60 minutes: LHC - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 09:07:15 pm
content: I saw the 60 minutes piece on the large hadron collider and failed to understand its motivation. decades of construction, countless of human capital, 100MW+ electric consumption, $10bn of costs, and what it has to show for? nothing. what it has proven is the standard model which is known to be faulty. no evidence for super-symmetry, which would have been cool.I think the US decision of abandoning the supercollider looks smart, in spite of the sunk cost.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 09:14:36 pm
content: That's a shame you feel this way.Given that this big science project is < 2% of the annual US military budget, And the US DoD used almost 30,000 gigawatt hours (GWH) of electricity.I think that LHC is a pretty good project - it may be the only chance ever to muster the resources to probe the universe at such small scales.

author: magetoo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 09:35:49 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 05, 2016, 09:07:15 pmIf they'd just built a time machine instead all of this wasted effort could have been avoided.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 09:48:19 pm
content: Quote from: hamster_nz on September 05, 2016, 09:14:36 pmNo kidding, people think things like this and NASA are/were a waste of money but it is nothing compared to the amount the us government spends to blow up brown people.(not just brown people, I was watching some George Carlin recently though lol)Besides, who is to say that as other areas of tech advance we can't go back to this if needed for something, then we won't have to wait for it to be built, it will already be there.

author: bitslice
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 10:22:16 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 05, 2016, 09:48:19 pmAnd that's $13 Trillion that we are never going to get backHad we known that they'd happily kill themselves over a goat wearing lipstick, then we could have stayed home that year.Quote from: dannyf on September 05, 2016, 09:07:15 pmThat's the entire build cost, meanwhile the world spends $7 billion on Hello Kitty merchandiseevery single year.Without thinking too hard about it I'd say the LHC was more of a benefit to mankind than a cartoon cat.I don't care if they find anything, I just see a lot of clever people getting funded every year. On the basis that stupid people aren't worth squat to humanity, then at least one organisation has got its priorities right for a change.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 11:12:09 pm
content: Quote$30bn is no small change, even for me,the US did contribute meaningfully to LHC. vs. spending their own money, that contribution looks to be fairly good investment: the us still dominates in high energy physics, in spite of not having the supercollider.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 05, 2016, 11:31:20 pm
content: Back to the topic, what was the return so far in new scientific knowledge?

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 12:20:22 am
content: Quote from: zapta on September 05, 2016, 11:31:20 pmNegative results (beyond the initial verification of the existence and nature of the Higgs boson) are still useful results.I would expect it to be necessary to explain that to the general TV audience watching '60 Minutes,' but not so much here.Some older folks may remember that the principles behind useful devices from the transistor to the laser were abstract and irrelevant for decades, right up until they suddenly weren't. Failure to continue investigating the fundamental nature of physical law amounts to eating our own seed corn.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 12:40:57 am
content: Quote from: KE5FX on September 06, 2016, 12:20:22 amCan you articulate a few of those LHC negative results or is it just an abstract principle.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 12:52:42 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 05, 2016, 09:07:15 pmAre you kidding? Learning that the Higgs phenomena is real, and related to condensed-matter physics (an analog of superconductivity of metals) is huge.Physics is not a bout doing experiments to meet your expectations, it's about trying to find out what's out there.Not only that, the spin-off technologies emerging from large scale projects like these benefits society. We have the internet, courtesy of CERN.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 01:26:26 am
content: 'We have the internet, courtesy of CERN.'Wait a minute. Are you saying all these years Mr. Gore has been lying to us when he said that he invented the internet?Seriously, the internet is so huge is it conceivable that CERN didn't in fact invent all and every piece of it but just parts of it?If so, which parts did CERN in fact invent?

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 01:35:19 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 01:26:26 amCERN didn't "invent the Internet," per se, but we have HTML and the WWW because Tim Berners-Lee was working on the team charged with organizing scientific collaboration on large-scale projects like the upcoming LHC.When Kennedy said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills," he could have been speaking literally about CERN's influence on the early Web.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 01:40:24 am
content: Quote from: zapta on September 06, 2016, 12:40:57 amWhat comes to mind specifically is their recent failure to replicate the signal they (thought they) saw inDecember 2015.I believe it's a good thing to have a lot of smart people in one place, with their purposes aligned, observing and thinking about this stuff. Especially now that we no longer have a Bell Labs-scale research establishment that can afford to look more than five or ten years down the road. If these people weren't working on the LHC, they'd just be trying to come up with newer and better ways to sell ads.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 01:43:46 am
content: Quote from: KE5FX on September 06, 2016, 01:40:24 amSell ads, or kill people.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 01:47:31 am
content: Quote from: KE5FX on September 06, 2016, 01:40:24 amAnd five minutes ago you were saying how great it was to invent the WWW

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 02:11:01 am
content: Quote from: helius on September 06, 2016, 01:47:31 amThere's a pretty big difference between targeted advertising to the masses and what is arguably the most profound invention in human history which has revolutionized communication and information.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 02:29:48 am
content: That is simply not what historically occurred. Both network communication and hypertext existed before the WWW; the difference is that they were not infested with ads and malware.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 02:34:16 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 06, 2016, 02:11:01 amI think you give CERN too much credit in the context of the internet. When you consider the technology stack involved, they contributed only a tiny portion of it. Basically a scaled down SGML and a text based IP based protocol similar to let's say SMTP.Anyway, if HTTP/HTML (and Kicad?) are key CERN contribution, it doesn't look good for the science/physics aspects.I doesn't matter if their basic research doesn't have current application, that's fine, what I am trying to understand is what contributions to science they had so far? (no effort, future promises, and sacred cows please)

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:25:03 am
content: Quote from: helius on September 06, 2016, 02:29:48 amThey also weren't nearly as widely implemented, or as user friendly.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:59:29 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 06, 2016, 03:25:03 amThis is also true for many other contributions by others to the current state of the internet. Overall it was an just another evolutionary step.This thread is about significant contributions of LHC to science.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 05:16:45 am
content: QuoteFor comparison, the US spent:- Over 590 billion USD on the military- Over 20 billion USD on pet food in 2015- Over 700 million USD to see a film about blue cat people, and 200 million USD to make it- Over 100 million USD on a museum for a fictional event (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_Encounter)While I do not claim that either of these (aside from the last one) are without their uses, 1 billion EUR/year distributed over a number of countries to do large scale experiments that would have been otherwise impossible doesn't seem that bad, does it? If nothing else you get lots of spin off technologies. All in all, I'd MUCH rather finance this then lots of EU "social" projects.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 05:34:33 am
content: Quote from: daqq on September 06, 2016, 05:16:45 amLHC and social project are not the only two options. The money could be invested for example in other science programs.http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/false-dilemma/Let's keep the discussion focused. What contributions to science the LHC had so far? Effort, jobs for smart people, and Kicad don't count.

author: raptor1956
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 06:57:48 am
content: Most of the major NASA probes cost at least a billion and many are several times that. The race to the Moon cost $25B in 60's money or about $150B in today's money. Something like 400,000 people worked on the program in one way or another. It may have been the zenith of US power and prowess in a global sense. We've not been so bold since then and we've been in decline since just about the time we stopped the Apollo program.If you're not moving forward you're falling backwards!Brian

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 09:14:38 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 05, 2016, 09:07:15 pmthe LHC is just the biggest machine at CERN, it's not all they do, there is a staggering amount of research goes on there. It's not just about knocking protons together in the LHC.It's a huge melting pot of disciplines; maths, engineering, physics, electronics, software, materials science to name a few with top people there passing on their knowledge to students and apprentices.The day humanity stops research like this is the day it decays and dies IMO.Having been and seen the ATLAS detector with my own eyes it's a testament to what we're capable of when we put our minds to it

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 09:20:25 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 01:26:26 amA simple wikipedia lookup would've given you the insight:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:23:12 am
content: Quoteyes, but the wrong kind: the link you gave above says that CERN invented (a stretch actually, per the link) the ***WWW***. Earlier, you had credited them to have invented the ***internet***.Is it possible that inventing the WWW is quite different from inventing the internet?

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:25:59 am
content: QuoteSeems to me that they should focus on investing in people like Berners-Lee, rather than investing in CERN. Give him half the budget of CERN and European taxpayers would still have saved a bundle.What does inventing WWW (not inventing the internet) have done for the people in Europe?

author: DenzilPenberthy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:53:06 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 05, 2016, 09:07:15 pmCome on, you didn't even spend 30 seconds looking on wikipedia?Several important achievements in particle physics have been made through experiments at CERN. They include:1973: The discovery of neutral currents in the Gargamelle bubble chamber;1983: The discovery of W and Z bosons in the UA1 and UA2 experiments;1989: The determination of the number of light neutrino families at the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP) operating on the Z boson peak;1995: The first creation of antihydrogen atoms in the PS210 experiment;1999: The discovery of direct CP violation in the NA48 experiment;2010: The isolation of 38 atoms of antihydrogen;2011: Maintaining antihydrogen for over 15 minutes;2012: A boson with mass around 125 GeV/c2 consistent with long-sought Higgs boson.The 1984 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer for the developments that resulted in the discoveries of the W and Z bosons. The 1992 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to CERN staff researcher Georges Charpak "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber."

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:57:03 am
content: "Come on, you didn't even spend 30 seconds looking on wikipedia?"So, if you can step back, what have those discoveries done for our understanding of the universe, or to advance the interests of the people of Europe?That are the questions we have been discussing.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 11:04:32 am
content: Man this is just a lost cause isn't it. Clearly you don't appreciate knowledge for the sake of knowledge. That and the possibility that even though something doesn't have an immediate effect it could be quite profound and important in the future.

author: DenzilPenberthy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 11:13:44 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 10:57:03 am1973: The discovery of neutral currents in the Gargamelle bubble chamber;This advanced our understanding of the universe by discovering that neutral currents are a thing1983: The discovery of W and Z bosons in the UA1 and UA2 experiments;This advanced our understanding of the universe by showing that W and Z bosons are a thing1989: The determination of the number of light neutrino families at the Large Electron–Positron Colliderblah blah, seriously I think this thread is a waste of time. If you can't understand why scientific research is a good thing then I don't think I can help you.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 11:15:45 am
content: QuoteBasic research (in it a more accurate understanding of the universe) is its own reward as far as I'm concerned.Would you prefer ignorance? Without experiments such as this and theoretical physicists we would probably still be ignorant about, say, atoms? You do know that nuclear physics does have applications, don't you? Good luck making 10nm node sized semiconductors without a bit of understanding of matter.All in all you can't just research one area and ignore others... well, you can, but the yields will be far lower compared to broad research. Different disciplines are complementary. Medicinal research benefits from imaging techniques developed for particle physics and computational advances. Computational advances are made possible by advances in material sciences and chemistry. Advances in chemistry benefit medical research and engineering... Seehttps://indico.cern.ch/event/261667/contributions/581171/attachments/462124/640469/med_app_english_2_lowres.pdffor a small example of applied direct or indirect outcomes.Anyway, do you have a problem with all publicly funded research?

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 11:24:11 am
content: "1973: The discovery of neu...."That's like trees vs. Forest.Let me try to break it down for you.1. They have not found s trace of evidence to support supersymmetry.2. They found plenty of support for the standard model, in which gavity doesn't exist.So their work supports a notion that we live in a gravity-less world.Job well done.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 11:28:25 am
content: It seems that an accurate summary of your attitude is that unless a research facility/organization spits out something along the lines of fusion power, time travel, perpetual motion devices and confirmations of a grand unification theory every year or two it should not receive financing and be considered useless?

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 12:33:45 pm
content: To my opinion it is really a shame watching mankind shifting away from marvelling at the wonders of the world and trying to understand how it is composed, and towards walking around staring at glass surfaces seeking invisible comic characters. There are more and more users around, and less and less makers. That increasing global attraction to populism like Donald Trump, Brexit, and most recently the German AfD, is another sign of that for me.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 12:49:43 pm
content: "marvelling at the wonders of the world and trying to understand how it is composed, "It is difficult to marvel at the wonders of the world when you have a hungary stomach.It should be upto the taxpayers to decide if the billions are better spent inventing the www (so we csn buy that knock off opamp from china 2 cents cheaper, or stream porn discretely) or to feed the hungary, educate the kids and save a few lives."That increasing global attraction to populism like Donald Trump, Brexit, and most recently the German AfD, is another sign of that for me."Populism is just a another world for democracy when you are on the receiving end of it.Our societies progress by going back and forth. If you think Trump, or his counterparts in Europe are bad, ask yourself if ststus quo can continue, ask yourself what professional politicians have done for you over the last 50 years.I think that's powering brexit and Trump.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 01:02:55 pm
content: Quote from: tatus1969 on September 06, 2016, 12:33:45 pmWow!

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 01:40:27 pm
content: Personal opinion only of course, but I think their groundbreaking use of Comic Sans to enrage pedants and design nazis has been a major contribution to the public understanding of how petty and small minded some people can be.That they also used Comic Sans to display the term 'God Particle', thus enraging religious zealots too is in my opinion worth every penny of the Billions they cost to run.Now can we all agree with DannyF that scientific research is a waste of money and that all we need is Brawndo because it's got electrolytes please?

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 02:23:01 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 10:23:12 amYou are more than welcome to refute the wiki info with credible citations.But to answer your criticisms, before the World Wide Web, networking was done through bare bones ARPANET with a TCP/IP stack. You could access machines via FTP, FidoNet and the like, but that's pretty much it.HTTP is what revolutionised delivery of public facing server content. W3C was founded and it standardised a whole bunch of protocols and content representations, such as HTML. CERN's role, specifically Tim Berners-Lee, was instrumental in getting the ball rolling towards the the internet we know today. Without it (and him), the internet landscape could've been very different today. So yeah, the modern internet was practically invented by CERN.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 02:35:45 pm
content: QuoteFeeding the Hungarians is a noble goal, their goulash is delicious.Depending on your local tax system you can decide where some of the money goes directly. Here you can choose where 2% of your tax end up - you can essentially redirect it to a non-profit organization of your choice. Such organizations range from animal shelters, orphanages, churches to medical research foundations. You can also vote political parties that want to redistribute funds into other places (such as their pockets generally). Fortunately, only the most obscure parties actually want to (further) cut funding to basic research (at least here).So, what else can we kill until everyone in the world is happy? Theater? Museums? Archeology? Culture? Higher education? Resources from what else can we funnel into projects that essentially create whole gigantic regions that are completely dependent on foreign aid, where people make far more kids than they can feed themselves, so that when the shit hits the fan in the place where the foreign aid comes from triple shit hits the fan in said region?All in all: Would you prefer a world in which man kind never went to the moon?

author: richnormand
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:00:17 pm
content: This questioning of the value of the LHC reminds me of this, most probably, urban legend.Michael Faraday was showing a delegation of politicians and such the electricity experiments he was doing with magnetic fields. He was asked: what is the value of all this?His response: what is the value of a newborn baby? But if it becomes useful I am sure you will find a way to tax it.Like these idiots in the 1920 to 1950 researching how to make ultrapure elements and large crystals. The research was derided at the time until the need for ultrapure silicon and germanium for transistors.There will always be people questioning the value of mathematics, Bell Labs, NASA, the science and research in general, etc. Until, of course, they are in the hospital surrounded by all these blinking lights technology-based gadgets, keeping them alive. Never mind that all those came from the past several decades of R&D in "useless" fields.Just my $0.02 worth.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 03:12:39 pm
content: People are getting very defensive when their sacred cows are examined. It borders with religion.We've you ask about contributions of LHC to science you get answers about non related noble prizes, NASA, http/html, social projects and the value of mathematics.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 06:49:11 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 12:49:43 pmI think it is about how to balance it. Because people are hungry we should not ban science, because technological advance does also help there. In my opinion it is the prosperity pyramid changing more and more towards a very few having almost all that is the real problem. And by the way, I think persons like Trump don't help much there.Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 12:49:43 pmOnly a guess but I think that could have prevented technological advance at all, and then we would not have electricity, not to mention transistors and everything that came after that. I know that I sound very controversal here, but I am writing this wholeheartedly.Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 12:49:43 pmI agree that this is certainly part of it, also with that recent AfD win most people stated to primarily have stated more against the established parties, and less because they are so much agreed with AfD. But - if you are not happy with your car workshop, would you protest by burning your car? I see that the new populist "aera" is driven from addressing people's fears and dissatisfaction. Hitler was very successfulthat waytime ago. And I don't have the impression that Trump would be a very democratic leader. Of course I cannot divine the future, but I am willing to take a bet. Problem: I would definitely not vote for Clinton either...

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 06:53:02 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on September 06, 2016, 01:40:27 pmDon't know Brawndo, but for the former: Nope

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 06:55:17 pm
content: Quote from: daqq on September 06, 2016, 02:35:45 pmWere they?

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 07:25:28 pm
content: Quote from: tatus1969 on September 06, 2016, 06:53:02 pmReference to Idiocracy.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 07:32:46 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on September 06, 2016, 07:25:28 pmWhy didn't you explain this in the first place, I had voted for Brawndo. If it has electrolytes, then can we say that we have arrived. So kick that reserch stuff, or how was it pronounced?

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 07:58:31 pm
content: "But - if you are not happy with your car workshop, would you protest by burning your car?"I think the voters are protesting by empowering a non establishment candidate, both in Europe and in the US.If you equate their move as a suicide, you may have over estimated your ability to tell the future.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 08:10:22 pm
content: "I think it is about how to balance it."Absokutely. Thats why that decision to fund scienxe should be left to the society, specificakky to individual taz payers: if you want to fund science, you pay an extra tax, ...I wonder how much cern will get under that regime." In my opinion it is the prosperity pyramid changing more and more towards a very few having almost all that is the real problem. "Inequality is the symptom of a problem but not the problem itself. Greed is not just good, it is great. It isbwhat has been propelling himan society foreard for millions of yeara.Worsening inequakity is not duebto greed. It is due to a broadening lack of upward mobikity in our societies.Hard work is no longer respected. Family support is no longer available. The poor is being subject staggering effective marginal tax rates, due to welfare and transfer payments. And education, the most effective upward mobility, has been transformed into a tool of enslavement.Yet, you hear none of the politicians talking about any of that. Because that kind of messaging is suicidal in any democracy."And by the way, I think persons like Trump don't help much there."I'm a huge supporter of Trump but I will never vote for him. His value add is his willingness to tell the truth. If he is elected, it is not because people support him, but people are disgusted by the left.For the same reason, Bush Jr. Elected Obama.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 08:49:25 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on September 06, 2016, 02:34:16 amTranslation: "You made the most important advancement in human communication since Gutenberg and created a trillion dollars' worth of value in the process? Whatever. Where's my flying car, bitch?"QuoteProgress happens when serendipity meets a prepared mind. If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn't call it "research."

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 08:58:39 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 08:10:22 pmcrowd intelligence? Don't believe in that, still waiting for that to work out. I would here start over with talking about populism -->Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 08:10:22 pmQuote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 08:10:22 pmSure Mr Trump is going to help there? Lets see.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 09:23:47 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on September 05, 2016, 11:31:20 pmI Googled "LHC discoveries" - first link:http://science.howstuffworks.com/5-discoveries-made-by-the-large-hadron-collider-so-far-.htm

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 09:29:43 pm
content: "crowd intelligence? Don't believe in that, "Well, do it at your risk. There is plenty of research on this. The longest I could remember is the wsj monkey dart experiment. They pitted a monkey through a dart at a stock chart vs. Seasoned fund managers and over a long period of time the monkey consistently beat out the fund managers.I have spent lots of my time with many experts and I would say that you are far likely to find con artists among them and average Joe's.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:12:27 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 09:29:43 pmHow does a) randomly throwing darts on a newspaper, b) banker's failing to behave intelligently, relate to claims towards crowd intelligence?

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:18:41 pm
content: "Sure Mr Trump is going to help there? Lets see."Like a market place, a vibrant society is one where a diversity of views exists.Trump is absolutely right when he said that political correctness kills. A free society is first and foremost built on free expression.Many of the things we take for granted today were at one time or another high offensive, illegal, or wrong. And I'm absolutely confident that many things we hold dear today will be thorough repudiated by future generations.So a healthy dose of relativism is critical.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 10:21:05 pm
content: "How does a) randomly throwing darts on a newspaper, b) banker's failing to behave intelligently"Two ground breaking research over the last century is probably efficient market and rational expectation.Read up on them and if you still have questions I'm happy to extend this conversation further.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 11:48:23 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 10:21:05 pmWell, we don't know how many monkeys they had to go through before they found one who got lucky. This sort of study (if it was a formal study at all) is at the heart of the current replication crisis in the "softer" sciences.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2016, 11:55:33 pm
content: QuoteNot really sure when I want to have a dispute with wiki, as I totally agreed with their notion that CERN invented WWW, not the internet. You are the person who insisted otherwise so if anything, YOU should be the one disputing with wiki.QuoteLet you in on a secrete: when someone tells you that you are practically a genius, they are actually saying that you are NOT a genius.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 05:39:08 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 11:55:33 pmWhat's wrong with inventions that have been made by people that are not from the U.S.?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Webalso states thatThe World Wide Web was invented by English scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. He wrote the first web browser in 1990 while employed at CERN in Switzerland. It has become known simply as the Web.p.s. "Let you in on asecrete"... could that have been a Freudian slip?

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 06:09:42 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 09:29:43 pmThe amount of average joes vastly outnumbers the number of experts, that's a useless comparison especially considering experts will have more knowledge/education and those with motivation to con people can do so more effectively."Absokutely. Thats why that decision to fund scienxe should be left to the society, specificakky to individual taz payers: if you want to fund science, you pay an extra tax, ..."Also, horrendous spelling errors aside, letting the masses decide what money is spent on would be a horrible, disastrous fucking mistake, chances are millions would be spent on building a literal, physical wall on the border in the US, and that's not how taxes should work in the slightest.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 07:08:14 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 10:21:05 pmNot necessary. I take crowd's growing attraction to populism to make my opinion. I tend to call that massmanipulation. As mentioned, Hitler was very successful with this strategy. In fact, German press has recently started comparing Trump with that person on more than one occasion.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 07:14:42 am
content: Quote from: tatus1969 on September 07, 2016, 07:08:14 amI'm surprised it took them so long.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 08:31:30 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 07, 2016, 06:09:42 amWalls work both ways, they keep people in as well as out...Just saying.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 08:45:00 am
content: Quote from: CJay on September 07, 2016, 08:31:30 amProblem is they aren't planning one for the north border yet, which leaves them one direction to travel. *shudders*

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 09:06:23 am
content: Quote from: CJay on September 07, 2016, 08:31:30 amThere are some million people in Germany who know about possible issues with walls...

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 09:08:21 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 07, 2016, 08:45:00 amThey will "solve" that differently...http://www.burrardstreetjournal.com/trump-canada-independence-was-mistake/

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 09:12:40 am
content: Quote from: tatus1969 on September 07, 2016, 09:08:21 amRofl fuck off, how did I never see this. This guy is even more delusional than I thought.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 09:43:59 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 07, 2016, 09:12:40 amFortunately that's only a satire site but having watched 'The Thick of it' (comedy/satire about politics) and seen an awful lot of the 'satire' become truth in British politics, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump had said it.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 10:12:33 am
content: Quote from: CJay on September 07, 2016, 08:31:30 amThat's why people invented doors. Just saying.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 10:18:14 am
content: Quoteyou are barking off the wrong tree.here is how much off you are: on this particular matter, i am in complete agreement with you, as well as the wiki that CERN invented the ***WWW*** (more precisely, html).The dispute is on if CERN invented the ***internet***.I firmly believe that Mr. Gore, ***not*** CERN, invented the internet.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 11:26:41 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 07, 2016, 10:18:14 amOh dear.http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 12:39:37 pm
content: Actually, this whole www / CERN discussion is silly: justifying huuuuuge CERN expenditures on the basis of www/berner is like justifying huge expenditures on the patent office because of relativity / Einstein.It just sounds desperate.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 12:53:15 pm
content: If you think this sounds desperate just remember how much more is spent on killing people for virtually no reason whatsoever, which advances our society in virtually no way. Stick a flag on it though and all of a sudden it's amazing.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 01:00:12 pm
content: And if all that money had been spent in 'murrica on an American version of the LHC?Would it still be unjustifiable?

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 01:05:45 pm
content: Actually, you have been given a list of major achievements by DenzilPenberthy a page or so back in the discussion. These contributions would have been impossible without a lot of fairly big and expensive equipment and a lot of very smart people working together.There are many lesser or indirect contributions, such as the world wide web, lots of medical technology and miscellany advances.As far as I'm concerned it's resources well spent.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 01:15:18 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 07, 2016, 12:39:37 pmwho is doing that? Didn't read that here.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 01:34:54 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 07, 2016, 10:18:14 amGood point, I should have read that string in this thread more thoroughly before posting. But then I disagree with both of you. Neither Al Gore nor CERN had invented the internet, although they both were certainly great contributors of helping it lift off the ground. Afaik the design and construction of the first network was a collaborative action.

author: alexanderbrevig
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 03:49:27 pm
content: The fact that this can even be a discussion is proof enough for me that way toolittlemoney is spent on research and the propagation of it.I had no idea anyone was in doubt as to whether the CERN is for good or for worse. \$\Omega\$d

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 10:22:29 pm
content: "I had no idea anyone was in doubt as to whether the CERN is for good or for worse. \$\Omega\$d"That's how learning works. Hopefully you get wiser, one tiny bit at a time.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 12:22:36 am
content: BTW, the Japanese are now thinking about a linear collider, having learned from the LHC.

author: VulcanBB18
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 02:35:58 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 05, 2016, 09:07:15 pmThat is your failure, not ours. Basing your opinion on that example of "journalism" is another failure.I'm sure you posted this to get a reaction, and you did, congratulations.How do you propose we should investigate the fundamental properties of matter?

author: NottheDan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 04:12:33 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 08, 2016, 12:22:36 amAnd?

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 04:37:15 am
content: QuoteYou probably mean the Chinese:http://www.sciencealert.com/china-s-revealed-plans-to-build-the-world-s-largest-particle-collider-twice-the-size-of-the-lhcGood for them.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 05:37:33 am
content: One very useful thing that's come from the LHC complex, ishttps://home.cern/about/experiments/cloudThe CLOUD experiment. An examination of how water droplet nucleation in the upper atmosphere is affected by cosmic rays (mainly) and how they influence cloud formation.This established a strong link between the strength of the solar wind, and cloud formation on Earth. It's an inverse relation, since the solar wind in the Heliosphere acts as a shield against high energy cosmic rays. More cosmic rays reaching Earth, more clouds. More solar wind, less cosmic rays reaching Earth.The Warmist crowd actually managed to get the CLOUD experiment shut down when it became clear the results were not going to support AGW. Only strong protest in the science community managed to keep it funded.So that's at least one thing CERN has done that upset an applecart. Good on them.As for LHC results, didn't it only recently achieve full designed operating power? Not fair to say 'no breakthrough results' yet.Btw, does anyone know whether now the LHC can run at full beam energy, is the beam packet train fully populated? Or are they still running with only a very short group of packets, leaving most of the slots unpopulated?I'm very curious about this. Those who've heard of the fringe (woo-woo?) science field called Scalar Waves will understand.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 06:07:41 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on September 08, 2016, 05:37:33 amThanks for the link. The embedded video is quite good:Quote from: TerraHertz on September 08, 2016, 05:37:33 amNot sure where you came up with that - since it is actually contrary to what the link shows.If you follow the arguments andthe linkto the most recent findings aspublished in Nature- it's quite the opposite:QuoteAnd:QuoteAnd from the video below " cosmic rays had a very big effect (on cloud formation) in the clean, pristine pre-industrial atmosphere but less so today"Cloud 2

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 06:25:44 am
content: Quote from: alexanderbrevig on September 07, 2016, 03:49:27 pm

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 12:04:31 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on September 08, 2016, 06:07:41 amFrom following the history of it. Excerpt from my files: (Which, since I'm slack, don't include ALL the relevant articles I've seen.)-------------re CERN CLOUD experiment (I forgot to save original link for this text. Google phrases, many present.)UK – Dr Jasper Kirkby(Particle Physicist) is a superb scientist, but he has been a lousy politician. In 1998, anticipating he’d be leading a path-breaking experiment into the sun’s role in global warming, he made the mistake of stating that the sun and cosmic rays "will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century." Global warming, he theorized, may be part of a natural cycle in the Earth’s temperature.Dr. Kirkby was immediately condemned by climate scientists for minimizing the role of human beings in global warming. Stories in the media disparaged Dr. Kirkby by citing scientists who feared oil-industry lobbyists would use his statements to discredit the greenhouse effect. And the funding approval for Dr. Kirkby’s path-breaking experiment — seemingly a sure thing when he first announced his proposal– was put on ice.Dr. Kirkby was stunned, and not just because the experiment he was about to run had support within his scientific institute, and was widely expected to have profound significance. Dr. Kirkby was also stunned because his institute is CERN, and science performed at CERN had never before seemed so vulnerable to whims of government funders.---realityreturns on Mar 25th, 2010 at 2:14 pm"Dr. Kirkby was stunned, and not just because the experiment he was about to run had support within his scientific institute, and was widely expected to have profound significance. Dr. Kirkby was also stunned because his institute is CERN, and science performed at CERN had never before seemed so vulnerable to whims of government funders."Has CERN shut down, TUB? It doesn’t seem Kirkby has. He’s just being more politically correct…lolDr. Kirkby, in contrast, now 10 years older and wiser, has changed. In the past, he would unguardedly say: "There is certainly a greenhouse effect. The question is whether it is responsible for all the 0.6C warming in the past century, or two-thirds or a fifth — or what?" Now, to head off attacks, and controversies that might once again derail the CLOUD product, he hides his hopes and downplays the significance of what CLOUD may find: "If there really is an effect, then it would simply be part of the climate-change cocktail," a perhaps less naive, more politic Dr. Kirkby now states.2009-06-04Subject category CERN ColloquiumAbstract The current understanding of climate change in the industrial age is that it is predominantly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, with relatively small natural contributions due to solar irradiance and volcanoes. However, palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the climate has frequently varied on 100-year time scales during the Holocene (last 10 kyr) by amounts comparable to the present warming – and yet the mechanism or mechanisms are not understood. Some of these reconstructions show clear associations with solar variability, which is recorded in the light radio-isotope archives that measure past variations of cosmic ray intensity. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established. Estimated changes of solar irradiance on these time scales appear to be too small to account for the climate observations. This raises the question of whether cosmic rays may directly affect the climate, providing an effective indirect solar forcing mechanism. Indeed recent satellite observations – although disputed – suggest that cosmic rays may affect clouds. This talk presents an overview of the palaeoclimatic evidence for solar/cosmic ray forcing of the climate, and reviews the possible physical mechanisms. These will be investigated in the CLOUD experiment which begins to take data at the CERN PS later this year.---realityreturns on Mar 25th, 2010 at 4:43 pmBetter late than never…Only this explanatory video datedProduced by: CERN Video ProductionsDirector: CERN Video Productions04:26 min. / 11 November 2009http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1221088---The only thing that will save us is proof that MMGW is the crock that 74% of the population now believe it is. The work started by people such as Henrik Svensmark on clouds and being continued by Jasper Kirkby at CERN with the CLOUD experiment will hopefully nail MMGW for the poor science and political scam that it is:Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark on cloudshttp://www.the-daily-politics.com/home/49-columnists/1364-danish-physicist-henrik-svensmark-on-clouds---SwissBob on Mar 25th, 2010 at 11:58 amMany of us are awaiting the results of the fullscale CERN Cloud Experiment with great interest. Here is Kirksby’s excellent lecturehttp://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/?ln=frAnd guess what, the climate ‘establishment’ wanted to quash it.http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=975f250d-ca5d-4f40-b687-a1672ed1f68420101218http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/12/sunny_days_for_cloud_experimen.htmlSunny days for CLOUD experimentThe experiment has a long and bumpy history. The idea is to test the theory that cosmic rays spur the formation of particles in the air that nucleate clouds, in turn making skies cloudier and the planet cooler. Researchers have noted a dearth of sunspots (which is linked to more cosmic rays) during the ‘little ice age’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a peak in sunspots (linked to a drop in cosmic rays) during the late 1980s, when global cloudiness dropped by about 3% (see Nature‘s feature on the project). No one knows how big this effect might be, and the idea that it might account for a big chunk of the warming over the last century is highly controversial.The short version is that the Carbonazis tried to suppress this experiment, because it posed a threat to their religious doctrine that humans are to blame for all climate shifts. But the experiment is being run and indications are that it confirms cosmic rays significantly influence cloud cover, which in turn significantly influences how much of the sun's heat reaches the Earth's surface.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmwzPexMSkI&feature=youtu.behttp://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtmlMini Ice Age 2015-2035 | 100+ Year Temperature Records Dropping Like Flies & 10.7cm Flux Down 30%NASA’s own website (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml) states that the F10.7 flux is “an important indicator of solar activity because it tends to follow the changes in the solar ultraviolet that influence the Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere.” Decreasing UV radiation, lower solar winds, allow for more cosmic radiation from interstellar space to interact with the upper atmosphere and leads to greater cloud formation. More clouds means more sunlight refracted before hitting the surface of the planet, which leads to more cooling effects.---------------------------------------------------->And from the video below " cosmic rays had a very big effect (on cloud formation) in the clean, pristine pre-industrial atmosphere but less so today"Which leads into the matter of presently declining solar wind as the new Maunder Minimum sets in, and apparently *entirely_coincidental* rising cloud cover and spate of extreme cold records worldwide recently. (You probably don't know about those, since they are almost never reported in MSM.) But this is going way off topic.

author: borjam
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 08, 2016, 02:53:00 pm
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 06, 2016, 11:24:11 amEventually it might disprove supersymmetry. Disproving a theory is as valuable as proving it.I think it was Hawking who said that a failure to find the Higgs Boson would make the situation really interestingQuoteSo, they found that the standard model is very good, even though it's incomplete. Anyway many physicists hope to find new physics, to observe some previously unknown phenomenon. Or maybe they just want to create a massive black hole destroying Earth so that they don't need to keep looking for the M TheoryNow, seriously. Science is an incremental process, and there is a lot of hard and obscure work between a dramatic discovery and the next.QuoteYep. That's why I use special magnetic soles. Since the LHC restarted I just can't stay on a flat surface!

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 01:15:48 am
content: This happened to surface. More on clouds and cosmic rays/solar interaction. I hadn't come across this video before. It's interesting.youtube.com/ watch?v=ANMTPF1blpQUploaded on Jul 24, 2011Henrik Svensmark's documentary on climate change and cosmic rays.Also some good illustrations of how 'non-conforming' climate science gets suppressed. eg around 52:00 on. Background to what went on with the CERN CLOUD experiment.Worth saving to show around.

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 02:21:48 am
content: QuoteThat's something many "scientists" have a hard time comprehending. Given all the advances we have made over the last 4 million years, the best theory we have to explain the universe we live in is obviously flawed on the most elementary level,that must hurt.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 02:39:02 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 17, 2016, 02:21:48 amLife should be full of mystery and wonder, why shouldn't an elementary particle physicist's world have a little bit of that too?This is no worse than mathematics, where it is known that there are things that are true but cannot be proven as such, or in computing where the halting problem is unsolvable. Neither of which diminish the values of maths or computing. I really don't think that mathematicians or computer scientists feel pain because of it....

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 04:07:42 am
content: Quote from: hamster_nz on September 17, 2016, 02:39:02 amAnd it is no different in any of the sciences. Scientists understand that all models are always incomplete, flawed and subject to revision. Claiming otherwise only demonstrates a misunderstanding of science.Viva le mystère !

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 04:46:06 am
content: Quote from: mtdoc on September 17, 2016, 04:07:42 amExcept for the settled one.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 07:26:44 am
content: Quote from: dannyf on September 17, 2016, 02:21:48 amI also have the impression that quite some "scientists" seem to have problems comprehending this fundamental idea of how human research works. But it is good to know that everyscientistunderstands it well.About the Higgs: yes they have proven that it really is there, which tightens the Standard Model. But there still was a "problem" with it as "scientists" would say.There were a lot of different Theories of Everything around at that time, all of them making a prediction of the Higgs boson's energy. Basically you could separate them into low and high energy groups. The LHC measured an energy that is almost exactly in the middle between, disprovingallof them.You may now say that all those Theoretical physicists had been sad and disappointed, losing themself in grief and whiskey. At first thought maybe, but the much more important result is to know now what toexclude. Now knowing exactly which energy a new theory must predict is an exciting sensation for them!My mantra as an engineer when troubleshooting:Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.Arthur Conan Doyle

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 11:11:50 am
content: QuoteTo be fair, even the faithfuls there know only to commit you and your money to fight their cause: You don't see Al Gore selling his beachfront properties to move inland, do you?

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 11:48:58 am
content: Quote from: zapta on September 17, 2016, 04:46:06 amWhich model would that be that we can consider settled?

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 01:06:08 pm
content: Quote from: tatus1969 on September 17, 2016, 11:48:58 amYou must be new here.It's the model whose name should not be mentioned here, for thread longevity.

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 01:42:12 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on September 17, 2016, 01:06:08 pmMust be like that. Currently I recognize only one He Who Cannot Be Named...

author: NottheDan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 01:56:55 pm
content: Quote from: tatus1969 on September 17, 2016, 01:42:12 pmHastur?

author: tatus1969
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2016, 03:17:18 pm
content: Quote from: NottheDan on September 17, 2016, 01:56:55 pmclose