Higgs Boson Search: CERN Releases New Data Said To Narrow Hunt For 'God Particle'

[Prosperity]

Definitely the consensus. They found something, and it is making vague quacking sounds, but they can't verify that it walks like a duck.... yet. For many in physics, the hope is that it won't look exactly like the higgs of the standard model, and will in fact point us towards the next wave of discoveries. But there is also the fear that it will turn out to be exactly the Higgs in our boks and nothing more, and that all new physics will remain outside the reach of the LHC.

Take a look at this great video:

http://vimeo.com/41038445

for more.

cool

I was kind of hoping they wouldn't find it though : /

[FanboyOf91]

But for the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider, certainly the discovery would have been made on American soil using an incredible device, made in America, that was more powerful than the LHC.

Makes me angry, too.

We are the Vinny Cerrato of experimental physics.

:doh:

[PeterMP]

But for the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider, certainly the discovery would have been made on American soil using an incredible device, made in America, that was more powerful than the LHC.

Makes me angry, too.

Why is it really relevant where the thing is?

One of the groups that did a good bit of the real work was from Princeton.

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S34/13/42S41/index.xml?section=topstories

In this day in age of data compression and data transmission, I don't really see why it matters where the thing that actually does the colliding it.

If the Swiss get any real benefit from having it actually done there, I haven't seen any evidence for that.

To me this reeks of the same sophmoric ideas of competition and American exceptionalism that leads people to care if Dwayne Wade and Bosh play in the olympics.

With respect to the killed Superconducting Super Collider, my understanding is that in terms of advancing knowledge, it wasn't really that much better than the LHC.

That is even it wouldn't have been able to carry out the experiments necessary to test the predictions put forward by string theory and the related theories. As Ignatious stated, the Higgs boson data that CERN has comes from conducting the same experiment repeatedly (my understanding is over a period of 2 years.). The SSC would have probably been able to get the same data over a few months, but it couldn't really carry out the next step of collisions required to do the thigns necessary to test the next set of ideas out there.

I have a brother that was a physics major, and he's been saying for a long time now that real advances in this field are going to require a real revolution in physics, in terms of how we test these theories and carry out these collisions or a geopolitical/socioeconomic revolution to make building the things currently needed to carry out the experiments feasibile.

At the time it was canceled, the SSC was project to cost over $12 billion dollars (more than 2X its original projections). And that doesn't even include the price tag of even doing the experiments. I'd rather spend $12 billion on things like basic research in super conductors, energy production and transmission, and insulation in hope for break through(s) that would be generally applicable and then would reasonably allow you to build something to start to test string theory and the other realted ideas.

To spend $12+ billion and not even be able to test the next level of ideas doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

[mjah]

Why is it really relevant where the thing is?

One of the groups that did a good bit of the real work was from Princeton.

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S34/13/42S41/index.xml?section=topstories

In this day in age of data compression and data transmission, I don't really see why it matters where the thing that actually does the colliding it.

If the Swiss get any real benefit from having it actually done there, I haven't seen any evidence for that.

To me this reeks of the same sophmoric ideas of competition and American exceptionalism that leads people to care if Dwayne Wade and Bosh play in the olympics.

With respect to the killed Superconducting Super Collider, my understanding is that in terms of advancing knowledge, it wasn't really that much better than the LHC.

That is even it wouldn't have been able to carry out the experiments necessary to test the predictions put forward by string theory and the related theories. As Ignatious stated, the Higgs boson data that CERN has comes from conducting the same experiment repeatedly (my understanding is over a period of 2 years.). The SSC would have probably been able to get the same data over a few months, but it couldn't really carry out the next step of collisions required to do the thigns necessary to test the next set of ideas out there.

I have a brother that was a physics major, and he's been saying for a long time now that real advances in this field are going to require a real revolution in physics, in terms of how we test these theories and carry out these collisions or a geopolitical/socioeconomic revolution to make building the things currently needed to carry out the experiments feasibile.

At the time it was canceled, the SSC was project to cost over $12 billion dollars (more than 2X its original projections). And that doesn't even include the price tag of even doing the experiments. I'd rather spend $12 billion on things like basic research in super conductors, energy production and transmission, and insulation in hope for break through(s) that would be generally applicable and then would reasonably allow you to build something to start to test string theory and the other realted ideas.

To spend $12+ billion and not even be able to test the next level of ideas doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

I'm not too concerned about what sophomoric oddities you think my opinion "reeks of," nor about your concerns that the current generation of accelerators can't test a class of theories which your physics major brother clearly believes would require a revolution in testing physics anyway. If it takes an expensive but spectacularly useful piece of equipment to achieve the most elusive, most anticipated, most important subatomic particle discovery of our age, isn't that worth it? Were other curiosity-driven research expenditures in our past worth it, or should they too have been left to other nations?

The research doesn't simply stop now that Higgs is confirmed. There is a lot more to do, even if we can't test the next generation of theories. And there very well may prove to be a tremendous benefit to that further research which we have not anticipated. It could turn out that something on the order of $9-12B is a bargain in return for primary access to a one-of-a-kind lutra-high-energy experimental device of our own construction. It certainly would not be the first time a large infrastructure investment paid dividends to its builder beyond what most people expected. If such dividends are to be enjoyed due to having an LHC-class apparatus, they will be enjoyed by others because we gave up.

As to the other aspects of the question, "Why should any nation want to be the place where such a major accomplishment is achieved?" ... That should be self-evident. People notice, admire, respect, and emulate nations that achieve great things, even if some of the people involved in those achievements come from other nations. And if you don't care about that, then consider the value to our own nation. We have spent far more to achieve far less in other arenas than the Supercollider would have achieved for fundamental science, and it could have been a centerpiece for building interest in science education, research, infrastructure, and -- indeed -- a means to someday sell the next generation of experimental apparatus to a skeptical public. But I suppose that generation of research infrastructure could also be left to other nations, and we'd just send a team from Princeton...?

We spent north of $2B on the Supercollider and then abandoned it, getting nothing at all. It would have cost probably $2B per year for 5 years to complete it and supplement not just basic physics knowledge, but also the $140B per year (FY2010) the Federal government spends on education. If the tradeoff for the non-sunk cost we saved was increased funding for "basic research in super conductors, energy production and transmission, and insulation," that might be one thing. But there is zero evidence of which I'm aware that the money went to fund any of that. In fact, the political angle on it -- somewhat disingenuous but loudly delivered -- was that we could have the Supercollider or we could have the International Space Station. An odd point of view due to the ISS having a cost an order of magnitude greater than the SSC, but that's what people were told and that's how Congress voted. Would you not have preferred to trim perhaps 10% from the scale of the ISS in order to complete the SSC? I would have, without a second thought.

Of course, it's very possible that the money saved on the SSC didn't go to fundamental research or practical space knowledge at all. Who knows where it went? Maybe it ended up being part of that hard-to-audit $2 trillion we almost started discussing back in 2001, or went into some other Federal money pit. Which would mean we essentially gave up having the Supercollider and its benefits to our nation in return for ... well, nothing.

[PeterMP]

The research doesn't simply stop now that Higgs is confirmed. There is a lot more to do, even if we can't test the next generation of theories. And there very well may prove to be a tremendous benefit to that further research which we have not anticipated. It could turn out that something on the order of $9-12B is a bargain in return for primary access to a one-of-a-kind lutra-high-energy experimental device of our own construction. It certainly would not be the first time a large infrastructure investment paid dividends to its builder beyond what most people expected. If such dividends are to be enjoyed due to having an LHC-class apparatus, they will be enjoyed by others because we gave up.

Is there any reason to think that it will?

This isn't pre-2000s were data is analyzed where it is generated.

Should we throw $12 billion at an issue because there MIGHT be some sort of pay off down the road where there is no evidence that it will?

As to the other aspects of the question, "Why should any nation want to be the place where such a major accomplishment is achieved?" ... That should be self-evident. People notice, admire, respect, and emulate nations that achieve great things, even if some of the people involved in those achievements come from other nations.

sophmoric ideas related to competition and American exceptionalism.

And if you don't care about that, then consider the value to our own nation. We have spent far more to achieve far less in other arenas than the Supercollider would have achieved for fundamental science, and it could have been a centerpiece for building interest in science education, research, infrastructure, and -- indeed -- a means to someday sell the next generation of experimental apparatus to a skeptical public. But I suppose that generation of research infrastructure could also be left to other nations, and we'd just send a team from Princeton...?

And NOT building it could someday mean being able to sell the next generation of experimental apparatus to a skeptical public because you can point to the one that we did NOT build and say hey we didn't build the last one because the advances it was going to fuel were not worth the real costs, but this one will be. That not spending the money to build it will actually build public trust.

Now imagine what the effects of building the SSC would be if the costs continued to over run and it end up costing closer to $16 billion and never worked that well (e.g. issues with construction limited its operation) and the science coming out of it never had much value (and yes, I'm putting a bad case scenario out there, but your whole post is essentially asserting the we should of built it because of the best case scenario), how would that affect building the next generation machine?

You want to improve science education, wouldn't it make more sense to spend $12 billion on research in science education?

In fact, the political angle on it -- somewhat disingenuous but loudly delivered -- was that we could have the Supercollider or we could have the International Space Station. An odd point of view due to the ISS having a cost an order of magnitude greater than the SSC, but that's what people were told and that's how Congress voted. Would you not have preferred to trim perhaps 10% from the scale of the ISS in order to complete the SSC? I would have, without a second thought.

I don't honestly know enough about what each has/could have contributed to say. I'm not sure how much particle physics could have come out of the SSC that won't come out of the LHC. Do I think building the SSC would have been a good idea if it essentially over time would provide the same findings as the LHC, but just fewer data collections? No.

I don't honestly know enough about the long term out comes and applications of the reserach that could/would have happened at each facility (or the real costs of building and operating the SSC).

If you do, more power to you.

Though, I will point out that they became linked because of the appearant costs over runs of each. Originally, the costs of only construction of the ISS was suppossed to be less than $18 billion, but quickly balloned to $25 billion. The costs of the SSC was suppossed to be about $4 billion originally, but quickly balloned to estimates of $12 billion.

Given that you had two big science projects both w/ ballooning costs estimates of course they became politically linked.

Of course, it's very possible that the money saved on the SSC didn't go to fundamental research or practical space knowledge at all. Who knows where it went? Maybe it ended up being part of that hard-to-audit $2 trillion we almost started discussing back in 2001, or went into some other Federal money pit. Which would mean we essentially gave up having the Supercollider and its benefits to our nation in return for ... well, nothing.

I don't know where the money went either, but there certainly are limits to science budgets.

If you are putting out over $12 billion + to build and run experiments at an SSC, it is going to affect other science budgets even if trillions are going down other holes that have dubious benefits.

It is the nature of our government.

If the DOE had spent $12 billion + (much of it over runs) to build and then operate an SSC people would look at the DOE budget and say you are spending a bunch on science, we aren't going to let you spend this other money on other science.

***EDIT***

Generally, with respect to your whole post, if we assume that some sort of combination of good case scenarios would have happened with respect to the SSC, then yes, we should have built it, but I don't see any reason to assume that the good case scenarios would have happened- at least not on the level of out weighing the bad case scenarios that could have happened.

***EDIT2***

And my understanding, at least, is the good case scenario is limited because it wouldn't have included really testing string theory.

[gbear]

From the NYT article, "The finding affirms a grand view of a universe described by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws — but one in which everything interesting, like ourselves, results from flaws or breaks in that symmetry."

I keep saying the only normal is deviance from the norm. We are all made up of flaws and breaks in symmetry. So it seems to fit on on the subatomic level as well as the personal experience level.

[mjah]

Should we throw $12 billion at an issue because there MIGHT be some sort of pay off down the road where there is no evidence that it will?

Odd that you consider it unlikely that the SSC would have confirmed the Higgs Boson perhaps ten years earlier. You put a very low price on the value of having fundamental scientific knowledge in hand.

sophmoric ideas related to competition and American exceptionalism.

Translation: A realistic assessment of the immense and tangible value of cutting-edge science to society. A desire to see those benefits accrued locally for cultural, educational, and economic benefit, not just bragging rights. Particularly since the alternative was to simply abdicate to others and wait several unnecessary years to get the knowledge humanity could have had much earlier. Not sophomoric at all -- not to most folks, I'd wager.

Thankfully, not every continent shared that perspective. Should CERN have walked away from the challenge too? Is their obvious pride in owning and operating the LHC sophomoric?

And NOT building it could someday mean being able to sell the next generation of experimental apparatus to a skeptical public because you can point to the one that we did NOT build and say hey we didn't build the last one because the advances it was going to fuel were not worth the real costs, but this one will be. That not spending the money to build it will actually build public trust.

If you are selling to a community of PhDs, okay. Sure.

If you are selling to the public, GOOD LUCK making that argument: "Science is so valuable, we didn't even bother with it last time. But this time it's really valuable, so our new precedent of skipping a generation of infrastructure is not in any way a sign that this generation can be skipped too."

And by canceling the SSC, we actually did the worst possible thing for fundamental science: we put a clear price tag on it. One which will be remembered for a generation. Judging by the history of other massively expensive but successful undertakings, an operational SSC probably would be seen as an expensive but essential piece of amazingly useful scientific equipment. Canceled, it is a highly symbolic, utterly failed boondoggle. It is ALREADY the worst-case scenario for future scientific funding.

You want to improve science education, wouldn't it make more sense to spend $12 billion on research in science education?

False dilemma. Also false dilemma in the strict arena of scientific research.

If you don't believe me, then believe Physics Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg:

"Another problem that bedeviled the SSC was competition for funds among scientists. Working scientists in all fields generally agreed that good science would be done at the SSC, but some felt that the money would be better spent on other fields of science, such as their own. It didn’t help that the SSC was opposed by the president-elect of the American Physical Society, a solid-state physicist who thought the funds for the SSC would be better used in, say, solid-state physics. I took little pleasure from the observation that none of the funds saved by canceling the SSC went to other areas of science."

Source: The Crisis of Big Science by Steven Weinberg

I'm not sure how much particle physics could have come out of the SSC that won't come out of the LHC. Do I think building the SSC would have been a good idea if it essentially over time would provide the same findings as the LHC, but just fewer data collections? No.

So having the knowledge years earlier is worth nothing. Interesting.

Though, I will point out that they became linked because of the appearant costs over runs of each. Originally, the costs of only construction of the ISS was suppossed to be less than $18 billion, but quickly balloned to $25 billion. The costs of the SSC was suppossed to be about $4 billion originally, but quickly balloned to estimates of $12 billion.

It was an open secret that the ISS was going to be astronomically more expensive than those figures suggested. That was part of the motivation for cancelling the SSC, as I understand it: "Holy crap, this space station is going to go 5x over budget by the time it's done." Yet I know of no evidence that the money yanked back from SSC actually went to the ISS.

Legislative panic is a terrible way to make scientific funding decisions.

Generally, with respect to your whole post, if we assume that some sort of combination of good case scenarios would have happened with respect to the SSC, then yes, we should have built it, but I don't see any reason to assume that the good case scenarios would have happened- at least not on the level of out weighing the bad case scenarios that could have happened.

I'd settle for discovering Higgs years earlier, providing a new central oasis for scientific research and discovery (and I don't even LIKE most of Texas), bolstering American popular interest in science and science education, and continuing our very valuable, non-sophomoric tradition of converting fundamental science into societal and economic development. To consider these to somehow be "best-case" is to ignore the fact that they were actually expected, and historically have a great history of delivery. The Moon program started NASA on the path to inspire generations of people to learn about space and science. Early researchers in quantum tunneling probably never expected their ongoing research to manifest itself in a thousand now-indispensable consumer products like flash memory and hard drives. Government-to-industry transfer has spawned countless industry products and processes. I don't consider it outlandish in the slightest to imagine reaping far more than $12B in ongoing benefits from an initial $12B investment spread over most of a decade.

[China]

Here's a cartoon/video that helps explain things for us non-physicists:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/04/26/phd-comics-explains-the-higgs-boson/

[JMS]

As I understand it the Cern took protons accelerated them around a 17 mile tract to high speeds and smashed them into each other, and for a fraction of a fraction of a milisecond under such extreme artificial conditions a particle seemed to be created with the characteristics of the theoretical Higgs Boson God particle... 99% sure the scientists are saying.

The ramifications of this experiment are..

1. It helps us to better understand the origin of mass.
   
2. If it is the Higg's Particle it will be the discovery of the final missing particle theorized in Standard Model. the reigning theory of particle physics that describes the universe's very small constituents
   
3. Would also help explain how two of the fundamental forces of the universe — the electromagnetic force that governs interactions between charged particles, and the weak force that's responsible for radioactive decay — can be unified
   
4. Would help prove super symmetry, - If the Higgs boson is found at a low mass, which is the only window still open, this would make super symmetry a viable theory. That every particle has an opposite and slightly different super partner particle.
   
5. Would offer major validation for the LHC and for the scientists who've worked on the search for many years. Finding the Higgs Boson was a major goal of the Cern's investment in this 10 billion dollar multi decade project.
   

Now first thought is, why is that so revolutionary? I'm thinking to myself... ok, but when do I get my light saber, my battery capable of driving me to Florida and back on one charge, or at least indestructible underpants which never need cleaning, ( Some sort of nano fiber faberic which breaths would be ideal, I'm actually testing a low tech prototype of these now) or a Jet Pack capable of use for commuting.

I'm a simple guy and need to have all scientific advancement broken down into where they fall on the arch of supplying me with one of the above personal objectives, for practicality sake..

( I would also settle for a Johnny Mnemonic light rope thing that Japanese assassin had I think it would work wonders on dicing vegitables... )

[Jumbo]

From the NYT article, "The finding affirms a grand view of a universe described by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws — but one in which everything interesting, like ourselves, results from flaws or breaks in that symmetry."

I keep saying the only normal is deviance from the norm. We are all made up of flaws and breaks in symmetry. So it seems to fit on on the subatomic level as well as the personal experience level.

To me, in regard to philosophy or physics, I have long viewed constructs like "chaos", "random", "anomaly" etc, while couched as seemingly in opposition or challenge to, are simply aspects of , an overall "order" that we are still learning how to interpret, understand, and label, these dynamics most accurately. Fear not, I will not quit my day job.

[London Kev]

I've heard it said a few times that the Higgs is the final significant piece of The Standard Model, but I thought that the gluon (also a boson?) hadn't been found yet.

I've only a limited knowledge of the subject. so go easy on me if I've just shown my ignorance.

[grhqofb5]

This guy seems to think that the discovery of the Higgs will lead to the discovery of other dimensions, universes, stuff before the big bank, and it will have implications on the existence of God, etc.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t2#/video/us/2012/07/05/dnt-horse-abuse-engraved-teeth.woai

I could swear I saw this guy on the History Channel talking about bigfoot. Looks really familiar.

[JMS]

I've heard it said a few times that the Higgs is the final significant piece of The Standard Model, but I thought that the gluon (also a boson?) hadn't been found yet.

I've only a limited knowledge of the subject. so go easy on me if I've just shown my ignorance.

Every particle predicted by the Standard Model has been discovered — except one: the Higgs boson.

As shown in 1978 summer conferences[2] the PLUTO experiments at the electron-positron collider DORIS (DESY) reported the first evidence that the hadronic decays of the very narrow resonance Y(9.46) could be interpreted as three-jet event topologies produced by three gluons. Later published analyses by the same experiment confirmed this interpretation and also the spin 1 nature of the gluon[9][10] (see also the recollection[2] and PLUTO experiments).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon#Experimental_observations

The CERN has already identified different states for gluon's.. ( a quark-gluon plasma state confirmed in 2010 ).

[London Kev]

[quote=JMS;9041017

Every particle predicted by the Standard Model has been discovered — except one: the Higgs boson.

The CERN has already identified different states for gluon's.. ( a quark-gluon plasma state confirmed in 2010 ).

Thanks JMS, guess I need to read A Brief History again.

[JMS]

Thanks JMS, guess I need to read A Brief History again.

Sounded like I was talking authoritatively there which I try not to do without supporting my statements...

Because an exceptionally large amount of energy and beam luminosity are theoretically required to observe a Higgs boson in high energy colliders, it was the only fundamental particle predicted by the Standard Model but never found.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model

and my table was incomplete too.

[ixcuincle]

[London Kev]

Sounded like I was talking authoritatively there which I try not to do without supporting my statements

Thanks for the wikipedia link, I had forgotten how good that site is.

Anyway, after a bit of digging about, I think I was a bit confused and was thinking of gravitons and not gluons.

A little knowledge is a something something.

[Thiebear]

"Beware, you who seek first and final principles, for you are trampling the garden of an angry God, and he awaits you just beyond the last theorem."

- Sister Miriam Godwinson

The difference is one does a billion collisions a day to see if they can find a difference in the theories and figure out the missing pieces, the other reprimands the stray thought.

[PeterMP]

If you are selling to a community of PhDs, okay. Sure.

If you are selling to the public, GOOD LUCK making that argument: "Science is so valuable, we didn't even bother with it last time. But this time it's really valuable, so our new precedent of skipping a generation of infrastructure is not in any way a sign that this generation can be skipped too."

And by canceling the SSC, we actually did the worst possible thing for fundamental science: we put a clear price tag on it. One which will be remembered for a generation. Judging by the history of other massively expensive but successful undertakings, an operational SSC probably would be seen as an expensive but essential piece of amazingly useful scientific equipment. Canceled, it is a highly symbolic, utterly failed boondoggle. It is ALREADY the worst-case scenario for future scientific funding.

Why?

Because you say so the argument won't work with the general public that makes it so.

Your right, and you KNOW everything else is wrong.

Nice crystal ball you got there.

By the way, I put Space Shuttle boondoggle into google, and I get 1.2 million hits.

I put "Superconducting Super Collider" boondoggle into google, I don't even get 2,500 hits.

Which one do you think more affects the relative agencies to get funding?

What do you think the results would have been if we'd put $16 billion into something that had operational issues.

False dilemma. Also false dilemma in the strict arena of scientific research.

If you don't believe me, then believe Physics Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg:

Source: The Crisis of Big Science by Steven Weinberg

Who knows where the funds went? The goverment doesn't track money like that. If it had been funded, who knows what the DOE alternative energy programs would have looked like in terms of funding.

(Realistically, it was only about $2 billion left over from the "expected" (just over $4 billion) and what was spent (about $2 billiong).

If Weinberg tracks federal government budget negotiations that he can say the arguments that lead to every $2 billion in the budget got to where it ended up being spent, the man is a genius, but I don't know how he actually gets any physics done tracking all of those conversations and arguments.

So having the knowledge years earlier is worth nothing. Interesting.

You have issues with reading comprehension and followind discussions in context? Interesting.

Can somebody please tell me is it possible for ANYBODY here to look at a complete statement in the context of a coverseration and then NOT misrepresent it in a reply and come up with an actual honest reply?

Seriously, is that REALLY that hard to do?

You were arguing that data that won't be gotten by anyway BUT an ISS has less value than that which would have gotten by the SSC and that funding the SSC was more important (i.e. you would have funded the SSC at the expense of the ISS).

Nobody else was going to build and ISS so getting that data required massive US involvment. If the LHC over time produces most of what the SSC would have produced, then

ISS data (where we STILL wouldn't have an ISS w/o massive US involvment) > LHC data that would have been SSC data, but w/ a delay

because we actually GOT the LHC (and knew one was being made when the SSC was cancelled) unlike another space station.

(This does make assumptions about would have come out of the SSC.)

It was an open secret that the ISS was going to be astronomically more expensive than those figures suggested. That was part of the motivation for cancelling the SSC, as I understand it: "Holy crap, this space station is going to go 5x over budget by the time it's done." Yet I know of no evidence that the money yanked back from SSC actually went to the ISS.

Legislative panic is a terrible way to make scientific funding decisions.

What makes you think it was legislative panic?

The dollars that come into from the IRS or are borrowed from over seas don't come with little tracking numbers for projects on them.

That isn't the way it works.

bolstering American popular interest in science and science education, and continuing our very valuable, non-sophomoric tradition of converting fundamental science into societal and economic development. To consider these to somehow be "best-case" is to ignore the fact that they were actually expected, and historically have a great history of delivery. The Moon program started NASA on the path to inspire generations of people to learn about space and science. Early researchers in quantum tunneling probably never expected their ongoing research to manifest itself in a thousand now-indispensable consumer products like flash memory and hard drives. Government-to-industry transfer has spawned countless industry products and processes. I don't consider it outlandish in the slightest to imagine reaping far more than $12B in ongoing benefits from an initial $12B investment spread over most of a decade.

Is there any reason to believe any of this isn't going to happen NOW?

The fact of the matter is the world has changed since the moon mission by NASA. Science data and information have changed.

To pretend like the model of science in society in the 1950s/1960s/1970s, and even the 1980s really has any relevance today is beyond ignorant.

Today we are openly having a conversation on this board for something that happened in Switzerland and data was analyzed in Princeton.

It was on the cover of numerous "American" web sites.

American reserachers have seen and will continue to see the data.

American students have the ability to read about it all over the internet. Watch progams on it on various tv networks and on-line videos. Even see interviews by the relevant scientists in ENGLISH.

I'll ask again, in this day in age of data compression and data transmission is there ANY evidence that there is a real advantage/disadvantage to where the collioder is.

What product do the Swiss have a leg up on us in producing by having the colider there?

The world has changed. Where large amounts of information is the key product, the location of production doesn't matter much.

The key is who can turn that large amounts of information into something useful.

Modeling science, how it interacts with society, and how to move it forward in society based on a single scientific program that was geared for an event that happened 40 years ago seems rather absurd to me.

(Oh and just so you know the first realized observation of quantum tunelling was done in Germany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hund)

***EDIT**

The fact of the matter is that at various times, the US has fallen behind in other countries in various areas of science. In essentially every case over time the US public and scientific community have responded.

In fact, the space program that you are so proud of was a response to such an occassion.

Generally, your argument is an argument that the US should stay in front of every country constantly in every field of science.

I don't think that is feasible, practical, or makes good policy.

And in the case of high end particle phyiscs since the technology involved is so specific, all the data will generally be in the public domain, and it is so likely to be so far removed from any real world uses, I don't think falling behind will have much of an economic impact.

In terms of science excitation and support of the general public, history shows that Americans actually respond more enthusiastically when we fall behind- like Sputnick and the science program.

[mjah]

Generally, your argument is an argument that the US should stay in front of every country constantly in every field of science.

Simply false, though at this point it is not at all surprising to see you claim something like that. Your last post was full of such oddities. Comparing the Space Shuttle vs. SSC via Google post counts? You couldn't spot the fatal flaws in that one? I mean, really Peter. Further point-by-point rebuttal to such ridiculousness would be a complete waste of our time, though mostly mine.

For all your words, your presumptions are giving you precious little traction. So stop doing entropy such favors, and give it up. We actually agree on a lot of what we're posting, when we bother to acknowledge that fact. So what if we have minor quibbles, like your disagreement with a Nobel-laureate physicist about how government science funding is allocated? Maybe that physics guy with the knowledge and achievements and honors and awards and decades of specific experience with American government science funding was wrong about it all, and you're right. Who's to say? Water under the bridge, my friend. Relax with me. Let's let it go together. :cool:

Here, I'll help. You entered this SSC sidebar seeking to pin a very specific point of view on me -- one which I simply do not hold, despite your continued foot-stomping. But I like to be nice. So I found something for you. You're going to like it, because this one time, you get to pretend I said it. It's my gift to your irascible scientific authority, unimpeachable and Nobel-laureate-obviating juggernaut that it is. Print this out. Hold it up and scream "SEE? SEE?!?" to everyone who cares. Your Quixotic windmill, vanquished at last:

And with that, I'm off to dinner in the city with my loving wife. Toodles babe!

[Prosperity]

good nerd fight, would read again

[PeterMP]

Here, I'll help. You entered this SSC sidebar seeking to pin a very specific point of view on me -- one which I simply do not hold, despite your continued foot-stomping. But I like to be nice. So I found something for you. You're going to like it, because this one time, you get to pretend I said it. It's my gift to your irascible scientific authority, unimpeachable and Nobel-laureate-obviating juggernaut that it is.

And with that, I'm off to dinner in the city with my loving wife. Toodles babe!

1. I'm sorry, but I don't think any single person can track the federal budget process, especially over a period of years, to know where the funds went from a cancelled project went (actually, I don't think that's possible at all because money doesn't come in pegged for a project to say when the project is cancelled to say the money went somewhere else). I'll point out that Weinberg used the rather weak argument that none of the money went to fund science projects vs. the stronger argument that the funds went to fund X, Y, and Z (useless) projects.

2. I didn't come into this discussion trying to pin anything on anybody. I honestly don't think about these discussions that much.

3. You seem to be suggesting that I am pretending you said something (I'm assuming the part you quoted). I want to point out that I went out of my way to put what you've quoted in a section that wasn't a direct response to a part I quoted and didn't say you said it. I'm sorry, if you or anybody else took it that I was trying to say that was your direct argument (i.e. you said it). Generally, your arguments could be used to support science projects accross the board and being "behind" in any science project. That doesn't represent a claim that you said it.

4. I'd be curious to see you actually address the more substantial points about how the interaction between society and science have changed as a function of digital and telecommunications age and where it doesn't matter much where some aspects of the science (i.e. those that are highly technical in nature and not likely to spill over into things like consumer products any time soon) actually occu (i.e. that we don't and shouldn't have to think about encouraging and benefiting from scientific advances like we did during the Cold War for things like super collioders).

That is in terms of things like long term economic benefits and exciting the next generation of scientists, it doesn't really matter where the LHC is because we are seeing the relevant data in quite a bit of detail and the relevant information is readily availible to US scientists and even the general US public.

5. Hope you have a good dinner.

[China]

Second Higgs possibility pops up in CERN data

Massive surprise lurks in LHC data release

sn’t that just typical? Science waits half a century for a Higgs boson, and when it arrives, just like a bus, a second one is right behind.

That’s the tantalising prospect raised by the most recent release of data from the Large Hadron Collider scientists, who had barely finished celebrating after confirming that they’d spotted the elusive particle.

The Higgs boson was posited as part of the Standard Model as necessary to bestow mass on other fundamental particles – the W and Z bosons – but it took the era of high-powered colliders like the LHC and the now-retired Fermilab Tevatron to produce energies high enough to bring the particle into existence.

It also took a lot of data-gathering, because the Higgs pops its head up in only a few collisions out of millions or billions.

As Scientific American explains, ever since the original Higgs boson announcement, scientists have been reviewing the ATLAS experimental data to try and identify possible anomalies – and they’ve turned up a gem.

There appears to be not one Higgs boson “signal”, but two: one at 123.5 GeV (giga-electron volts), the other at 126.5 GeV. The first decays into pairs of Z particles, while the second shows the decay of a Higgs into two photons. (Here, “signal” refers to a spike in the observations at a particular mass level.)

Click on the link for the full article