't watch it or whatever other crock is being imagined.
Just ask! :) Curiosity and discussion are why we're here. :)
Um, ok:
When you say:
"The shell games are:
1. claiming it is a proton collider"
it seems to me that you're implying that Sabine is not disclosing the fact that it's a two stage project. And I'm pointing out that it's one of the first things she says in her video.
When you say:
"The shell games are:
1. claiming it is a proton collider"
it seems to me that you're implying that Sabine is not disclosing the fact that it's a two stage project. And I'm pointing out that it's one of the first things she says in her video.
Why is this work important? To me it just feels so distant from my reality. At the core of this, is there an answer to the "who cares?" attitude?
Because if the answer is that we might incidentally create new useful technology in the build up of a new collider, why not just diversify the investment and put that money into a bunch of smaller projects? Hedge your bets sort of thing.
Why support this and not allocate more into high temperature superconductivity for example? I don't understand what is the justification that entitles such a large amount of money to a singular project.
Because if the answer is that we might incidentally create new useful technology in the build up of a new collider, why not just diversify the investment and put that money into a bunch of smaller projects? Hedge your bets sort of thing.
Why support this and not allocate more into high temperature superconductivity for example? I don't understand what is the justification that entitles such a large amount of money to a singular project.
There is a lot of interest. It may not be the most efficient use of money, but people like the feeling that scientists are trying to unravel the most fundamental nature of the universe.
People got so excited about the Higgs boson, despite having no idea what it really means. They kept asking if it had an application, but seemed to accept that the answer is "no".
I'll admit, I too would rather put the money into an array of different sciences. But the money goes where you can get interest, and a lot of other science happens in the margins.
People got so excited about the Higgs boson, despite having no idea what it really means. They kept asking if it had an application, but seemed to accept that the answer is "no".
I'll admit, I too would rather put the money into an array of different sciences. But the money goes where you can get interest, and a lot of other science happens in the margins.
First thought: I'm not the greatest at coming up with a stirring polemic justifying pushing out boundary science.
Next thought that come to my head is, how do I boundary-test this. ex. work my way backwards, what was the last collider worth building?
It's perfectly rational and intellectually honest to say "whichever one gave us something that got commercialized / helped people / etc."
As far as high-temperature superconductivity, I'm virtually certain if there was consensus a $XXB facility would concretely advance that, I assume it'd get funded.
I'm not certain, but I believe someone with more wherewithal / had skin in the game would argue that there's no reason to think this isn't that facility. (in that, advancing the boundary of physics tends to bring breakthroughs down the pipeline)
Next thought that come to my head is, how do I boundary-test this. ex. work my way backwards, what was the last collider worth building?
It's perfectly rational and intellectually honest to say "whichever one gave us something that got commercialized / helped people / etc."
As far as high-temperature superconductivity, I'm virtually certain if there was consensus a $XXB facility would concretely advance that, I assume it'd get funded.
I'm not certain, but I believe someone with more wherewithal / had skin in the game would argue that there's no reason to think this isn't that facility. (in that, advancing the boundary of physics tends to bring breakthroughs down the pipeline)
> what was the last collider worth building?...It's perfectly rational and intellectually honest to say "whichever one gave us something that got commercialized / helped people / etc."
It seems like the LHC wouldn't pass this test? In which case, continuing down the path wouldn't make sense under this criteria.
It seems like the LHC wouldn't pass this test? In which case, continuing down the path wouldn't make sense under this criteria.
Right! :)
(the thing is, "continuing down the path" is a Not Even Wrong (in the Pauli sense) description of what's going on. It's a hopelessly confused. At least, I have given up hope: I wrote a quite detailed post, with both a TL;DR and longer, linking out to an approachable article, explaining this.)
(the thing is, "continuing down the path" is a Not Even Wrong (in the Pauli sense) description of what's going on. It's a hopelessly confused. At least, I have given up hope: I wrote a quite detailed post, with both a TL;DR and longer, linking out to an approachable article, explaining this.)
Whatever you think of Sabine, it's not accurate to dismiss this as spinning lies for clicks. Very similar core points are also made here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00793-x
It seems accurate that this is an expensive proposed experiment with less expensive alternatives, with very real debate about costs and benefits.
I'm in the "spend more money on theory first" camp. You keep saying that theorists should guide experimenters, but you seem to mean that in the limited sense of poking a little harder at the Standard Model and hoping it breaks.
Meanwhile there are all kinds of open questions where fundamental theory around and parallel to the Standard Model is underdeveloped.
It might well be better to spend a few billion on doing something about that first, then designing experiments to test whatever falls out.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00793-x
It seems accurate that this is an expensive proposed experiment with less expensive alternatives, with very real debate about costs and benefits.
I'm in the "spend more money on theory first" camp. You keep saying that theorists should guide experimenters, but you seem to mean that in the limited sense of poking a little harder at the Standard Model and hoping it breaks.
Meanwhile there are all kinds of open questions where fundamental theory around and parallel to the Standard Model is underdeveloped.
It might well be better to spend a few billion on doing something about that first, then designing experiments to test whatever falls out.
Be careful when rushing. Your viewpoint as expressed is perfectly rational.
However, you know that both of these claims asked about are blatantly false, and were distracted by the idea that saying those claims is false also implies all alternatives proposed are based on lies.
To wit, the ask was "Is it really true that there a no theories that are proven or discarded with this experiment, and that the Chinese have plans to do it much faster? Her video is pretty damning."
Both of those things are clearly false.
The Chinese part is blatantly false, to the point it can be worked out by a laymen who knows years ascend.
The Standard Model itself is in question, modulo semantics about proven/disproven and the philosophy of certainty, by any reasonable definition, theory is at stake.
However, you know that both of these claims asked about are blatantly false, and were distracted by the idea that saying those claims is false also implies all alternatives proposed are based on lies.
To wit, the ask was "Is it really true that there a no theories that are proven or discarded with this experiment, and that the Chinese have plans to do it much faster? Her video is pretty damning."
Both of those things are clearly false.
The Chinese part is blatantly false, to the point it can be worked out by a laymen who knows years ascend.
The Standard Model itself is in question, modulo semantics about proven/disproven and the philosophy of certainty, by any reasonable definition, theory is at stake.
As far as I know, there isn't much theory behind the "important work" being done here, just "let's smash stuff at higher energy and see what shakes out." Science is supposed to go the other way. You are supposed to have a theory or a set of theories and then use experiments to test them. If this experiment can falsify the standard model in a meaningful way, that's cool, but it's a lot better if it can actually prove something else. Still, it's not clear that the something else is worth the massive expense and effort.
Do we have $X00 billion worth of theories to test here?
Do we have $X00 billion worth of theories to test here?
There is the scientific method of course (what you're talking about), but I think it isn't entirely insane to sometimes just do a ton of experimenting and see where you end up. Edison did a lot of the latter.
Yes, noted non-scientist Edison who stole pretty much everything he claimed to have invented.
I think that view is a bit over the top. He built his own research lab and was responsible for something like 2000 patents. We're all aware of the Tesla story, but being a shrewd businessman and collosal jerk doesn't prevent important contributions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
I hope this doesn't seem abrupt, and when/if it does, that it comes across as coming from a place inviting further discussion and appreciating your curiosity.
That's one of the effects of the pitch framing by Sabine: the design intent is not about smashing stuff at higher energy, despite the basis of the critique requiring that it is.
My comment above is really long, but tl;dr the impetus for both facilities is smashing electrons and positrons and specific features of those collisions that let physicists hone in on the discoveries made at the LHC, not moar energy leading to new particle observations that theory never predicted.
That's one of the effects of the pitch framing by Sabine: the design intent is not about smashing stuff at higher energy, despite the basis of the critique requiring that it is.
My comment above is really long, but tl;dr the impetus for both facilities is smashing electrons and positrons and specific features of those collisions that let physicists hone in on the discoveries made at the LHC, not moar energy leading to new particle observations that theory never predicted.
Electrons and positrons have been smashed together before. It has been done at CERN before, too. The premise of this experiment is to do it at higher energy than has been done before.
The scientific goals of that experiment are somewhat more unclear, though. The LHC had a landmark scientific purpose, finding the last particle in the standard model. There is, as far as I can tell, no specific experiment that can be the headline for this new machine because the LHC pretty much did its job (modulo some error) and string theory et al need higher energy. There are a bunch of guesses about the higgs field and about dark matter that failed to materialize at the LHC, so now we want moar energy to see if that fixes our problems.
As to the theory they will be proving, maybe there are a few minor ones about the higgs field, but that's pretty much it at this point.
The scientific goals of that experiment are somewhat more unclear, though. The LHC had a landmark scientific purpose, finding the last particle in the standard model. There is, as far as I can tell, no specific experiment that can be the headline for this new machine because the LHC pretty much did its job (modulo some error) and string theory et al need higher energy. There are a bunch of guesses about the higgs field and about dark matter that failed to materialize at the LHC, so now we want moar energy to see if that fixes our problems.
As to the theory they will be proving, maybe there are a few minor ones about the higgs field, but that's pretty much it at this point.
No, not quite. The electron-positron collision will allow more precise measurements. The goal is precision, not higher energy range, where a proton-proton machine would be much better. The goal is not to go beyond LHC in energy to see if something new shows up because of moar energy. The goal is to go to high energy with electron/positrons to measure stuff more precisely.
The FCC-ee is an intermediate goal, which will probe similar collisions as the LHC but at higher precisions. It is also a direct successor as the LEP which was housed in the LHC tunnel, so in this sense it is very much about "moar energy" than the previous electron-positron collider that CERN had. They're also hoping against hope that maybe they'll identify some rare collisions and even dark matter at the energy ranges that they couldn't probe before (at the LEP) with such high precision (at the LHC).
Then, when the tech for it is ready, the FCC-ee will be replaced by the FCC-hh, which is the successor of the LHC and can probe energy levels that are completely unaccessible at the moment - at about 5-6 times the energy level of the LHC. This is the true goal of the FCC project, and the biggest reason for building such a huge tunnel in the first place. But this requires significant advancements in magnets and other components which won't be available for several decades. So, they're filling in that time with the FCC-ee.
Then, when the tech for it is ready, the FCC-ee will be replaced by the FCC-hh, which is the successor of the LHC and can probe energy levels that are completely unaccessible at the moment - at about 5-6 times the energy level of the LHC. This is the true goal of the FCC project, and the biggest reason for building such a huge tunnel in the first place. But this requires significant advancements in magnets and other components which won't be available for several decades. So, they're filling in that time with the FCC-ee.
I lay out above, the IEEE article linked lays out, and you come across to me as having domain knowledge to understand that having electron-positron collisions at the same energy level of LHC lets us nail down the hints of what we saw at LHC -- persistent deviations in the standard model that require new theory.
When we get new theory, then we go hunting new particles, presuming its physically possible (as you point out with the incorrect idea that this might be being built to look for confirmation of string theory)
I understand the idea this won't find new particles, is it worth it?, but the idea this is unclear, confusing, misguided, or hoping for an outcome are trivially verifiable as false.
Things like:
- "The scientific goals...are unclear" (they are very clear!)
- "(modulo some error)" (reducing the error in the glimpses of deviation from the standard model is the interesting part, 5 sigma or bust, because that lets the theorists know how to progress. This isn't just "oh we'd like to reduce error bars, a less-entitled discipline would just get some grad students on SPSS", this is "holy shit...looks like we found something is fucky in our fundamentals here, but all we know is its off. we need to figure out by how much to give the theorists more data")
- "string theory et al" (I worry very much about the effectiveness of my communication if this is coming up, to be clear, no one is attempting to verify string theory, and it doesn't come up at all even in Sabine's arguments, no? )
The IEEE article lays out this is not about discovering particles.
No one thinks new particles will be discovered.
The investment is not based on speculating new particles will be discovered.
The investment is not based on bad theory that new particles will be discovered.
The investment is not to find a sneaky way to hopefully accidentally find new particles.
Investments in colliders in general haven't been spectulatively looking for new particles in decades.
As both the IEEE, open source information, and my comment lay out above, they are specifically for nailing down these previously-assumed-settled values in the standard model. Because getting more data on the things theory can't explain leads to informed revisions in the theory. The next pendulum swing after that data would be theory to tell us a narrow band of energies to look at for any new particles theory needed to fix the standard model.
When we get new theory, then we go hunting new particles, presuming its physically possible (as you point out with the incorrect idea that this might be being built to look for confirmation of string theory)
I understand the idea this won't find new particles, is it worth it?, but the idea this is unclear, confusing, misguided, or hoping for an outcome are trivially verifiable as false.
Things like:
- "The scientific goals...are unclear" (they are very clear!)
- "(modulo some error)" (reducing the error in the glimpses of deviation from the standard model is the interesting part, 5 sigma or bust, because that lets the theorists know how to progress. This isn't just "oh we'd like to reduce error bars, a less-entitled discipline would just get some grad students on SPSS", this is "holy shit...looks like we found something is fucky in our fundamentals here, but all we know is its off. we need to figure out by how much to give the theorists more data")
- "string theory et al" (I worry very much about the effectiveness of my communication if this is coming up, to be clear, no one is attempting to verify string theory, and it doesn't come up at all even in Sabine's arguments, no? )
The IEEE article lays out this is not about discovering particles.
No one thinks new particles will be discovered.
The investment is not based on speculating new particles will be discovered.
The investment is not based on bad theory that new particles will be discovered.
The investment is not to find a sneaky way to hopefully accidentally find new particles.
Investments in colliders in general haven't been spectulatively looking for new particles in decades.
As both the IEEE, open source information, and my comment lay out above, they are specifically for nailing down these previously-assumed-settled values in the standard model. Because getting more data on the things theory can't explain leads to informed revisions in the theory. The next pendulum swing after that data would be theory to tell us a narrow band of energies to look at for any new particles theory needed to fix the standard model.
I don't care about Sabine and I'm not defending her. There are lots of other people who think this is a bad idea, and Nature has quoted "dozens" of them.
The error they saw isn't interesting unless it leads to something. There aren't even good theories about what it might lead to, other than some extra significant figures on some constants that nobody uses. Surely you can see there is a problem with doing science this way.
Theory precedes experiment. It always has, and you can't call what you're doing "science" unless that is true.
The error they saw isn't interesting unless it leads to something. There aren't even good theories about what it might lead to, other than some extra significant figures on some constants that nobody uses. Surely you can see there is a problem with doing science this way.
Theory precedes experiment. It always has, and you can't call what you're doing "science" unless that is true.
> Theory precedes experiment. It always has
This is laughably false, even in fundamental physics.
No one saw neutrinos coming for example.
This is laughably false, even in fundamental physics.
No one saw neutrinos coming for example.
> No one saw neutrinos coming for example.
Other than Pauli, you mean? It was hypothesized around 1930. Discovered in 1934.
The basis of scientific method is following:
1. You notice something.
2. You ask a question.
3. Form a hypothesis.
4. Experiment.
5. Analyze.
6. Draw conclusions.
Other than Pauli, you mean? It was hypothesized around 1930. Discovered in 1934.
The basis of scientific method is following:
1. You notice something.
2. You ask a question.
3. Form a hypothesis.
4. Experiment.
5. Analyze.
6. Draw conclusions.
> Other than Pauli, you mean?
After linear momentum was missing in collisions!
Pauli speculated that neutrinos would exist after an experimental anomaly.
No one really saw it coming.
No one saw 3 generations coming either, for example.
In fact, people were baffled.
After linear momentum was missing in collisions!
Pauli speculated that neutrinos would exist after an experimental anomaly.
No one really saw it coming.
No one saw 3 generations coming either, for example.
In fact, people were baffled.
[deleted]
> No one thinks new particles will be discovered.
Blatantly false. Plenty of FCC docs from CERN itself mention the possibility that new particles could be discovered, from dark matter to axions. They even think they could help gather data to guide searches for supersymmetric partners.
[edited to add links and quotes]
https://fcc-cdr.web.cern.ch/reports/EPPSU18_FCCint.pdf
> In addition to the dark matter examples given before, Volume 1 documents the extraordinary sensitivity to less-than-weakly coupled particles, ranging from heavy sterile neutrinos (see Fig. 5, right) down to the see-saw limit in a part of parameter space favourable for generating the baryon asymmetry of the Universe, to axions and dark photons.
https://fcc.web.cern.ch/physics
> Future searches at lepton and proton colliders would further constrain any viable scenarios and put progressively tighter bounds to SUSY candidate particles. Searches could profit from data collected at the FCCs as they will allow better discrimination of the Standard Model backgrounds but also deliver more information for event reconstruction.
Blatantly false. Plenty of FCC docs from CERN itself mention the possibility that new particles could be discovered, from dark matter to axions. They even think they could help gather data to guide searches for supersymmetric partners.
[edited to add links and quotes]
https://fcc-cdr.web.cern.ch/reports/EPPSU18_FCCint.pdf
> In addition to the dark matter examples given before, Volume 1 documents the extraordinary sensitivity to less-than-weakly coupled particles, ranging from heavy sterile neutrinos (see Fig. 5, right) down to the see-saw limit in a part of parameter space favourable for generating the baryon asymmetry of the Universe, to axions and dark photons.
https://fcc.web.cern.ch/physics
> Future searches at lepton and proton colliders would further constrain any viable scenarios and put progressively tighter bounds to SUSY candidate particles. Searches could profit from data collected at the FCCs as they will allow better discrimination of the Standard Model backgrounds but also deliver more information for event reconstruction.
Supersymmetry is on its last legs after the LHC didn't find any supersymmetric particles. WIMPs and other dark matter particles are now no longer speculated to be on the menu because they are too light for this energy range.
There's lots of "could" in your own post and your sources. Very little "will" - as in "will test X theory."
There's lots of "could" in your own post and your sources. Very little "will" - as in "will test X theory."
The poster above was claiming, in several posts, that the people at CERN and experimental particle physicists more broadly are being unfairly represented by claims that they are including possible new particles in the case for building the FCC. They even found an IEEE publication about it that (apparently) made no such claims and stuck to well motivated physics.
I was merely showing that there is nothing unfair about it, as all materials about the FCC, at least from CERN, come with beliefs about the chance that new particles could be found. Sure, they don't make hard claims that they will be found. But even these claims that they could be found are unfounded. It's just as likely that I'll spot a WIMP in my oven if I look carefully while it's pretty hot as WIMPs being found at the FCC. This speculation has no place in serious discussions about this level of spending and human effort.
If this were an abstract discussion at a panel and someone was asking "what are some speculations about what we could see at the FCC", it would be perfectly fine to go on about SUSY and dark matter detection and axions and whatever else. But this has no place whatsoever in official documents about the scientific purpose of allocating billions of euros to this project. It is blatant speculation to pad out an otherwise pretty thin motivation. It's like writing a proposal for a new build system at your company and including speculation that it might detect security vulnerabilities automatically, or it might reduce build times a hundred fold.
I was merely showing that there is nothing unfair about it, as all materials about the FCC, at least from CERN, come with beliefs about the chance that new particles could be found. Sure, they don't make hard claims that they will be found. But even these claims that they could be found are unfounded. It's just as likely that I'll spot a WIMP in my oven if I look carefully while it's pretty hot as WIMPs being found at the FCC. This speculation has no place in serious discussions about this level of spending and human effort.
If this were an abstract discussion at a panel and someone was asking "what are some speculations about what we could see at the FCC", it would be perfectly fine to go on about SUSY and dark matter detection and axions and whatever else. But this has no place whatsoever in official documents about the scientific purpose of allocating billions of euros to this project. It is blatant speculation to pad out an otherwise pretty thin motivation. It's like writing a proposal for a new build system at your company and including speculation that it might detect security vulnerabilities automatically, or it might reduce build times a hundred fold.
You are being extremely disingenuous. The aim of the FCC is very explicitly to be a bigger hadron-hadron collider than the LHC. The FCC-ee that you mention is presented in all of CERNs papers as an intermediate goal, a use for the gigantic tunnel they'll need for the FCC-hh (the FCC), while the technology for actually doing the most important work is being developed [0].
What's more, much of CERN's own literature on the FCC references fanciful ideas like finding WIMPs, "ruling out many classes of dark matter particles", finding/limiting the search space for axions, or in general, putting boundaries on theories that have no specific basis and no fundamental bounds on their parameters beyond "we havent found them yet, so they can't be this large/small/strongly interacting/etc". Here you'll find at least some claims currently up on CERN's FCC site about probing dark matter [1].
[0] https://fcc.web.cern.ch/overview
> A key recommendation of the 2020 update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics is that Europe, in collaboration with the worldwide particle physics community, should undertake a feasibility study for a next-generation hadron collider. (emp. mine)
> The goal of the FCC is to push the energy and intensity frontiers of particle colliders, with the aim of reaching collision energies of 100 TeV in the search for new physics.
[1] https://fcc.web.cern.ch/physics
> However there is a very broad class of models for which theory motivates dark matter candidates with masses in the range of GeV to few tens of TeV. The FCC would break new ground in the search for dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles, by covering a wide array of potential signals predicted by either production of dark matter, or production of the particles mediating its interactions with ordinary matter. FCC-ee and FCC-hh offer complementary ways to search for dark matter that could consist of lighter particles (i.e. sterile neutrinos) or could be produced in the decays of the Higgs boson.
What's more, much of CERN's own literature on the FCC references fanciful ideas like finding WIMPs, "ruling out many classes of dark matter particles", finding/limiting the search space for axions, or in general, putting boundaries on theories that have no specific basis and no fundamental bounds on their parameters beyond "we havent found them yet, so they can't be this large/small/strongly interacting/etc". Here you'll find at least some claims currently up on CERN's FCC site about probing dark matter [1].
[0] https://fcc.web.cern.ch/overview
> A key recommendation of the 2020 update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics is that Europe, in collaboration with the worldwide particle physics community, should undertake a feasibility study for a next-generation hadron collider. (emp. mine)
> The goal of the FCC is to push the energy and intensity frontiers of particle colliders, with the aim of reaching collision energies of 100 TeV in the search for new physics.
[1] https://fcc.web.cern.ch/physics
> However there is a very broad class of models for which theory motivates dark matter candidates with masses in the range of GeV to few tens of TeV. The FCC would break new ground in the search for dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles, by covering a wide array of potential signals predicted by either production of dark matter, or production of the particles mediating its interactions with ordinary matter. FCC-ee and FCC-hh offer complementary ways to search for dark matter that could consist of lighter particles (i.e. sterile neutrinos) or could be produced in the decays of the Higgs boson.
I was just about to post this. Good to see another Sabine listener here. Her criticism of particle physics, the LHC, and academia is absolutely savage.
I was a physics student back when the SSC was cancelled. At the time it seemed like a terrible decision but years on I’m not sure the expense was worth it. In the end I think it worked out and was a good call to let the Europeans fund CERN and find the Higgs. I’m very pro science but I’ve come to a point where I’m asking is the juice worth the squeeze? I think beyond Higgs the juice is becoming harder to justify.
The answer for particle physics can’t be to build larger and larger circular machines. Rather that money would be better spent on accelerator research to enable smaller more practical machines at high energies. Such machines may have some practical spinoff uses such as how FNAL offers neutron therapy.
The answer for particle physics can’t be to build larger and larger circular machines. Rather that money would be better spent on accelerator research to enable smaller more practical machines at high energies. Such machines may have some practical spinoff uses such as how FNAL offers neutron therapy.
It doesn't feel ambitious enough to me. Spend 10s of billions to get a less than 10x energy about 40 years after LHC reached its peak. Also planning of the next one should have happened while the last one was being commissioned to avoid the huge gap between them.
There are those who wants to go larger, by building a submerged collider[1] in the area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico which could do 500 TeV.
Using established technology from offshore industry it's supposedly not as crazy nor costly as one might first imagine.
There was a nice and fairly accessible talk[2] given at Perimeter Institute, which gave some background and went into this and the FCC.
[1]: https://arl.physics.tamu.edu/research/collider-in-the-sea/
[2]: https://pirsa.org/20100056
Using established technology from offshore industry it's supposedly not as crazy nor costly as one might first imagine.
There was a nice and fairly accessible talk[2] given at Perimeter Institute, which gave some background and went into this and the FCC.
[1]: https://arl.physics.tamu.edu/research/collider-in-the-sea/
[2]: https://pirsa.org/20100056
The link mentions 100 meters depth. Without being an expert that sounds deep enough to withstand hurricanes and such.
However 100m depth? For a structure _that_ size, which I think might contain high vacuum, let alone systems that might need humans to service when they break? What is the feasibility of that problem?
However 100m depth? For a structure _that_ size, which I think might contain high vacuum, let alone systems that might need humans to service when they break? What is the feasibility of that problem?
As mentioned in the linked presentation, they envision using interconnected 300m (1000ft) long segments that can be changed using ROVs, using technology that's already available for underwater pipelines.
Also mentioned is that the LHC cryostats, some nice illustrations here[1], are very nearly neutrally buoyant. Given these would be built similarly, they wouldn't need significant infrastructure to keep them in place.
So no humans would need to go down there, if something breaks they could just replace the broken segment(s) and fix the broken one(s) on the surface.
[1]: https://cas.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/lectures/bilbao-...
Also mentioned is that the LHC cryostats, some nice illustrations here[1], are very nearly neutrally buoyant. Given these would be built similarly, they wouldn't need significant infrastructure to keep them in place.
So no humans would need to go down there, if something breaks they could just replace the broken segment(s) and fix the broken one(s) on the surface.
[1]: https://cas.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/lectures/bilbao-...
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"So no humans would need to go down there, if something breaks they could just replace the broken segment(s) and fix the broken one(s) on the surface."
This frankly is not possible. Colliders need constant maintenance. The "Collider in the Sea" is not a real proposal.
This frankly is not possible. Colliders need constant maintenance. The "Collider in the Sea" is not a real proposal.
Presumably the plan would be you're actually building a the collider tunnel much like CERN under water, so effectively a very long pressure structure. This...probably isn't super-unreasonable for a static structure where you avoid the cost of excavation - i.e. it depends on how different in diameter from something like the Nordstream pipelines you'd be going.
9dev(2)
You're assuming two things here.
The first unfounded assumption is that, regardless of what the LHC found, there was always going to be a need for a larger collider of the same design. This is clearly false - the design of the FCC (for better and worse) is specifically geared to confirming or probing various discrepancies that the LHC found, and to finding things that the LHC was hoped to find that didn't pan out. If the LHC had found SUSY partners or WIMPs, or if it found no conflict with theory whatsoever, the next accelerator might have had a radically different design.
Secondly, you're assuming that it's possible to build a collider that has (significantly) higher power than that with foreseeable technologies. The reality is that we are very close to the limits of what seems achievable in terms of particle accelerators, and per the people at CERN, even this 6x increase in collision energy will require ~40 years of research to be achieved. And the collider we need to probe regimes where we really have good scientific reasons to believe will reveal new physics (i.e. the regimes where we know the standard model breaks down) is not 15x or even 100x higher: even a collider buried around the entire equator wouldn't get anywhere close, we'd need a collider the size of the solar system to actually probe these regimes. So going 6x or 10x or 50x is irrelevant, unless you're looking for some very specific technicalities, like they are at the FCC.
The first unfounded assumption is that, regardless of what the LHC found, there was always going to be a need for a larger collider of the same design. This is clearly false - the design of the FCC (for better and worse) is specifically geared to confirming or probing various discrepancies that the LHC found, and to finding things that the LHC was hoped to find that didn't pan out. If the LHC had found SUSY partners or WIMPs, or if it found no conflict with theory whatsoever, the next accelerator might have had a radically different design.
Secondly, you're assuming that it's possible to build a collider that has (significantly) higher power than that with foreseeable technologies. The reality is that we are very close to the limits of what seems achievable in terms of particle accelerators, and per the people at CERN, even this 6x increase in collision energy will require ~40 years of research to be achieved. And the collider we need to probe regimes where we really have good scientific reasons to believe will reveal new physics (i.e. the regimes where we know the standard model breaks down) is not 15x or even 100x higher: even a collider buried around the entire equator wouldn't get anywhere close, we'd need a collider the size of the solar system to actually probe these regimes. So going 6x or 10x or 50x is irrelevant, unless you're looking for some very specific technicalities, like they are at the FCC.
They did start planning around then. I don’t remember the exact date of when the FCC working group officially convened but they’ve been working on it at least since I was a grad student in the early 2010s.
How much of this kinda stuff is also about lithography etc? re: https://medium.com/@thechinaacademy/china-may-be-constructin...
I know FCC is firmly science, but curious: does it help in this area of tech also?
I know FCC is firmly science, but curious: does it help in this area of tech also?
I remember seeing a thread from a guy from ASML about this, he clearly said that any academic use is a lucky by-effect; China is building this to obsolete ASML for chip manufacturing.
What surprises me the most is the cost. This is considered to be one of the most expensive endeavors in science… but the first stage costs just about a billion a year?
Jeff Bezos (or any other billionaire) could pay for the whole of it, and it would be like me going for a coffee. The yearly cost is 1% of what DOGE allegedly saved, three Marvel movies, and less than the GDP of San Marino.
If one of the costliest ever scientific enterprises is this cheap, how many scientific advances are we leaving on the table? It makes me extremely sad.
*Disclaimer: I enjoy Marvel movies and don't particularly believe DOGE claims about saved money. But I wanted to give some scale of what a billion francs (now about 1.2 billion USD) are.
Jeff Bezos (or any other billionaire) could pay for the whole of it, and it would be like me going for a coffee. The yearly cost is 1% of what DOGE allegedly saved, three Marvel movies, and less than the GDP of San Marino.
If one of the costliest ever scientific enterprises is this cheap, how many scientific advances are we leaving on the table? It makes me extremely sad.
*Disclaimer: I enjoy Marvel movies and don't particularly believe DOGE claims about saved money. But I wanted to give some scale of what a billion francs (now about 1.2 billion USD) are.
Being a project manager for such an endeavour must be both thrilling and traumatic. I've only worked in small projects with a handful of stakeholders, I just can't imagine how all of this works when scaled 1000x.
I feel like with all the silly things humans do, every remotely feasible physics experiment should be top priority on getting funding and attention. Isn't finding out how the universe works, by far, the only thing that matters?
This is such a privileged "I dont have real problems" take its hilarious.
i’d imagine food shelter and dignified employment rank just a little higher.
in terms of higher-order needs, meaningful connection and love are quite a bit more important to me.
in terms of higher-order needs, meaningful connection and love are quite a bit more important to me.
> food shelter and dignified employment
None of those are technological or even theoretical problems, tho. We (humanity as a whole) thoroughly understand all of them. Whatever your post meant with listing them is stemming from politics more than scientific understanding. I don't think there's a politician's head collider out there, but maybe we should build one.
None of those are technological or even theoretical problems, tho. We (humanity as a whole) thoroughly understand all of them. Whatever your post meant with listing them is stemming from politics more than scientific understanding. I don't think there's a politician's head collider out there, but maybe we should build one.
Resource allocation is political
there was a scene in SG-1 where O'Neill locks up a bunch of aliens in a room and said they would not be released until they came to some agreement.
I always thought there should be a religious army with the entire world's military might, who's central tenet is that they do and decide nothing except enforce what the nations decide - and the nations get to decide in any way they want except violence - but they may choose a champion on each side of a divide, and the champions may hold a knife fight to the death. the army would then enforce the deal of the winner's side.
I always thought there should be a religious army with the entire world's military might, who's central tenet is that they do and decide nothing except enforce what the nations decide - and the nations get to decide in any way they want except violence - but they may choose a champion on each side of a divide, and the champions may hold a knife fight to the death. the army would then enforce the deal of the winner's side.
Yes, but it needs some rebranding / reframing. We should declare a global war on the universe and spend all the military budget on research and development to exploit its secrets.
>every remotely feasible physics experiment should be top priority on getting funding and attention.
There are innumerable "feasible" experiments, far exceeding global GDP.
>Isn't finding out how the universe works, by far, the only thing that matters?
Is trying to maximize our understanding of a small part of physics really the best way to go about this. Is it even more important than curing cancer.
There are innumerable "feasible" experiments, far exceeding global GDP.
>Isn't finding out how the universe works, by far, the only thing that matters?
Is trying to maximize our understanding of a small part of physics really the best way to go about this. Is it even more important than curing cancer.
Is there any particular reason why they keep building colliders with ever increasing diamaters, instead of going vertical? If we can create magnetic fields strong & precise enough to force particles into a very large loop, surely we can bend the loop upwards ever so slightly and gain additional distance by coiling the collider like a spring?
Seems like an insane amount of tunnels is always needed for these things, which is obviously expensive and labour intensive.
Seems like an insane amount of tunnels is always needed for these things, which is obviously expensive and labour intensive.
For scale: The LHC has more than 11km diameter and the deepest mine we have built is 4km. Adding vertical distance is much harder than making the diameter of the circular tunnel larger.
I worded that poorly, I didn't mean to say that the entire distance should be covered vertically, but rather that a second loop could be wound on top of the first.
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It always blows my mind to see the anti-intelectualism of HN.
nullbio(1)
Personally I'm interested in their proposal about how they are going to approach software (Section 8). They plan to provide experiment agnostic and unified framework that is actually unified and user accessible. The field really need something like that, it is usually the pain point of most junior graduate student. The field suck at documentation and keep coherent software and write code in a bad way most of the time. I think they can have much better framework than Fermilab's art [2].
[1] https://cds.cern.ch/record/2928193
[2] https://art.fnal.gov/