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posted by mrpg on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the cheap dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

China unveils design for $5 billion particle smasher

The center of gravity in high energy physics could move to Asia if either of two grand plans is realized. At a workshop here last week, Chinese scientists unveiled the full conceptual design for the proposed Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), a $5 billion machine to tackle the next big challenge in particle physics: studying the Higgs boson. (Part of the design was published in the summer.) Now, they’re ready to develop detailed plans, start construction in 2022, and launch operations around 2030—if the Chinese government agrees to fund it.

Meanwhile, Japan’s government is due to decide by the end of December whether to host an equally costly machine to study the Higgs, the International Linear Collider (ILC). How Japan’s decision might affect China’s, which is a few years away, is unclear. But it seems increasingly likely that most of the future action around the Higgs will be in Asia. Proposed “Higgs factories” in Europe are decades away and the United States has no serious plans.

The Higgs boson, key to explaining how other particles gain mass, was discovered at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, in 2012—more than 40 years after being theoretically predicted. Now, scientists want to confirm the particle’s properties, how it interacts with other particles, and whether it contributes to dark matter. Having only mass but no spin and no charge, the Higgs is really a “new kind of elementary particle” that is both “a special part of the standard model” and a “harbinger of some profound new principles,” says Nima Arkani-Hamed, a theorist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Answering the most important questions in particle physics today “involves studying the Higgs to death,” he says.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:24PM (11 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:24PM (#763553)

    Answering the most important questions in particle physics today “involves studying the Higgs to death"

    Really??

    I'd rather say that current experiments disproved so many theories (by not finding any particles/effects at high energies) that theoreticians are by now pretty much out of ideas. The old ideas keep getting confirmed more exactly than ever before, but they _still_ won't fit together, just as they have for 50 years now. The only thing that _hasn't_ been studied to death yet is the higgs, simply because it was only found a few years ago. So let's study that for a while in the hop that someone has an idea .... nope, not gonna work, the epicycles didn't work out so well either.

    We are currently getting a disturbing glimpse of how the world felt before Einstein's triple whammy of photoelectric effect, special and general relativity.

    I just hope that the next big thing is still found during my lifetime, because I'd sure like to see that new idea. It's gonna be soooooo strange!

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:28PM (7 children)

    by Gaaark (41) on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:28PM (#763569) Journal

    Answering the most important questions in particle physics today “involves studying the Higgs to death"

    Or... just making 'science' up as you go as in Dark Matter.

    "We could either study this like crazy or we could just .... ummmm..... DARK MATTER! Oh yeeeah!"
    Yup...pretty much out of ideas...and scientific theory.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:18PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:18PM (#763635)

      I'm not a fan of dark matter but the problem we observe is that galaxies behave as if they have more matter generating gravity than we are able to observe. Since we can't find any problem with the theories it is reasonable to assume there might be something else out there.

      Besides, people have still been trying to find new theories. Every theory is a bunch of nonsense until it is proven, that is the scientific process at work.

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday November 19 2018, @12:24AM

        by Gaaark (41) on Monday November 19 2018, @12:24AM (#763682) Journal

        Except dark matter has no scientific process attached to it: you have to arbitrarily add dark matter to each and every galaxy by hand.

        To make this galaxy not fly apart we need to add, let's see...100 dark matters....no...250, no 234 dark matters!

        But THIS galaxy takes 234....no...259.....no...421....no...420.5....close, do we'll say 420.3 dark matters.

        No scientific process at all, just hand waving. Too much money is being pumped into 'magic'.

        I think this guy is MUCH closer to the scientific process:
        https://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

        His equation actually fits without arbitrariness and hand waving.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @04:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @04:46AM (#763795)

        the problem we observe is that galaxies behave as if they have more matter generating gravity than we are able to observe...we can't find any problem with the theories

        Umm... what kind of doublethink is this? In science a discrepancy between observation and theoretical predictions is either some sort of measurement error or a problem with the theory. You dont consider predicting the wrong behavior of galaxies to be a problem with the theory?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Monday November 19 2018, @07:06AM (2 children)

      by dry (223) on Monday November 19 2018, @07:06AM (#763809) Journal

      Kinda like that Pauli guy making up a tiny particle just to balance some equations, I'm sure you would have gone on about him making up science as well.

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday November 20 2018, @03:55AM (1 child)

        by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @03:55AM (#764138) Journal

        He was going on a LOT more information with a LOT more scientific theory: dark matter is just a kludge with no science behind it.

        Have you looked into QI? It has a much more scientific aspect to it: an equation that seems to fit everything thrown at it with no adjustments like is needed for MOND, etc, and no arbitrary throwing shit at galaxies to see how much 'dark matter' will stick.

        At least QI has real scientific theory and a good useable equation to it.

        Does dark matter?
        No...just hand waving and a guy behind the curtain.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:54AM

          by dry (223) on Tuesday November 20 2018, @04:54AM (#764147) Journal

          Life energy?

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 19 2018, @08:57AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday November 19 2018, @08:57AM (#763823) Homepage
      Whilst I've always been a dark matter skeptic, as the popular description of the models aren't particularly predictive, so can't be tested, these vids did help persuade me that the scientists aren't just pulling a god-of-the-gaps (or "aliens!") type argument:
      https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2018/05/14/intro-to-cosmology-videos/
      In particular, there are two different models, originated from two different fields of science, that both conclude that the amount of dark matter and dark energy out there are in the same proportions. How much use of a Stratovarius Coefficient was involved to get those numbers out is a little too deeply in the maths for me to divine presently, but the principles those predictions are based on are very well established and agree with everything we know about the universe, so must be considered pretty solid.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:57PM (#763653)

    we look at subatomic blips on the collider but have we solved other problems like: how does the body generate energy, from digestion to the single cell? What about replicating tesla's achievements? what about even simpler stuff like trying to replicate a patented invention from the patent and invalidate it if it does not work?

  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday November 19 2018, @04:33PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday November 19 2018, @04:33PM (#763907)

    > that theoreticians are by now pretty much out of ideas.

    You have it backwards. Theoreticians have now explained all of the experimental data. There is nothing left to do but wait for the experimentalists to catch up.