The quotes from the scientists are appropriately reserved, but with the reputations and funding that are on the line with this sort of stuff, the evidence must clearly be strong enough to warrant general release.
I feel this is somewhat akin to black holes - they were theorized before they were discovered. It's classic induction (or deduction? I always get the two confused)...based on what we know, something of a certain nature must also exist.
And the particle accelerator in the picture look so happy. He's like "Hey guys! I found it!"
"Scientist" messing round where they shouldn't be messing. Could destroy reality; yet they foolishly proceed ahead like blind children into a forest filled with wolves and pedos and pedo-wolves.
As admittedly awesome as this is I often wonder what other disciplines could do if they were given "several billion dollars" and ninety squares miles to build research laboratories.
In fact that funding is why they're not reporting a discovery yet. Not for political reasons but because their machines can be so very precise. Physics has refined its technology so much that it can get more certain than the "999,999 in a 1,000,000" odds of being right they have right now.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
I feel like, long-term, this kind of research is as potentially beneficial as any. It's easy to place more importance on immediate concerns, and not those we won't be alive to see come to fruition. But it's not like useful stuff hasn't come from studying physics before.
I'd also put this in line behind many, many other endeavors that I feel are wasted money. If I made a budgetary chopping block for the planet, things like the LHC would be relatively safe.
I have no idea. And I wouldn't even want to speculate due to not having enough knowledge.
But, speaking generally, knowledge of the universe we exist in can't be a bad thing. And while it's true that some findings are purely academic right now, there's a lot that recent findings have done. Here's a blurb from a wiki article on quantum mechanics, for example: A great deal of modern technological inventions operate at a scale where quantum effects are significant. Examples include the laser, the transistor (and thus the microchip), the electron microscope, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The study of semiconductors led to the invention of the diode and the transistor, which are indispensable parts of modern electronics systems and devices.
And do you imagine any layman imagining these applications 50-100 years ago when quantum mechanics were just beginning to take root in the public?
So this may indeed end up being purely academic. But a LOT of other stuff that was, initially, purely academic became very useful, from Aristotle to Hawking and beyond. Or maybe this bit of information won't prove useful, but will in 200 years contribute to a theory that will. We don't know, but it's exciting and gives us more potential. And, worst case scenario, we know more about our universe. It's a win/win.
I don't think the LHC is wasted money, suffering from diminish returns for sure but not a waste. I just think its a shame that particle physics is the only area of research that gets this kind of overwhelming support.
Stanley Milgram was one of the most earnest scientists I've ever come across. He developed a dozen versions of his key experiment and tried them on various group in the US and flew to Europe to trying them on corresponding groups there before running put of money in Germany (I think) and having to return home. Particle physics is able to reach metaphorical Asias, Africas, and South Americas for their work.
The LHC doesn't get crazy accurate results because their math is so awesome. It runs the same experiment millions of times in a row.
__________________
Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
I agree with your line of thinking--the FSU writing program should get several billion dollars and ninety square miles to build a replica of Walden Pond along with a facsimile of William Wordsworth's old property in the Lake District, the forest in Russia where Tolstoy used to walk through to compose his thoughts, the various prisons where Miguel Hernandez wasted away, and the Roman villa where John Keats died.
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“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
Then the priest immediately stops it and says, "we don't allow your kind in here!" The Higgs-Boson retorts, "but without me, how can you have Mass?!!?!?!"
WTF is it with the internet trolling from idiot atheists telling the "Christf*gs" that it's all over now that the God Particle was discovered?
It's as if they don't even understand what function in quantum physics that the Higgs Boson was to have and instead fixate on the word "god" in "God Particle" and think it somehow means "science has disproven a need for God".
That's ALMOST as annoying as the theists saying that this discovery PROVES God's existence!
Why can't we just enjoy the "potential" discovery for it's own sake and not inject religion or anti-religion?
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Jul 2nd, 2012 09:53 PM
