That may be true, remarks Sascha Caron, a physicist from the University of Freiburg in Germany, but nonetheless much of the particle physics community has warmed to the idea of global searches since Knuteson first proposed it early in this decade. Caron and his collaborators have developed their own software for what they call general searches while working at an experiment at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg, and they plan to do the same at the LHC.
Experience at the Tevatron also shows that global searches could help physicists understand how to interpret data, Mrenna points out for example, how the detectors react to various particles. Teams rarely compare notes, so that their assumptions are potentially in contradiction. "If you look at everything, everything has to make sense," Mrenna says.
This article was originally published with the title Colliding Philosophies.
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8 Comments
Add CommentRegarding this kind of research, ideally the objective should be to spin off some kind of practical benefit, beyond the mere understanding of how this reality is put together. In the case of the LHC, we should address the issue of where all the matter in the Universe came from and how it is generated, and that out of this research make possible the deliberate creation of mass from the photon background, to be harnessed as the energy which that mass represents, for our own use. In a sense, that will be the ultimate intent of the relentless pursuit of the Higgs boson, which, even though it probably does not exist, will surely bring us closer to this goal. Given the huge global investment in particle physics research, it is apparent that we are not so much trying to understand God, as to be Him. It is a valid quest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBaudrunner is wrong to say that ideally the object of LHC physics should be to produce results of practical benefit. It is to understand matter, forces, space and time. It is almost certain that practical benefits will come (they already do) from pushing the limits of technology, but that is not the object. Astronomers learnt to understand the interior of stars in much detail; important knowledge but of no practical application. As for dreaming that finding a Higgs boson might lead to new ways of energy or mass generation, forget it. That's not the point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the "colliding philosophy", albrow. Frankly, I don't see how studying particle collisions helps us to understand the interior of stars. The current paradigm regarding the nature and composition of the sun, for example, is one based on very early theory developed well before the age of space exploration and contemporary solar research, one that colossal organizations like NASA find great difficulty in shaking (re: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/ for a comprehensive and detailed explanation of why that paradigm demands a major rethinking). I find it difficult to justify the expenditure of such vast sums of money just to satisfy our curiosity, with no other goal in mind. The fact is that the more we know and understand, the greater ouropportunity to benefit materially from our knowledge and understanding. The trend is inevitably toward the development of some practical benefits. That's just how the world works. As to just how that benefit might be represented is anybody's guess, but I suggest that ultimately the concept of power generation will likely be addressed. Furthermore, the productive application of our perceived understanding of what happens at the quantum scale serves as proof to support theory. Science without proof is not true science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK Baudrunner, my point was not that particle collisions help us understand the interior of stars (although they actually do), but that both endeavours are curiosity- driven research and worth doing by a civilisation such as ours for that reason alone. And we are not talking vast sums of money, mor like a cup of decent coffee per person per year. Build a couple less stealth bombers and you can pay for it all. But I agree with you that research in particle physics is likely to have benefits in power generation, probably through the application of accelerators (such as sending high power proton beams into radiactive waste (thorium, uranium etc.). Many other benefits too, including advanced computing (and the invention of www), medical imaging, cancer therapy, high field superconducting magnets (to be used in transportation one day, and in MRI scanning today), fast and dense electronics, etc etc etc. Many of these spin-offs only happened because some thousands of physicists, driven by curiosity, needed to push the limits of technology to, e.g., look for a Higgs boson. Not to find it, but to see if it is or is not there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot arguing with you albrow, but the fact remains that for the price of a cup of coffee a day you could help an impoverished orphan in the third world see some of the same benefits of civilisation as we in the first world do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am absolutely for the peaceful pursuit of scientific research and wish altruistically that all of this world's military expenditures be directed toward the effort toward an understanding of the fundamental nature of reality, whether it be through space exploration or the unravelling of subatomic particles.
Let it not go unsaid that all military endeavors by the U.S. to date have been to protect and profit from American interests abroad. Were it otherwise, then she would find herself embroiled in the affairs of most of the rest of the world's second and third world nations, but her cause in actuality is not a moral one, but a money-centric one. That , again, is how the world works. Not taking issue there, that's just the way that things are.
But I digress. Just how do particle collisions help us understand the interior of stars?
Right, I think we're on the same wavelength. But you ask: "Just how do particle collisions help us understand the interior of stars?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA: the energy emitted by stars as heat and light essentially comes from fusion reactions in the core. Not, by the way, the d+t reaction they try to make in a Tokamak, but others. These reactions emit neutrinos, which can pass right through the sun and reach the Earth, where they can be detected in deep underground detectors. The neutrino fluxes were measured and found (by Reines) to be only about 1/3 what was expected (by Bahcall). Was the understanding of the centre of the Sun that wrong? Bahcall didn't think so. The mystery was eventually solved, and accelerator experiments played a role, by there being 3 different types of neutrino (e, mu and tau). Only e-types come from the Sun's reactions, but the neutrinos "mix" among themselves (proving they must have some mass) and by the time they reach Earth they are a mix of 3 types. Reines only detected the e-type so he saw 1/3 of what Bahcall predicted. Mystery solved, and a magnificent confirmation that we understand the nuclear reactions in the core of the Sun very well. Beams of neutrinos made at accelerators are now studying this "neutrino mixing" in detail. What is amazing is that for maybe 20 years there was this discrepancy between what Bahcall predicted and what Reines found, but they checked and double checked and stuck to their guns, and it turned out they were both right, and the factor of 3 discrepancy is just the number of neutrino types!!!
And the big neutrinos detectors can actually see the Sun shining right through the Earth at night, as a bright patch in the "neutrino sky".
Great example, albrow! It shows that we are on the right track in rationalising how reality is put together, as well as the forces that contribute to its persistence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow if we can just get away from believing in Higgs bosons or gravitons. Fundamental particles do not lie at the root of all physical phenomena.
E =mc� is not Einstein's formula. This is a fairy tale.Poincare, Hasenoehrl and others have discovered it in 1904. Many reviewed publications have shown that. The most famous paper on this has been written by Herbert Ives at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1952, it had appeared in the Journal of the Optical Society of America, vol. 42, No. 8, pp. 540-543. The last sentence in the Ives paper reads "E=mc� was not derived by Einstein"
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