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posted by chromas on Wednesday January 16 2019, @04:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the rings-without-tokens dept.

Next-generation LHC: CERN lays out plans for €21-billion super-collider

CERN has unveiled its bold dream to build a new accelerator nearly four times as long as its 27-kilometer Large Hadron Collider—currently the world's largest—and up to six times more powerful.

The European particle physics laboratory, outside Geneva, Switzerland, outlined the plan in a technical report on 15 January.

The document offers several preliminary designs for a Future Circular Collider (FCC)—which would be the most powerful particle-smasher ever built—with different types of colliders ranging in cost from around €9 billion (US$10.2 billion) to €21 billion. It is the lab's opening bid in a priority-setting process over the next two years, called the European Strategy Update for Particle Physics, and it will affect the field's future well into the second half of the century.

[...] Not everyone is convinced the super collider is a good investment. "There is no reason to think that there should be new physics in the energy regime that such a collider would reach," says Sabine Hossenfelder, a theoretical physics at Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies in Germany. "That's the nightmare that everyone has on their mind but doesn't want to speak about."

Hossenfelder says that the large sums involved might be better spent on other types of huge facilities. For example, she says that placing a major radio telescope on the far side of the Moon, or a gravitational-wave detector in orbit, would be safer bets in terms of their return on science.

CERN press release and poster.

Also at The Verge.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:17AM (6 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:17AM (#787301) Journal

    Now put THIS in your pipe and smoke it.

    Or... we could be in a computer simulation, with limited resources, so that as our capacity to observe increases, the simulation must lower the 'volume' that we can observe to still offer us a consistent continuous view of the 'real world'. Every space telescope that we put in orbit will just increase the speed of 'Universe expansion' so that we'll observe less and less in increased details.

    (grin)

    Of course, we still continue to think the 'universal constants' are universal. We don't have any experimental proof the 'maximum speed of interaction' is the same nearby the Solar system and closer to the galactic core. In fact, as we sit tight around a puny star, can we distinguish between an 'expanding universe' scenario and the one of 'diminished speed of light/gravity towards the margins of the Universe'?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:37AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @09:37AM (#787310)

    How could you add "free will" to a computer simulation though? Even for the most basic program? Seems like that idea needs to go then.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:08AM (3 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 16 2019, @11:08AM (#787328) Journal

      How could you add "free will" to a computer simulation though?

      Similar with thermal noise in electronic components. The higher the agitation the more probable random bit flips, until... you know... even Trump can get elected. (grin)

      Besides, what makes you believe you have free will now?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday January 16 2019, @01:54PM

        by deimtee (3272) on Wednesday January 16 2019, @01:54PM (#787367) Journal

        Besides, what makes you believe you have free will now?

        He's programmed to believe it. He doesn't have a choice in the matter.
        On the other hand, I choose to believe free will is an illusion.

        --
        If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @03:57PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 16 2019, @03:57PM (#787413)

        Random/unpredictable-ness isn't the same thing as free will.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:00AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:00AM (#787737) Journal

          Random/unpredictable-ness isn't the same thing as free will.

          You do need a way to incorporate that into your decision making process.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:59AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:59AM (#787736) Journal

      How could you add "free will" to a computer simulation though?

      Import the right libraries, duh.