I feel if they know that this 100km collider can uncover 95% of the secrets of physics then it’s barely an inconvenience to build the 105km collider instead and discover the remaining 5%.
And who is complaining about 17bn? For what the LHC accomplished and the potential of a new collider. This is about understanding the fundamental nature of the universe and reality. The implications for future tech are limitless.
Not a gotcha question, but what things did the LHC discover that have real practical applications right now other than validating some hypothesis? Because I’ve looked into it before and turned up nothing so I’m wondering what I’m missing.
what things did the LHC discover that have real practical applications right now other than validating some hypothesis
Is really multiple questions:
Is doing fundamental research with no application in mind useful?
Has the LHC led to practical applications usable today
The answer to question 1 is yes.
There’s different types of research programs made to target different goals. Some aim for short or medium term applications, and others are just pure fundamental research.
Just because pure research doesn’t have an application in mind, doesn’t mean it’s not useful. The application isn’t the goal, the expansion of our knowledge base is. Everyone who ever thought up of an application for something did so based on their own knowledge base. If the knowledge base never expands, then we run out of applications to think up. This is why pure research is useful.
And all of history supports this:
The discovers of rays shooting off cathode-ray-tubes in the 1800s were just doing pure research and had no idea it would lead to TVs
particle accelerator research lead to invention of cat scans
chemists trying to research heavier elements leading to the discovery of nuclear fission, leading to nuclear power
electrolysis research lead to the invention of lead (and rechargeable) batteries
etc…
The answer to question 2 is also yes:
The obvious ones are:
improved manufacturing processes
improved supercooled superconductors
improved large scale vacuum chambers
Improved data processing
Trained a new cohort of experienced scientists/engineers/workers/etc (who can now work on new projects outside of the LHC)
Planning. You have to write down every detail, and it takes time and costs money. Someone has to figure out how to manufacture ever part, estimate how many labor hours it will take, select paint colors and door handles and a billion other small things. It will require teams of people coordinating efforts around the globe and getting feedback from every stakeholder imaginable.
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