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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:05PM
This may be able to produce some of those really fancy particles, but the US is still going to slap a tariff on them. /s
Actually, this may be just a ploy to get access to the types of research being done at the upper echelons of particle physics. Kind of like glomming intellectual property, but in the world science. I doubt scientists visiting CERN ever have to worry about that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:24PM (11 children)
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)
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)
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
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
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)
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)
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
Life energy?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 19 2018, @08:57AM
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)
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 Fluffeh on Tuesday November 20 2018, @09:17PM
Whataboutism [wikipedia.org] is that really you in person?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday November 19 2018, @04:33PM
> 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.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:29PM (2 children)
collider before going up a few orders of magnitude in size?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:33PM
If you want your budget to continue to grow you need to keep moving the goalposts.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 19 2018, @09:15AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:29PM (6 children)
Reference recent article, https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/11/06/0127250 [soylentnews.org]
"China Still Has Trouble Staffing the World's Largest Radio Telescope"
Once China finishes building this "smasher", the head hunters will go out to find a chief scientist for the facility...who will be offered a one year contract for not-very-much. Operator jobs will go unfilled since they pay about 100,000 yuan, or $14,400 annually. Facility will sit vacant for lack of qualified operating personnel.
Or maybe the budget will be withdrawn part way through--a big-physics flop like the superconducting super collider in Texas, remember that?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-supercollider-that-never-was/ [scientificamerican.com]
Anyone been exploring down in the tunnels? I hear that it's isn't too hard to get in there for an (unofficial) look around.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:31PM (1 child)
They'll just start out-sourcing their jobs to Americans: then THEY will be the ones saying "I don't UNDERSTAND YOU... SPEAK MANDARIN!..... could i get a supervisor who speaks Mandarin PLEASE!... these damn Engrishers...."
(Oh yeah... Engrishers.... i went there.)
--- 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, @10:33PM
No no, you have a point. You don't haaave to speak English to be racist.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:56PM
I was gonna post that but you beat me to it.
Local construction firms, and advanced tech companies, will still be glad to get a multi-billion facility with guaranteed financing to build, regardless of whether it's ever powered up.
While CERN is nice to physicists and their theories, it's been even better for their suppliers who like cold hard cash
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday November 18 2018, @08:13PM (1 child)
That's the whole point. They want to build enough momentum so scientists will move to China or at least not leave.
Here is what happened when the US let it be moved to Europe.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/us-researchers-are-switcthing-to-lhc/ [scientificamerican.com]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Sunday November 18 2018, @09:34PM
Oh, God, the horror! The US scientists needed to brush their French.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday November 19 2018, @09:35AM
Detection of the Higgs was *not* a function of the maximum energy of the LHC, as long as the beam energy is sufficient, it's a function of the tech that's behind the detectors. This could not have been done in the 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATLAS_experiment#Data_systems_and_analysis simply from a comms point of view. The SSC having a higher maximum beam energy would have not helped much, it would have been effectively looking for the Higgs in the wrong place, and perhaps drowning those interactions with other ones.
It's still a shame it was cancelled, but to claim it definitely would have achieved something concrete is speculative at best.
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, @06:55PM (2 children)
On my first trip to Japan i had to wait a mere 6 hours before experiencing my first seismic tremor. I sure hope this is being factored into the decision.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @09:39PM
Shaking adds extra energy to the system, cuts power bill.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday November 19 2018, @04:40PM
> first seismic tremor
Yes. See for example slides on ATF test beam to test beam stability system.
https://indico.cern.ch/event/686555/contributions/2962510/attachments/1682330/2703201/ICHEP2018ILC.pdf [indico.cern.ch]
There are also links in those slides to the main design document...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @01:00AM
geez, i am sorry to say that the discovery of the higgs hasn't profoundly changed my daily life (yet?)
i am sure, though, it will "somehow" improve life for chinese people once the border-respecting particle is artificially generated on chinese soil ...
i am however hoping that instead of making a carbon copy of the LHC in china, they can get over their me-too attitude and make something genuinly new, like maybe a muon-antimuon (plumitron?) collidor.
the promise of the higgs seems to be transformation of energy into matter, but the study of the muon might hold the key to fusion which would be mass into energy... and maybe a de-escalation to the chinese version of the gulf of mexico and a succesful exit into the limitless outer spaces?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Monday November 19 2018, @04:44PM
LHC was $10B. CepC would be more like $50B as it is ~4 times the size and will use a more demanding magnet design. ILC is about $10 B
The summary didn't mention FCC, which is the CERN version of CepC. Try fitting a 100 km ring near Geneva! Colleagues at CERN scoff somewhat about the CepC - but of course they would, wouldn't they.