logoalt Hacker News

throwawaymaths10/12/20242 repliesview on HN

> CERN would like to build a bigger particle accelerator

Sabine has a point though. There isn't any specific thing thing that a larger accelerator is likely to yield a positive answer on. Unlike the current biggest, which was at least explicitly constructed to find the higgs.

And before you say dark matter, there's zero evidence that dark matter particles will be in any given mass range nor is there a solud model that predicts an interaction that will generate such a particle.


Replies

XorNot10/12/2024

The topic of this video is that people are struggling to find new paths forward due to a lack of experimental data and a lack of results from theoretical approaches - which ultimately is contingent on finding some new experimental data they can predict.

So one way or another, it's quite likely you will need a larger accelerator. Moreover, logistically, not building that accelerator means you quite likely never have it - CERN's timelines go beyond 2050. The people who would be operating the next generation of accelerators haven't been born yet. If nobody is building anything, the knowledge and know how to do it is likely to be lost.

Like I said: it's a false dichotomy. It's one thing to frame the problem as "we should spend some money on these approaches which look promising". It's quite another to frame it as "those people are stealing all the money which should be spent on obviously correct alternative".

There is more then enough money to build everything, provided a solid case can be made for it - and not "we should do this" but "how we will do this". CERN tends to win bids because they're not delivering a concept, they're delivering a timeline and plan of exactly how they will get there.

show 2 replies
GoblinSlayer10/12/2024

Do they need to be generated in interaction? If dark matter particles have no charges except for mass, what role can they play in interaction?