somebody wrote:
>>> 1) Radioactivity was not called "high energy physics" back then, nor is
> it
>>> called that now.
> 
>> You're missing the point. (As you seem to have been for much of the
>> discussion.)  It wasn't called that, but that's what it was,
> 
> No, it wasn't.

	Yes, it was. We can do this all day.

>> and nobody  knew when they discovered it what it would lead to.
> 
> So if X is a member of Y and Z and if Q is a member of Y, then Q is also a
> member of Z?
> 
> Ie: Radiation, which when we observed it we didn't know what it would lead
> to, actually led to useful applications, so, say, Higgs, which we don't know
> what it may lead to, will lead to useful applications when observed. Such
> reasoning doesn't follow.

	I'm not aware Darren claimed anything useful would come out of the LHC.

> Moreover, radioactivity obviously *did* have an effect on everyday life.
> That was how it was discovered (much like how magnetism or electricity was
> discovered in ancient times).

	That was not *how* it was discovered. Roentgen was not at all expecting 
to see anything like it. He was not looking for a new type of radiation. 
He was just doing something else and was, unknowingly, creating x-rays. 
He also just happened to have something in his setup that responded to 
x-rays. Total luck.

	Specifically, he was *not* trying to investigate any effect specific to 
x-rays. He was investigating cathode rays.

> HEP operates in a domain not presently or foreseeably applicable to everyday
> life. We are not trying to explain an observed phenomenon, we are trying to
> "observe" something, that which is not even currently a phenomenon.

	This has been quite common in the history of physics. Sometimes 
experiments predate a theory, sometimes the other way round.

> Unfortunately, not all discoveries will bear fruit in a lifetime or twenty.
> There's no such physical law. Some discoveries will remain academic for a
> long, long time.

	Yes, but you seem to have a notion that you know which will and which 
won't.

-- 
Ground yourself, THEN hug your motherboard!


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                                    anl

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