And lo on Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:38:26 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

>   Just as one example: Exactly how do you think they discovered the
> properties of semiconductors and transistors?

Looked down the back of the sofa? Maybe the discoverers tripped over it  
while routing through the attic; it's amazing what you can find up there  
sometimes.

>   How do you think the world would be today if they had simply thought
> "this is a useless waste of money, let's use the money on something
> more useful"?

<connection to internet lost>

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:36:11 -0600, somebody wrote:

> Jokes aside, doesn't anybody else find it ridiculous that almost 10 billion
> dollars is being spent on an experiment that will have absolutely zero
> practical benefit to mankind (even if it's spectacularly successful beyond
> imagination)?

You're forgetting the LHC Computing Grid that they developed to be able to
process and distrbute the pentabytes of information that will be generated
at a rate of about a gigabyte per second. CERN was also where the
fountations of the WWW was first developed.

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/09/04/the-lhc-will-revolutionize-physics-can-it-revolutionize-the-internet-too/

Brendan

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48da09d1@news.povray.org...
> Jokes aside, doesn't anybody else find it ridiculous that almost 10 
> billion ...

  The fool looks at the finger that points to the moon |-D

Marc

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On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:36:11 -0600, somebody wrote:

> doesn't anybody else find it ridiculous that almost 10 billion dollars
> is being spent on an experiment that will have absolutely zero practical
> benefit to mankind

Prove it will have no practical benefit to mankind.

Very often, when it comes to experiments like this, the development of 
technology to do the experiments has application outside of the field 
it's being used in.  Going to the moon had no practical benefit to 
mankind, except of course that it enabled us to develop technology that's 
now being used to do medical research that couldn't be done in Earth's 
gravity.....

Jim

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somebody wrote:
> Jokes aside, doesn't anybody else find it ridiculous that almost 10 billion
> dollars is being spent on an experiment that will have absolutely zero
> practical benefit to mankind (even if it's spectacularly successful beyond
> imagination)?

How do you know that? It's examining the same sorts of questions about 
the universe that relativity and quantum mechanics examined. You don't 
think lasers, semiconductors, and computers were of benefit to humanity?

> I'd even be tempted to say 10 billion
> dollars in the next 10 years spent on fighting aging could have the
> potential to add 10 years to the lifespan of our species, to my and your
> life. 

I'm not sure of that. What would you spend 10 billion dollars on to be 
*sure* to answer a question of aging, or cancer cures? Or would you just 
spend it in the hopes that maybe you'll find something out that's useful?

Of course, the other problem is that the people with money already spend 
it on things like cancer cures, because the result *will* be profitable. 
It's useful to pay for fundamental research where the initial results 
won't be profitable to anyone, but where future developments will help 
mankind, because otherwise the initial results don't get created.

> what the discovery of the top quark did
> for humanity? What remotely practical consequence did it have? 

A better understanding of quantum chromodynamics, which might yield 
reliable nuclear-quantum computers in the future?

> What remotely practical consequence *could* it have? 

Infinite free energy for the taking?

> High energy physics operates in a
> domain that has no connection whatsoever with anything applicable to
> everyday life. 

Funny enough, people doing the experiments actually disagree. :-)

The funny thing about basic research is you never know what it might 
lead to.

 > It's the same kind of meaningless pursuit as analyzing the
> makeup of a galaxy 5 billion light years away. There can be no application
> whatsover, even in one's wildest dreams.

So, you'd rather wait for the asteroid to actually hit the earth before 
you start building telescopes capable of seeing it coming?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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somebody wrote:
| Jokes aside, doesn't anybody else find it ridiculous that almost 10
billion

Please don't feed the troll

- --
"Eppur si muove" - Galileo Galilei
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"Doctor John" <joh### [at] homecom> wrote
> somebody wrote:

> | Jokes aside, doesn't anybody else find it ridiculous that almost 10
> billion

> Please don't feed the troll

There have been many more responses than I expected and can individually
answer, so I will follow up the most thoughtful of the responses above, and
summarize my answers:

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* Sure, most of mathematics is theoretical, but it's much, much cheaper to
do mathematics, and one can pursue _many_ branches for a fraction of the
cost. LHC is akin to spending 10 billion dollars to find the 10 billionth
prime. Sure, an impressive feat on paper, but a _singular_ feat, and with no
feasible practicle applications.

* Laymen are, unfortunately, impossibly confused about the depth and breadth
of physics and media and publicists prey on this. HEP (high energy physics)
is a deep, deep end, far removed from mostly applied branches of physcis
such as quantum optics, quantum computing, condensed matter, solid state...
etc. I would much welcome a 10 billion dollars investment in any or all of
those fields, that have proven or at least feasible returns on investment.

* 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 it's not true that we did not foresee any practical applications for
the major breakthroughs in the past. It's a romatic myth that scientists are
always working against the grain and that science is completely an
unpredicable and wild pursuit.

* Having said that, there have been many dead ends in science too. History
tends to push them under the rug. Spending has been limited, though. As the
frontiers are pushed, ever more expensive experiments are needed.

* 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.

* Finally, is anyone as naive to think that LHC will be the final experiment
that explains everything? We have all the way to go to Planck energy (well,
yes and no, there are suggestions we need not, which is a good thing, as we
possibly cannot, but my general point is valid): LHC will at best answer
some questions and posit some even finer ones. Do we then build a 10
trillion dollar collider? What about 10 zillion? Where do you draw the line
in such a singleminded pursuit? For if you believe a line needs to be drawn,
"where" is a valid question. If not, well, even if you don't closely follow
high energy physics, you surely can agree on probabilistic grounds that it
would be a fantastic coincidence for you and I to witness the end of
physics.

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"John VanSickle" <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:48da29f3$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:

> > Jokes aside, doesn't anybody else find it ridiculous that almost 10
billion
> > dollars is being spent on an experiment that will have absolutely zero
> > practical benefit to mankind (even if it's spectacularly successful
beyond
> > imagination)?

> Most of what government does nowadays is of no practical benefit to
> mankind, so the CERN deal really isn't that unusual.

True, true. But shouldn't we expect better from scientists? Granted, no
individual physicist is going to turn down an opportunity to take part in
such an experiment, individual scientists are motivated by the same selfish
interests as the rest of us. But science, as an institution, needs to
develop a conscience, a scale of proportion, and prioritization.

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somebody wrote:
> discovered more than a decade ago at Fermilab, an older generation collider
> than LHC.

Ten years is a rather short time for practical applications from 
something like this. How long between discovery of Maxwell's equations 
and practical applications thereof? How long between the invention of 
relativity and the launching of GPS satellites?

> suggest pouring all 10 billion dollars into it? 

Remember that 10 billion dollars today is closer to what, 100 million 40 
years ago? Something like that.

> * 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.

We came, we saw, we conquered. Why go back? We did what we needed to do. 
Plus, nowadays, due to advanced in understanding of elementary physics, 
we can send space ships without people that can go to the moon and back.

> It was one-upmanship, clear and
> simple. Post-facto justifications, "space-age-technology" hype as a result
> is NASA trying to save face.

Evidence?

> * 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.

The Higgs boson is what gives matter mass. A good understanding of that 
may settle research into a number of questions that have practical 
applications for things like faster-than-light travel, reduction of 
inertia, and so on, I'd expect.

Science is most interesting when you find something you *didn't* expect. 
That's kind of the point of doing the experiments. Asking what practical 
results are assured to come from scientific experiments is like asking 
how long it'll take to fix the bugs you'll find when you do the beta 
testing next week.

> LHC will at best answer some questions and posit some even finer ones. 

So?

> Do we then build a 10 trillion dollar collider? What about 10 zillion? 

Eventually. Why not?

> Where do you draw the line in such a singleminded pursuit? 

You don't. Indeed, you're begging the question by asking about it as a 
"singleminded pursuit". (In the actual meaning of "begging the 
question". :-)

At what point do you give up on medicine trying to cure old age? Why the 
single-minded pursuit there?

> If not, well, even if you don't closely follow
> high energy physics, you surely can agree on probabilistic grounds that it
> would be a fantastic coincidence for you and I to witness the end of
> physics.

I think that's what some people are worried about: The LHC causing the 
end of all physics. ;-)

Seriously, tho, why do you think anyone thinks the LHC will be the last 
such experiment?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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somebody wrote:
> But science, as an institution, needs to
> develop a conscience, a scale of proportion, and prioritization.

Nonsense. Listen to yourself.

Science doesn't think - scientists do.

It's OK for all the politicians to be corrupt, too, as long as the 
government itself isn't corrupt?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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