Research lab submits plans for next-generation model at least three times size of Large Hadron Collider

Research lab submits plans for next-generation model at least three times size of Large Hadron Collider

Officials at Cern, home to the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, are pressing ahead with plans for a new machine that would be at least three times bigger than the existing particle accelerator.

The Large Hadron Collider, built inside a 27km circular tunnel beneath the Swiss-French countryside, smashes together protons and other subatomic particles at close to the speed of light to recreate the conditions that existed fractions of a second after the big bang.

The machine, the world’s largest collider, was used in the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, nearly 50 years after the particle was proposed by Peter Higgs, the theoretical physicist at the University of Edinburgh, and several other researchers. The feat was honoured with the Nobel prize in physics the following year.

  • Chainweasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    642·
    9 months ago

    €20 Billion isn’t really all that much for a particle accelerator that can be used for more than a decade when you consider the US plans to spend $842 billion on just the military this year.

  • Alex@lemmy.ml
    195·
    9 months ago

    Now I’m all for smashing atoms and the LHC did a grand job with the Higgs. However are we sure just smashing things harder is going to be as revelatory as other things we could spend the money on? What other grand physics instruments could we build? For example LISA will be a massive step change in our gravitational detection capabilities?

    • DarkGamer@kbin.social
      225·
      9 months ago

      Discovery is valuable even if it doesn’t have immediate engineering applications. Much of our understanding of physics and the standard model has come from just smashing things together with higher and higher energy levels.

      • Codex@lemmy.world
        91·
        9 months ago

        I think it’s worthwhile science communication for them to be clearer about what is planned for testing. Some handwaves about “it will help us maybe find dark matter” is much less compelling to me than something concrete like “we have models which predict dark matter particles emerge at X TeV, this will test them.”

        Not that I’m opposed to open discovery either. Maybe when you collide electrons at the higher energy, they turn into pure gravitons and we’ll find the GUT? But I like to think there’s some deliberation and intent behind a project that’s roadmapped to 2070, beyond just long term job security for some particle physicists.

        • marcos@lemmy.world
          6·
          9 months ago

          we have models which predict dark matter particles emerge at X TeV

          This runs at the problem that no, we don’t have any model that puts anything attainable as “it’s probable we’ll find something here, or else we will learn that all we know is wrong”. The extra energy is all of the “we don’t expect anything new here, but we expect something new somewhere” kind.

          But if you start talking about luminance, this changes quickly.

      • xor@infosec.pub
        4·
        9 months ago

        they were talking about other experiments, like lisa… not immediate engineering applications at all…

    • Fermion@mander.xyz
      31·
      9 months ago

      Yeah, I have a hard time getting excited about a moderately more capable synchrotron and I have a Physics background. I’m not opposed to a larger synchroton, but I’m not confident that they’ll find anything particularly interesting like I was with the LHC.

      Personally, I’d like to see a bigger effort to develop high energy plasma Wakefield accelerators. I think they have the potential to work with a wider variety of particles and shouldn’t need months of pump down and cooling after any interruption. Plus minitiaturization of plasma accelerators have the potential to be disruptive for medical applications.

  • Codex@lemmy.world
    122·
    9 months ago

    Dr Sabine Hossenfelder at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, said there was no evidence the FCC would reveal anything about dark matter or dark energy and was critical of the proposals.

    “The truth is that the most likely thing such a machine would do is to just make better measurements of some constants in the standard model, and that’s it,” she said. “I do not think that the societal relevance is high enough to justify such a big investment.

    “I fear that funding such an experiment will mean that a lot of smart people will waste their time on research that will not lead to any progress. The LHC had a good motivation. The FCC has not. Particle physicists have to accept that their time is over. This is the age of quantum physics.”

    On the other hand, Sabine’s objection to the project makes me skeptical of my own doubts. If she’s against it, it must be a great idea!

    I think Hossenfelder was bought some years ago by a conservative think tank. Or at least that would be one explanation for her abysmal takes. Maybe its just pure ego that makes a person act like this though?

  • Pothetato@lemmy.world
    52·
    9 months ago

    I know a guy who can do it cheaper. Seriously though, there has to be a better way to do this. What about that laser based accelerator. LWFA? That seemed pretty neat.

  • ChaosCharlie@lemmy.caEnglish
    41·
    9 months ago

    I’m glad they’re finally going to unlock the secrets of the universe. Been waiting forever for that to drop.