God Particle Detected at CERN

foxyboxer

So if governments use these road maps to for example cure cancer, can those particle physicists be given a timeframe for it's completion as we assume that cancer research will eat up funds?

Or say the world decides to create a renewable energy source which may take half a century with 100% devotion to that goal?

Are physicists expected to mill around tapping their feet impatiently awaiting a go ahead to continue on as they don't need funding because "we know enough about physics".

Is it that black and white?

Enkidu

opinion guy wrote: »

First off I'm not aying to cancel anything. I believe now it is started it should be continued. I question the decision to start in the first place. But fair enough - go ahead and fund TOTEM and LHCb. That would be cheaper and as you point out may have practical application. But then that leaves us with ATLAS to find the Higgs. Forget that. No payback thats justifies the outlaw at the current time.

Isn't ALICE also useful? Understanding quark-gluon plasma would allow us access to a completely unexplored phase of nuclear matter, I think the small investment in that compared to the potential payoff is worth it.

opinion guy

Enkidu wrote: »

Isn't ALICE also useful? Understanding quark-gluon plasma would allow us access to a completely unexplored phase of nuclear matter, I think the small investment in that compared to the potential payoff is worth it.

How is it useful ? What are the applications ? How does it benefit the taxpayer on the street who is paying for it.

BeefyS

very exciting news.
the only problem I see is certain religious groups getting angry about the fact that god(s) are made up. I can't complain though! god is important dammit! (currently reading Atlas Shrugged ya see )

foxyboxer

opinion guy wrote: »

How is it useful ? What are the applications ? How does it benefit the taxpayer on the street who is paying for it.

How is the International Space Station useful? What benefit does it have for me?

How is the Hubble Telescope useful? No benefit to me.

Mickeroo

opinion guy wrote: »

How is it useful ? What are the applications ? How does it benefit the taxpayer on the street who is paying for it.

I really don't understand your line of thinking. It may not benefit the tax payer now but who knows how it could and most likely will in the future, and again its only a miniscule portion of peoples taxes that go into it. Very few, if any scientific discoveries benefited th tax payer instantaineously. Expanding our knowledge as much as possible is the best defence we have against unforseen problems in the future.

opinion guy

BeefyS wrote: »

very exciting news.
the only problem I see is certain religious groups getting angry about the fact that god(s) are made up. I can't complain though! god is important dammit! (currently reading Atlas Shrugged ya see )

Yeah I really wish they would stop using the God particle nickname. Asking for trouble. Apparently Higgs himself dislikes it being an atheist.

foxyboxer wrote: »

How is the International Space Station useful? What benefit does it have for me?

How is the Hubble Telescope useful? No benefit to me.

NOT THE SAME THING.

Seriously are you trolling ? Or being intentionally obtuse ? You keep throwing up random tech and sciences examples that aren't remotely relatd to the LHC

foxyboxer

opinion guy wrote: »

Yeah I really wish they would stop using the God particle nickname. Asking for trouble. Apparently Higgs himself dislikes it being an atheist.




NOT THE SAME THING.

Seriously are you trolling ? Or being intentionally obtuse ? You keep throwing up random tech and sciences examples that aren't remotely relatd to the LHC

Trolling, me? They are related because they are 2 scientific endeavours which have no tangible benefit to the tax payer. Should they be decommissioned immediately because of that? The LHC is built and is functioning, so why is it a problem? The money has been spent.

skelliser

opinion guy wrote: »

NOT THE SAME THING.

the International space station has cost iirc over 150billion dollars so far.

is that a waste?

what are the tangible benefits to the taxpayer?

are you an idiot?

Enkidu

opinion guy wrote: »

How is it useful ? What are the applications ? How does it benefit the taxpayer on the street who is paying for it.

First of all, you seem to not so much have an objection to the LHC, as to funding any scientific endevour which explores the unknown, as it may or may not pay off. I don't really know if this is a sensible position, as your options are much more limited if you investigate things only when you know they will pay off.

Also one does not need to have need direct benefits, the previous generation of detectors lead to:
1. The improvement of statistical methods used across the sciences.
2. Improved imaging techniques which have been useful in biomedical research.
3. Improved software for analysing large data sets using conventional statistical methods.
4. Improvements in positron emission tomography useful in cancer treatment.

All of this from the "useless" search for the W+, W- and Z0 bosons.

Jopari87

opinion guy wrote: »

How is it useful ? What are the applications ? How does it benefit the taxpayer on the street who is paying for it.

As none of us can predict the future who knows what research will be useful and what won't. The US thought Star Wars and remote viewing during the cold war was useful, and now we realise it was a waste.

All sciences feed off each other and, who knows, for some esoteric reason a spin off from the LHC might help cure cancer.

I understand your point about other areas where the money could be used, but as others have said medical research, famine relief etc. are already getting money. It's not an either or situation. Also there are no guarantees that the 7 bn invested elsewhere would have any tangible benefit.

FootShooter

Here's what Stephen Hawking had to say about the LHC back in 2008 and if it's worth the 7 billion:

Throughout history, people have studied pure science from a desire to understand the universe, rather than practical applications for commercial gain. But their discoveries later turned out to have great practical benefits.
It is difficult to see an economic return from research at the LHC, but that doesn't mean there wont be any.

Both the LHC and the Space program are vital if the human race is not to stultify and eventually die out. Together they cost less than one tenth of a per cent of world GDP. If the human race can not afford this, then it doesn't deserve the epithet 'human'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7598000/7598686.stm

opinion guy

foxyboxer wrote: »

Trolling, me? They are related because they are 2 scientific endeavours which have no tangible benefit to the tax payer. Should they be decommissioned immediately because of that? The LHC is built and is functioning, so why is it a problem? The money has been spent.

I've have said more than once its already started so I should be finished. I'm not in favour of cancelling it. That would be even more wasteful.

skelliser wrote: »

the International space station has cost iirc over 150billion dollars so far.

is that a waste?

what are the tangible benefits to the taxpayer?

are you an idiot?

No. The space program is tremendously useful. I never said it wasn't.

Oh - reported for personal abuse by the way.


There's alot of stuff thats come up on this page that I've already answered. Please read the thread. I'm done repeating myself.

Turtwig

I'm late to this thread and in all honesty I rarely bother my arse in posting in After hours but this one did catch my eye.

The core objection with the LHC here seems to be that we should be focusing directly on research with instant pragmatic value e.g something like cancer. There is one key problem here : We haven't yet found a cure for cancer. The classic and probably over used analogy at this stage is one that was presented by Schrodinger*. Imagine an engineer unaware of Maxwell and Faraday's laws of Electromagnetics asked to fix/improve/explain an electric motor, how would s/he do it? How exactly would they research it using only the Laws of Newton Mechanics and some limited understanding of statistical principles? Now imagine a more relevant scenario where the only access to electric motors is in arrays of billions upon billions of motors that constitute complicate machines. Would spending billions of euros into researching machines made of billions motors that we understand almost entirely the wrong way ever be enough? Possibly. But it would be much easier if we just let Maxwell and Faraday do their stuff. Sure it may not reap rewards within their own life cycle. Science rarely does that for any us, but until the advent of Maxwell's modification to ampere's law I'd bet those machines would just have an infinite number of papers published about them citing slight percentages increases here and there, when some factor or other was changed when compared to a control. Hopefully you'll appreciate that you if replace the electric motor with cancer just how much of a gamble all that cancer research actually is.

Cancer may very well be an emergent property of some entirely different and unexpected phenomena that we are presently ignorant to. If you don't do the esoteric experiments you may never ever understand how it works or find a cure for it. (And that is ignoring all possible spin offs that may arise that help towards detecting it and curing it!) For all we know the mechanisms which we use to describe molecular interactions might all be wrong. Until you run the experiment you may never know how wrong you actually are. And, the golden rule in science is that you are never right. Core experiments like the LHC are ultimately the best yardstick to measure and make progress with.

* This is not an argument from authority I merely use it because I think he made an excellent explanation as to why esoteric experiments and theories are important and not giving him the credit would be wrong.:)

headmaster

FootShooter wrote: »

Here's what Stephen Hawking had to say about the LHC back in 2008 and if it's worth the 7 billion:

"Together they cost less than one tenth of a per cent of world GDP".

Footshooter,
Hawking certainly loves using words, always did. How many people would just say, o.1%. He does waffle on and i'd imagine if you asked 99.99% of the worlds population if they knew anything he ever said, the answer would be, no, not a clue. Tells us something, doesn't it?

Dimithy

headmaster wrote: »

FootShooter wrote: »

Here's what Stephen Hawking had to say about the LHC back in 2008 and if it's worth the 7 billion:

"Together they cost less than one tenth of a per cent of world GDP".

Footshooter,
Hawking certainly loves using words, always did. How many people would just say, o.1%. He does waffle on and i'd imagine if you asked 99.99% of the worlds population if they knew anything he ever said, the answer would be, no, not a clue. Tells us something, doesn't it?

Not really.
The fact that most of those people may not have access to anything he has said, or are too busy starving or trying to feed their families to keep up with what a world renowned scientist says means absolutely nothing in the context of this thread.
I suppose the countries involved in financing the LHC could have divided the 7 billion amongst the poor of the world equally. Its not like these countries already give money in the form of aid to various third world countries.

Stop calling it the God Particle, for the love of God. :pac:

Cú Giobach

headmaster wrote: »

Hawking certainly loves using words, always did. How many people would just say, o.1%. He does waffle on and i'd imagine if you asked 99.99% of the worlds population if they knew anything he ever said, the answer would be, no, not a clue. Tells us something, doesn't it?

Your comments (here and in the astronomy forum) certainly tell us something, that is, you know bugger all about physics, and are one of these people who if they can't understand something, naively think it is a load of rubbish.
So who should people listen to, you or someone who knows what they are talking about?

FootShooter

headmaster wrote: »

]
Footshooter,
Hawking certainly loves using words, always did. How many people would just say, o.1%. He does waffle on and i'd imagine if you asked 99.99% of the worlds population if they knew anything he ever said, the answer would be, no, not a clue. Tells us something, doesn't it?

Well, I checked, and the World GDP was roughly around $60 trillion in 2008. And 5-6 billion, which was the cost estimate in 2008, is not surprisingly, roughly 0.1% of 60 trillion. Hawking is one person I certainly would listen to when expressing himself about stuff. One of the most brilliant minds of the 20th and 21st century.

The only thing that tells us is that most people are ignorant and don't care about this sort of stuff, or don't have access to information about what he's talking about. Most people have probably not even heard of him. And how did you end up on 99.99%? The majority is not always right. "A million flies can't be wrong - eat ****."