Higgs Boson Particle

[kcowan]

True, no way to predict it. But looking at it from an 'opportunity cost' viewpoint - what about the value of more near-term projects that didn't come to light because these guys were working on looking for the existence of this particle?

This could be used as an argument for every major breakthrough. The point of theoretical research is exactly the opposite. The pursuit has no practical application. That is left to others (usually engineers).

The invention of the LASER (MASER actually) was the result of quantum physics but the discovery of quantum physics was not for its applications.

 

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by ERD50
True, no way to predict it. But looking at it from an 'opportunity cost' viewpoint - what about the value of more near-term projects that didn't come to light because these guys were working on looking for the existence of this particle?

This could be used as an argument for every major breakthrough. The point of theoretical research is exactly the opposite. The pursuit has no practical application. That is left to others (usually engineers).

The invention of the LASER (MASER actually) was the result of quantum physics but the discovery of quantum physics was not for its applications.

True. But I think the point that LOL! was trying to make (and I am not smart enough to agree/disagree), is that this was a HUGE project at a HUGE cost. With such huge costs, should we have at least some expectations for what we get out of it?

Did any previous major breakthrough have these kinds of resources committed to it? Those guys playing with a stack of chemicals, some wires and a compass didn't spend much time/money. Amber rods and cats are cheap . I guess the Manhattan project would be an example of lots of resources - but they had a clear objective (whether that was a good/bad thing could be debated, but...). The moon shot is probably more questionable, but I'm sure there was a military reason for that as well, even though it wasn't 'sold' as such.

I think LOL! is saying it is a matter of degrees. Basic research, yes. But this particular program? Maybe more questionable. And we will never know - if something fantastic comes out of it, we don't know what else we might have found in other projects that went unfunded.

-ERD50

 

[Purron]

Interesting for those of us (like me) who are struggling to understand....

 

[M Paquette]

True. But I think the point that LOL! was trying to make (and I am not smart enough to agree/disagree), is that this was a HUGE project at a HUGE cost. With such huge costs, should we have at least some expectations for what we get out of it?

Did any previous major breakthrough have these kinds of resources committed to it? Those guys playing with a stack of chemicals, some wires and a compass didn't spend much time/money. Amber rods and cats are cheap . I guess the Manhattan project would be an example of lots of resources - but they had a clear objective (whether that was a good/bad thing could be debated, but...). The moon shot is probably more questionable, but I'm sure there was a military reason for that as well, even though it wasn't 'sold' as such.

I think LOL! is saying it is a matter of degrees. Basic research, yes. But this particular program? Maybe more questionable. And we will never know - if something fantastic comes out of it, we don't know what else we might have found in other projects that went unfunded.

-ERD50

Well, it's empirical research into fundamental science. We will have a better idea of what we get out of it in fifty to a hundred years, when folks have built on the the research to the point where it becomes engineering. The gap between Rutherford discovering that atoms have nuclei and commercial nuclear power is on that order, for example.

Oh, and don't forget that the Large Hadron Collider was built to support a number of experiments, each of which develops data that can be used to test many different ideas.. Testing the existence of the Higgs boson was just one result from a couple of the experiments.

http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/lhc_experiments.htm

 

[eytonxav]

 

[growing_older]

True. But I think the point that LOL! was trying to make (and I am not smart enough to agree/disagree), is that this was a HUGE project at a HUGE cost.

Will it be worthwhile 100 years from now? I don't know. But basic research is most often successful when you do a lot of it, not when you do one thing really really expensive. We could have had a lot of researchers looking at a lot of ideas including some that might have yielded unexpected results. Would we have found something worthwhile? Again, no way to know. But I do like the idea of looking at many things including some we're not sure what we're going to find there, more than looking at one really expensive thing, which we're pretty sure what we're going to find there - and we did.

 

[kcowan]

I think the argument against the huge cost of research is one of principle. Until a practical application for it is found, it is sunk cost. It is not just the LHC but the millions of man-hours that have been expended.

One could use the same arguments against medical research until a cure is found. (I am an engineering physics grad and half my class got their PhDs and spent their whole lives doing pure research. We have had many discussions about the relative contribution to society. I went to work after my masters degree.)

 

[nun]

I think the argument against the huge cost of research is one of principle. Until a practical application for it is found, it is sunk cost. It is not just the LHC but the millions of man-hours that have been expended.

One could use the same arguments against medical research until a cure is found. (I am an engineering physics grad and half my class got their PhDs and spent their whole lives doing pure research. We have had many discussions about the relative contribution to society. I went to work after my masters degree.)

Given that Schottky couldn't have invented the transistor without quantum theory I think pure research is worth every penny. We can never know which avenue of investigation is going to produce the breakthroughs so the scary thing is to think of all the things that never got funded or pursued that would have made life so much better for us. We could have been living to 500 and travelling via transporter beams by now.

 

[eytonxav]

Given that Schottky couldn't have invented the transistor without quantum theory I think pure research is worth every penny. We can never know which avenue of investigation is going to produce the breakthroughs so the scary thing is to think of all the things that never got funded or pursued that would have made life so much better for us. We could have been living to 500 and travelling via transporter beams by now.

I believe Shockley invented the transistor along with his two cohorts, while Schottky invented a particular diode.

 

[ERD50]

I believe Shockley invented the transistor along with his two cohorts, while Schottky invented a particular diode.

Yes, that seems more accurate (wiki):

From November 17, 1947 to December 23, 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at AT&T's Bell Labs in the United States, performed experiments and observed that when two gold point contacts were applied to a crystal of germanium, a signal was produced with the output power greater than the input.[8] Solid State Physics Group leader William Shockley saw the potential in this, and over the next few months worked to greatly expand the knowledge of semiconductors.

It also does not appear that any knowledge of quantum physics played into it (or I just am not aware of such), at least from these descriptions, it seems they were investigating the properties of these materials. More like good old lab work than real theoretical stuff?

Also interesting, Edison actually discovered the vacuum tube amplifier - but didn't recognize it as such, or any practical value. I think he tried adding a grid to collect the deposits from forming on the inside of the light bulb:

Although thermionic emission was originally reported in 1873 by Frederick Guthrie, it was Thomas Edison's 1884 investigation that spurred future research, the phenomenon thus becoming known as the "Edison effect". Edison patented what he found,[4] but he did not understand the underlying physics, nor did he have an inkling of the potential value of the discovery. It wasn't until the early 20th century that the rectifying property of such a device was utilized, most notably by John Ambrose Fleming, who used the diode tube to detect (demodulate) radio signals. Lee De Forest's 1906 "audion" was also developed as a radio detector, and soon led to the development of the triode tube. This was essentially the first electronic amplifier, leading to great improvements in telephony (such as the first coast-to-coast telephone line in the US) and revolutionizing the technology used in radio transmitters and receivers. The electronics revolution of the 20th century arguably began with the invention of the triode vacuum tube.

-ERD50

 

[nun]

I believe Shockley invented the transistor along with his two cohorts, while Schottky invented a particular diode.

Yep, but I'm a physicist and not an EE so being within a factor of 2 (I got a lot of the letters right) is deemed as success.

 

[nun]

It also does not appear that any knowledge of quantum physics played into it (or I just am not aware of such), at least from these descriptions, it seems they were investigating the properties of these materials. More like good old lab work than real theoretical stuff?

-ERD50

Solid state physics is built on quantum theory. Shockley and his colleagues were all solid state physicists and so completely immersed in quantum theory. The transistor was the product of a lot of theory, it's not like Edison trying out thousands of filaments. To come up with the right P-N junction the maths (ie quantum theory) had to be done first.

 

[eytonxav]

Yep, but I'm a physicist and not an EE so being within a factor of 2 (I got a lot of the letters right) is deemed as success.

I always loved math and physics but ended up as a lowly EE, but agree you were close enough by physics standards.

Incidentally, I love your signature line.