The European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) runs what is currently the largest particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider, a behemoth facility that straddles the border between France and Switzerland. It is the world’s largest machine, and it has been credited with a few notable discoveries, most famously, the discovery of the Higgs boson. But physicists continue to dream of ever higher energies, so CERN has recently proposed an even larger accelerator, currently dubbed the Future Circular Collider. The figure above gives you an idea of it’s proposed size as compared with the largest machine in the world.
The proposal projects that the new accelerator would be able to achieve ten times the energy of the LHC, and could become a generator of Higgs bosons, allowing precise measurement of this rare particle’s properties. Further, the higher energy of the FCC might allow the detection of as-yet undiscovered particles, possibly breaking the Standard Model and/or finding candidate particles for “dark” matter—which we can’t detect, except through gravity, and of which 75 % of all matter appears to consist. Despite the new energetic horizons opened by the LHC, no particles were discovered that can’t be accounted for by the Standard Model, nor were there any “dark” candidates either.
I’m a little at odds about whether such a scientific instrument really ought to be built. The last two power boosts have not yielded the hoped-for unexpected discoveries, and nobody really knows how much of an increase in energy is required before new particles will start showing up. Why is it important to measure the properties of the Higgs boson (to the tune of over $ 10 billion) that it can’t wait a decade or two while we’re, maybe, combatting climate change with that money?
Well, curiosity is insatiable in some, and in a perfect world, I would never argue against it, but does it really rank that high among human needs?
On the other hand, it’s far better to spend more than $10 billion dollars on a physics experiment than $ 5.7 for a damned, obsolete wall…
Comments below the fold, but first a word from our sponsors:
Here at Top Comments we welcome longtime as well as brand new Daily Kos readers to join us at 10pm Eastern. We strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
Top Comments (January 17, 2019):
From elenacarlena:
Greetings! I'd like to submit this comment from my RFD diary, aoeu riffed off of my Psongs of the Ancient Texts of Ceiling Cat to present EcclesiCatstes 1, "Everything Iz St00pid." It's worth translating the LOLspeak, it's hilarious! (If you like that sort of thing.)
From: Eyesbright:
This comment by user Bobs Telecaster is a funny, pithy, all too accurate summation of Donald Trump. It made me grin! From Joan McCarter's diary, "After eight years in the majority, Republicans still don't know how House rules work.”
From thurayya:
Top Mojo (January 16, 2019):
Top Mojo is courtesy of mik! Click here for more on how Top Mojo works.
Top Photos (January 16, 2019):
Tonight’s picture quilt is courtesy of jotter!