somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> * I challenge anyone to provide a single practical application that the
> discovery of the top quark (mass) has enabled.

> * I challenge anyone to provide a single practical application that the
> discovery of the top quark (mass) may one day enable. Top quark was
> discovered more than a decade ago at Fermilab, an older generation collider
> than LHC.

  1900: I challenge anyone to provide a single practical application that
the disvocery of electrons and atomic structure may one day enable.

> * Side effects and peripheral benefits does not justify an endavour of this
> magnitude. If you are going to suggest grid computing as a benefit, why not
> suggest pouring all 10 billion dollars into it? That would give much bigger
> and surer yields.

  Do you have some kind of difficulty in understanding the concept of
*one* example of a potential benefit, and that *one* example does not mean
it's the *only* example?

  Pouring all the 10 billion dollars on one single application would be
a huge waste of money. Pouring it into experimentation which may produce
dozens of applications is more beneficial.

> * Moon program (or in general, manned space exploration programs) are/were
> huge wastes of funds as well. If there were any merits to it, we would have
> visited the moon in the last 40 years. It was one-upmanship, clear and
> simple. Post-facto justifications, "space-age-technology" hype as a result
> is NASA trying to save face.

  Yeah, right. The manned space exploration programs did not induce
technology which is nowadays used to launch satellites to orbit and keep
them there.

  Says the person who might be viewing satellite channels, using GPS and
google maps as we speak.

> * I'm not a science luddite. Far from it. However, not all science is equal,
> economically and ethically speaking. There are points where the law of
> diminishing returns makes certain pursuits - how shall I put it tactfully -
> stupid. Science without regard to the human factor is just stamp collecting.

  Which you write using a computer and technology which is the result of
those stupid mad scientists studying useless things like subatomic
particles.

> * Some of you claim "yes, but what if we scoffed at this or that research in
> the past..." To those, I remind you of Sagan's (yes, I'm aware of the irony,
> as I believe much of cosmology to be a waste of resources too) quote
> (paraphrased) : "They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Einstein. But they
> also laughed at Bozo the Clown". In other words, just because we benefited
> from expensive experiments in the past (though not many, if at all, at this
> magnitude), we cannot assume any expensive experiment is worthwhile. Each
> case needs to be investigated for its own merits.

  And you assume that they did *not* investigate this case for its own
merits and instead decided to spend billions on a useless project. Right.

> * Hence my question, what possible practical expectation is there from this
> experiment? Feel free to ask around. No honest scientist will give you an
> answer.

  And naturally you have credible sources and references for this.

> * Finally, is anyone as naive to think that LHC will be the final experiment
> that explains everything?

  Exactly who claimed it would be? Except maybe some sensationalistic
newspaper.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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