Maybe someone in physics can help me out, has it become this difficult to do physics? Having to use the biggest and most expensive instrument in the world to fish for new routes of inquiry?
Maybe someone in physics can help me out, has it become this difficult to do physics? Having to use the biggest and most expensive instrument in the world to fish for new routes of inquiry?
I'm not directly in Physics but have a neighbor that has been in the physics field for several decades (edit: not sure exact amount of years) now and that works at Fermilab and CERN, and built...
I'm not directly in Physics but have a neighbor that has been in the physics field for several decades (edit: not sure exact amount of years) now and that works at Fermilab and CERN, and built many of the detectors at the LHC.
Shortest answer is yes.
The amount of politics and shoddy work that goes into these projects is insane and at times, asinine. Some people go in saying 'we need to use x!' but don't have any data or evidence to back up why, but they might have the right clout or bring in certain kinds of grants, so it's done that way. But when something fails test runs repeatedly, whose fault is it? Some people are just in it to get a better name for themselves, rather than for using sound science. Others, just want to use certain parts or brands, despite lack of rigorous testing those parts demand. Dissent isn't directly discouraged, but it doesn't get anywhere either.
Not only is there great political issues, but there's also academic issues. The answers to a lot of these questions can take 10, 20, 30, even 40 years to build and find. People going into physics as PhDs are finding that it takes longer and longer to complete them as the answers to these questions only take longer to get. People also find it hard to transfer out of the physics phd world into other academic fields as, most fields look at authorship. But nearly all the papers on particle physics coming out from the LHC have over 300 different authors. So some universities/colleges aren't too keen on accepting those when the applicants can't point to their exact significant contributions.
I'm seeing the same kinds of things happening to my friends in evo-bio/sequencing. One of my friends graduated without a first-author publication but contributed to two major genome sequencing...
But nearly all the papers on particle physics coming out from the LHC have over 300 different authors. So some universities/colleges aren't too keen on accepting those when the applicants can't point to their exact significant contributions.
I'm seeing the same kinds of things happening to my friends in evo-bio/sequencing. One of my friends graduated without a first-author publication but contributed to two major genome sequencing projects with almost 100 authors. Last I heard they've given up on finding work in biology and are trying to spin their programming experience into IT.
I mean, I kind of doubt that the LHC goes looking for specific particles solely because "someone wants to". I'm not saying there aren't politics involved in who decides what to look for, or how to...
Some people go in saying 'we need to use x!' but don't have any data or evidence to back up why, but they might have the right clout or bring in certain kinds of grants, so it's done that way.
I mean, I kind of doubt that the LHC goes looking for specific particles solely because "someone wants to". I'm not saying there aren't politics involved in who decides what to look for, or how to do so, but at the very least (as noted by the article) they are looking for things predicted by variants of the standard model (e.g., super-symmetry) or with other theoretical bases.
Many searches have looked for various flavours of supersymmetry, a theorized extension of the model that includes hypothesized particles such as the neutralino, a candidate for dark matter.
This leaves open the possibility that there are exotic particles that produce signatures no one has thought of — something that general searches have a better chance of finding. Physicists have yet to look, for example, events that produced three photons instead of two, Caron says. “We have hundreds of people looking at Higgs decay and supersymmetry, but maybe we are missing something nobody thought of,” says Arnd Meyer, a CMS member at Aachen University in Germany.
sounds at least like a step in the right direction.
My specific comment wasn't referring to talking about a single person looking for specific particles because they want to, but more on the detector/machine end about what parts are used vs. not...
I mean, I kind of doubt that the LHC goes looking for specific particles solely because "someone wants to". I'm not saying there aren't politics involved in who decides what to look for, or how to do so, but at the very least (as noted by the article) they are looking for things predicted by variants of the standard model (e.g., super-symmetry) or with other theoretical bases.
My specific comment wasn't referring to talking about a single person looking for specific particles because they want to, but more on the detector/machine end about what parts are used vs. not used and how some of them are less-than-proven, despite spending years of time just to test them out, and insane amounts of money. Which causes problems for the everyone overall, due to politics, stubbornness, unsound science, or a combination of the three.
Ahh, that's fair I misread your comment. I would hope there was at least some validation of the testing equipment, but that's harder to say and, given the money involved easier to believe in some...
Ahh, that's fair I misread your comment.
I would hope there was at least some validation of the testing equipment, but that's harder to say and, given the money involved easier to believe in some grift.
"With this new accelerator method, we could drastically reduce the size and the cost of antimatter acceleration," physicist Aakash Sahai said in a news release. "What is now only possible by using large physics facilities at tens of million-dollar costs could soon be possible in ordinary physics labs."
Unless there are some magic great leaps which I can't just speculate baselessly about, yes, it takes huge resources -- labour, money, technology, time, opportunity costs -- to do cutting-edge...
Unless there are some magic great leaps which I can't just speculate baselessly about, yes, it takes huge resources -- labour, money, technology, time, opportunity costs -- to do cutting-edge science.
Big Science is a thing. Everything is becoming bigger, the decision process more convolved, and the bar higher.
I occasionally stare at the gigantic author-list and despair. In some sense a huge project take almost all the talents in the particular field (and in this age the fields can be pretty particular), I wonder if high-quality peer review by independent experts is even possible. Like, there's no one left outside the big group authoring the research.
And there's the throw-PhDs-at-it model of the economy of science, as @Chopincakes mentioned.
It seems nature scales in a way that hides her secrets out of the reach of humanity's ability to scale their economy and social hierarchies.
I work in a field that still has some low hanging fruit and I absolutely exploit that to my benefit. One of my projects was a few thousand dollars in materials to complete. There are some labs in...
I work in a field that still has some low hanging fruit and I absolutely exploit that to my benefit. One of my projects was a few thousand dollars in materials to complete. There are some labs in my department that perform exploratory experiments that cost tens of thousands of dollars, and that's pretty extreme for a fishing experiment in my sphere.
I was just wondering if "let's just fire up the LHC" is where the low hanging fruit is in physics.
Well, fortunately it's not (yet). One thing is that I'm afraid of big, human-made things, so I may be projecting a bit. But Big Science consumes such staggering amount of resources, I wonder if...
Well, fortunately it's not (yet).
One thing is that I'm afraid of big, human-made things, so I may be projecting a bit. But Big Science consumes such staggering amount of resources, I wonder if funding will eventually dry up for smaller yet interesting sciences.
I'm no expert, but from what I understand, all the 'low hanging fruits' have been picked in particle physics. There's only a dozen or so major questions that still don't have answers (putting...
I was just wondering if "let's just fire up the LHC" is where the low hanging fruit is in physics.
I'm no expert, but from what I understand, all the 'low hanging fruits' have been picked in particle physics. There's only a dozen or so major questions that still don't have answers (putting aside the fact that there are things we don't know that we don't know) and these questions are what take 20+ years to find the answers to.
I would say the reality is closer to: 'We built the LHC to figure out what happens in certain settings/situations, but we've been so narrowly focused on those questions, that we might be missing some other event/reaction that we weren't looking for initially.'
Thank you, fixed.
The preprint that is discussed in the article can be found here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.07447v1
Maybe someone in physics can help me out, has it become this difficult to do physics? Having to use the biggest and most expensive instrument in the world to fish for new routes of inquiry?
I'm not directly in Physics but have a neighbor that has been in the physics field for several decades (edit: not sure exact amount of years) now and that works at Fermilab and CERN, and built many of the detectors at the LHC.
Shortest answer is yes.
The amount of politics and shoddy work that goes into these projects is insane and at times, asinine. Some people go in saying 'we need to use x!' but don't have any data or evidence to back up why, but they might have the right clout or bring in certain kinds of grants, so it's done that way. But when something fails test runs repeatedly, whose fault is it? Some people are just in it to get a better name for themselves, rather than for using sound science. Others, just want to use certain parts or brands, despite lack of rigorous testing those parts demand. Dissent isn't directly discouraged, but it doesn't get anywhere either.
Not only is there great political issues, but there's also academic issues. The answers to a lot of these questions can take 10, 20, 30, even 40 years to build and find. People going into physics as PhDs are finding that it takes longer and longer to complete them as the answers to these questions only take longer to get. People also find it hard to transfer out of the physics phd world into other academic fields as, most fields look at authorship. But nearly all the papers on particle physics coming out from the LHC have over 300 different authors. So some universities/colleges aren't too keen on accepting those when the applicants can't point to their exact significant contributions.
I'm seeing the same kinds of things happening to my friends in evo-bio/sequencing. One of my friends graduated without a first-author publication but contributed to two major genome sequencing projects with almost 100 authors. Last I heard they've given up on finding work in biology and are trying to spin their programming experience into IT.
It's upsetting and really highlights the issues with 'publish or perish' mindset.
I mean, I kind of doubt that the LHC goes looking for specific particles solely because "someone wants to". I'm not saying there aren't politics involved in who decides what to look for, or how to do so, but at the very least (as noted by the article) they are looking for things predicted by variants of the standard model (e.g., super-symmetry) or with other theoretical bases.
It's of note that the Higgs boson had no experimental evidence of it's existence before it's discovery at CERN, but were theorized as far back as 1964.
That said:
sounds at least like a step in the right direction.
My specific comment wasn't referring to talking about a single person looking for specific particles because they want to, but more on the detector/machine end about what parts are used vs. not used and how some of them are less-than-proven, despite spending years of time just to test them out, and insane amounts of money. Which causes problems for the everyone overall, due to politics, stubbornness, unsound science, or a combination of the three.
Ahh, that's fair I misread your comment.
I would hope there was at least some validation of the testing equipment, but that's harder to say and, given the money involved easier to believe in some grift.
I'm not in the field, but I saw this interesting article a couple days ago:
New technology to power pocket-sized particle accelerator
Unless there are some magic great leaps which I can't just speculate baselessly about, yes, it takes huge resources -- labour, money, technology, time, opportunity costs -- to do cutting-edge science.
Big Science is a thing. Everything is becoming bigger, the decision process more convolved, and the bar higher.
I occasionally stare at the gigantic author-list and despair. In some sense a huge project take almost all the talents in the particular field (and in this age the fields can be pretty particular), I wonder if high-quality peer review by independent experts is even possible. Like, there's no one left outside the big group authoring the research.
And there's the throw-PhDs-at-it model of the economy of science, as @Chopincakes mentioned.
It seems nature scales in a way that hides her secrets out of the reach of humanity's ability to scale their economy and social hierarchies.
I work in a field that still has some low hanging fruit and I absolutely exploit that to my benefit. One of my projects was a few thousand dollars in materials to complete. There are some labs in my department that perform exploratory experiments that cost tens of thousands of dollars, and that's pretty extreme for a fishing experiment in my sphere.
I was just wondering if "let's just fire up the LHC" is where the low hanging fruit is in physics.
Well, fortunately it's not (yet).
One thing is that I'm afraid of big, human-made things, so I may be projecting a bit. But Big Science consumes such staggering amount of resources, I wonder if funding will eventually dry up for smaller yet interesting sciences.
I'm no expert, but from what I understand, all the 'low hanging fruits' have been picked in particle physics. There's only a dozen or so major questions that still don't have answers (putting aside the fact that there are things we don't know that we don't know) and these questions are what take 20+ years to find the answers to.
I would say the reality is closer to: 'We built the LHC to figure out what happens in certain settings/situations, but we've been so narrowly focused on those questions, that we might be missing some other event/reaction that we weren't looking for initially.'