Anyone Else Staying Up For The CERN Announcement About The Higgs Boson Tonight?

[kentonio]

Why would I "admit" that practical applications are being held up when there are none?

Let's recall what you actually said..

When is the Higgs Boson going to lead to any of those things? If it won't for another hundred years then why build a giant collider now instead of in fifty or eighty years?

That is the position I'm arguing against, the illogical idea that you can just delay work and yet somehow expect to receive the rewards without any delay.

[giblets]

It's not illogical. If the rewards won't be available for say another hundred years why would delaying the basic science for another fifty years cause any problems? If the work currently has no rewards then there is nothing to delay. You subscribe to the illogical idea that we can delay something which does not exist.

[giblets]

If we're going to spend money on stuff that won't be useful for a long time, why not a rhinoceros genome project? Who knows, maybe we'll have a useful application for that within the next thousand years. If you don't want your tax money to pay for that then you are illogically trying to delay the unknown benefits of understanding rhinoceros genetics.

[kentonio]

It's not illogical. If the rewards won't be available for say another hundred years why would delaying the basic science for another fifty years cause any problems?

This feels like quite simple maths. If something is going to take 100 years before paying dividends and you choose to not start the project for 50 years, then you're not going to get the dividends in 100 years, you're going to have to wait 150 years.

If the work currently has no rewards then there is nothing to delay. You subscribe to the illogical idea that we can delay something which does not exist.

As said repeatedly now, the rewards of research are not always predictable.

If we're going to spend money on stuff that won't be useful for a long time, why not a rhinoceros genome project? Who knows, maybe we'll have a useful application for that within the next thousand years. If you don't want your tax money to pay for that then you are illogically trying to delay the unknown benefits of understanding rhinoceros genetics.

Is there a huge swathe of the scientific community who think that a rhinoceros genome project would be a great advance for science above other projects? Projects like LHC don't just happen because some crazy guy decides it would be cool, they come about because large numbers of people who actually understand that **** think it would be beneficial.

[Kuciwalker]

so let me get this straight: Kuciwalker thinks that six billion dollars is a lot money compared to the economic output of the entire world?

Hardly. It's still a huge waste of money.

[Kuciwalker]

This feels like quite simple maths. If something is going to take 100 years before paying dividends and you choose to not start the project for 50 years, then you're not going to get the dividends in 100 years, you're going to have to wait 150 years.

No. Per your example, it will be 100 years before this could pay dividends regardless of whether we discover it now or in 50 years.

[giblets]

This feels like quite simple maths. If something is going to take 100 years before paying dividends and you choose to not start the project for 50 years, then you're not going to get the dividends in 100 years, you're going to have to wait 150 years.

No. The lack of a giant collider isn't what prevents a giant collider from being useful. The problem is other areas of knowledge are not nearly advanced enough yet.

As said repeatedly now, the rewards of research are not always predictable.

As said before, unpredictable rewards aren't a basis for preferring one use of money over another. If those billions had been left in the private sector, who knows what people would have come up with.

Is there a huge swathe of the scientific community who think that a rhinoceros genome project would be a great advance for science above other projects? Projects like LHC don't just happen because some crazy guy decides it would be cool, they come about because large numbers of people who actually understand that **** think it would be beneficial.

No one has a vested interest in the rhinoceros project because biologists have better things to do and physicists wouldn't be involved. Physicists don't necessarily request billions for an experimental apparatus out of some altruistic impulse. Spending billions to domesticate the rhinoceros would probably be a less wasteful use of money than confirming the existence of the Higgs Boson. At least we could have rhino races, what the heck are we supposed to do with a Higgs Boson now that we found it?

[notyoueither]

Scientific discovery tends to build on previous gains.

It may well take time for a discovery to be absorbed and the implications to become evident.

[Elok]

Not being a physicist, I can't conceive of any application for the HB regardless of technology. I guess, if it's the reason particles have mass...could we tinker with gravity somehow, in a century or two when we can tinker with such doodads directly and economically? Beats me. If it's a choice between funding the LHC, because it could theoretically let us do something amazing-ish depending on the results and the way research goes in the distant future, or funding something with more immediate promise, I'd go for the latter.

[Wiglaf]

Thanks for that post

[notyoueither]

I'm going to agree with Jon.

I'm for spending a certain limited amount on basic science and allowing those most knowledgeable in the fields to influence how to spend the cash.

[notyoueither]

Likely to be terrible journalism, but FWIW:
news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/05/higgs-boson-find-could-make-light-speed-travel-possible-scientists-hope/

Higgs boson find could make light-speed travel possible, scientists say

National Post Wire Services Jul 5, 2012 – 5:36 PM ET | Last Updated: Jul 6, 2012 5:15 PM ET

The potential discovery of the Higgs boson is a gateway to a new era that could see humanity unlock some of the universe’s great mysteries, including dark matter and light-speed travel, scientists have claimed.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) unveiled data from the Large Hadron Collider Wednesday “consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson,” an elusive particle thought to help explain why matter has mass.

Scientists went into a frenzy following the announcement, speculating that it could one day make light-speed travel possible by “un-massing” objects or allow huge items to be launched into space by “switching off” the Higgs.

CERN scientist Albert de Roeck likened it to the discovery of electricity, when he said humanity could never have imagined its future applications.

“What’s really important for the Higgs is that it explains how the world could be the way that it is in the first millionth of a second in the Big Bang,” de Roeck said.

“Can we apply it to something? At this moment my imagination is too small to do that.”

Physicist Ray Volkas said “almost everybody” was hoping that, rather than fitting the so-called Standard Model of physics — a theory explaining how particles fit together in the Universe — the Higgs boson would prove to be “something a bit different.”

“If that was the case that would point to all sorts of new physics — physics that might have something to do with dark matter,” he said, referring to the hypothetical invisible matter thought to make up much of the universe.

“It could be, for example, that the Higgs particle acts as a bridge between ordinary matter, which makes up atoms, and dark matter, which we know is a very important component of the universe.”

“That would have really fantastic implications for understanding all of the matter in the universe, not just ordinary atoms,” he added.

De Roeck said scrutinizing the new particle and determining whether it supported something other than the Standard Model would be the next step for CERN scientists.

Clarification could be expected by the beginning of 2013. Definitive proof that it fitted the Standard Model could take until 2015 when the LHC had more power and could harvest more data.

The LHC is due to go offline for a two-year refit in December that will see its firepower doubled to 14 trillion electronvolts — a huge step forward in the search for new particles and clues about what holds them all together.

De Roeck said he would find it a “little boring at the end if it turns out that this is just the Standard Model Higgs.”

Instead, he was hoping it would be a “gateway or a portal to new physics, to new theories which are actually running nature” such as supersymmetry, which hypothesizes that there are five different Higgs particles governing mass.

The hunt for the Higgs — the logical next step of which de Roeck said would be searching for, and eventually being able to produce, dark matter particles — has already had huge benefits to medicine and technology.

Volkas said the Internet was born at CERN as a solution to high-volume data-sharing and other major spin-offs were likely to follow as physicists continued to “push the boundaries of pure science”.

“We just want to know how the world works, but in order to answer those questions you have to develop new technologies,” he said.

Funding for particle physics is already under scrutiny in North America, where the LHC’s predecessor, the Illinois-based Tevatron run by Fermilab, was closed late last year due to financial constraints.

Fermilab director Pier Oddone said money was a “big, big issue” threatening progress in the United States and he hoped the Higgs discovery would spur greater funding from U.S. agencies and Congress.

“What I would hope is that this excitement, this focus of the world’s attention on this discovery, will actually help a lot in stimulating and reestablishing particle physics in North America,” Oddone said.

De Roeck said there were similar problems in Europe, where physicists will meet in September to discuss research priorities for the next 20 years and whether they need and can afford an accelerator after the LHC.

“That is going to be a tough fight,” he said. “Despite this momentous moment we have now, it doesn’t necessarily bring the funding which one would require.”

He urged governments and other key contributors to see fundamental science as a “must” rather than a luxury.

“This is the only way we can actually move on and have a deeper understanding of how things work. It can only be in our benefit exploring that.”

Step aside, Al Gore.

Otherwise, I am interested to know about the 'huge benefits to medicine and technology.'

[DinoDoc]

The Higgs Boson and You

Q. What exactly is a Higgs boson, and why all this fuss?

A. Essentially, it’s an eentsy-teensy-weensy particle — we’re talking small here — that contains the answers to how the universe came about, including whether God was involved. As for the “fuss,” the CERN laboratory in Geneva, where the particle was discovered, spent $10 billion on its Large Hadron Collider. Over the last two years, 800 trillion (give or take) proton-proton collisions have been performed, which works out to — what? — maybe not so much per collision, but 10 billion is still 10 billion. For that kind of dough, you expect more bang for your buck than, “Ja, ja, we’re working on it, go away!” Physicists — spare me.

Q. How did they discover it?

A. It’s not rocket science, O.K.? Basically, two guys with Ph.D.’s, one Swiss and one from some other country — they don’t have to speak the same language or even get along — stand in this really long tunnel near Geneva and fire protons at each other. When the little bell on top of the Large Hadron Collider goes ding-a-ling, presto, there’s your Higgs boson, in the in-box. But then you need this ginormous magnifying glass to find the little bugger. Anyway, they did. Finally!

Q. Why is it so expensive?

A. The bell is handmade. And the magnifying glass must be made out of melted diamonds or something. They practically fainted when they got the bill for that. Then there’s the tunnel, and they’re not cheap. Then there’s the tanning salon bills for the Ph.D.’s, who have to spend their lives in tunnels. Then there was this huge kerfuffle a few years ago, with these whack-job groups suing CERN, saying it was going to create a black hole that would suck the entire solar system into it, like Jabba the Hutt and endo-finito, human life, as we know it. (Do you believe?) So CERN had to go to court to get that thrown out, and if you think lawyers in the United States are expensive, try Swiss particle-physics lawyers. Talk about black holes. So it all adds up, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Q. According to the news reports, all the scientists involved were drinking Champagne when the Higgs boson particle was found, leading to jokes that it should be called the “Hic boson.” Does drinking help in particle physics?

A. Up to a point. CERN was embarrassed a while back by news reports that the two Ph.D. dudes were firing Champagne corks at each other instead of protons. Some scientists defended the practice, saying that Champagne corks are a lot more practical — and more fun — to shoot than protons. But who knows? Bottom line — they found the sucker. Everyone’s happy.

Q. Will there be “spinoffs” from the discovery, as there were with the space program?

A. CERN will soon announce a Higgs boson-flavored powdered breakfast drink. But historically, the Food and Drug Administration has been wary of drinks derived from the debris of primordial fireballs left after proton collisions, so don’t expect it at a supermarket near you any time soon.

Q. Will the discovery affect everyday life?

A. Well, duhhh.

Q. Hey, I’m not a science-y person, O.K.?

A. Sorry. The answer is absolutely. Sort of. Well, yes and no.

Q. Can you be like a little more specific?

A. For starters, you’re going to be hearing the phrase “Higgs boson” about 800 trillion times. You’ll be at a cocktail party talking about the Kardashians and someone will say, “OMG, Higgs boson!” and you’ll go, “No, no, no — please, no more with the Higgs boson.” So there’s that. Plus this Halloween, every other trick-or-treater is going to be dressed as — guess what? — the Higgs boson. What else? Ten bucks says Al Gore claims he discovered it. Another 10 says Mitt Romney picks it as his running mate. Romney-Higgs boson. Dream ticket. So, yes, it’s going to affect your everyday life. My advice? Deal with it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/op...u.html?_r=1&hp
Quick and dirty summary for the less science-y among us.

[DaShi]

I thought about posting that, until I saw how horribly unfunny it was.

[Guynemer]

When has that ever stopped you in the past?