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"Darren New" <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote in message
news:48dd0d6d$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:
> > "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
> > news:48dc0501@news.povray.org...
> >> somebody wrote:
> >>>> Only after the fundamental work has been done by scientists.
> >>> I don't know what that means.
> >> I mean that (for example) research on genetic causes/cures for cancer
> >> wouldn't have been possible at all without high-energy physics
research.
> >>
> >> (Figure out how the structure of DNA was determined, for example.)
> > I'm at this point guessing that you might be a little confused of the
"high
> > energy" part in "high energy physics".
> No. But basic radioactivity was "high energy" back in Curie's day, for
> example. Discounting advanced in basic battery-powered electricity
> because they're not "high energy" ignores the point that they're
> high-energy compared to amber and fur.
1) Radioactivity was not called "high energy physics" back then, nor is it
called that now.
2) I don't deny practical uses of radioactivity.
When I say HEP, I mean HEP.
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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, and nobody
knew when they discovered it what it would lead to.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:48dd34c7$1@news.povray.org...
> 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.
> 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.
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).
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.
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.
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"Mueen Nawaz" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:48dd1ab0$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:
> > If you believe that past advances in cancer treatment were a result of
> > funded research, you *DO* have *some* evidence that "funded and directed
> > research" works and all is not random or comes out of thin air.
> This is a classic Bayesian vs frequentist dilemma. I can't use past
> experience to predict the result of *different* actions in the future.
Unless there is a correlation. Are you claiming there's no commonality
between past research and future research? If funding caused past medical
research to succeed because of a causal chain of relations (ie more money,
more brains, more experiments, more cures), you seem to be saying that such
causal relations cannot be dependent on in the future. Why not? I personally
don't think this very particular point in time is special.
Do you do the same job every day over and over? What evidence, after all, do
you have that if you work 8 hours on a job today, you will succeed? Why even
bother? After all, it was a *different* job you worked on yesterday, and
while hard work enabled you to accomplish that job, by your admission, you
cannot use that experience to generalize that hard work results in
accomplishment.
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"Mueen Nawaz" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:48dd1bc2$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:
> >> I can see you did not bother answering how much you'd like to see
> >> medical research get before you're willing to be OK with spending $10
> >> billion for the LHC.
> > That's easy: $100,000 billion.
> > And that's a very low figure when you think about it. Even if it only
saves
> > 10 lives (gross, gross underestimate), I'm saying that the value of one
> > human's life to me is about the same as satisfying the curiousity of
about
> > 1000 or so physicists. If you were faced with such a dilemma and were
given
> > a two buttons, which one would *you* push?
> So put another way, your answer is essentially "Never".
Not quite what I said. That's a pessimist admission on your part that we
believe our lives to be less worthy than what amounts to entertainment, with
which I incidentally agree.
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From: Nicolas Alvarez
Subject: Re: End of the world delayed until spring
Date: 26 Sep 2008 17:25:26
Message: <48dd5346@news.povray.org>
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somebody wrote:
> They will have better technology than us.
They won't, because some idiot on a forum called half of the current
research as useless. How do you expect it to progress from now to 300
years "if it's all useless"?
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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!
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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somebody wrote:
>> This is a classic Bayesian vs frequentist dilemma. I can't use past
>> experience to predict the result of *different* actions in the future.
>
> Unless there is a correlation. Are you claiming there's no commonality
> between past research and future research? If funding caused past medical
> research to succeed because of a causal chain of relations (ie more money,
> more brains, more experiments, more cures), you seem to be saying that such
> causal relations cannot be dependent on in the future. Why not? I personally
> don't think this very particular point in time is special.
I repeat my concern: Correlation studies are fine when the experiment
isn't changing. I can talk about humans and their behavior, saying that
there is a correlation between how much time they spend in school and X
behavior. I can expect that to work over a wide range of humans
(assuming, say, gender, race and income level are unrelated). But that's
because I'm talking about applying the *same* treatment to the *same*
kind of problem. Humans more or less are the same and don't change much
with time. Society does, but if what I'm correlating is relatively
robust with societal changes, the correlation will stand.
I can't imagine a correlative study with what you're suggesting,
because the problem is continually changing. Money was pumped in, and
some results were obtained. So I'd bet that if you pump money into
another country's scientific endeavors who are uninformed of the
discovery, then perhaps they'll also discover the same thing.
I can't say that since money was pumped in before and we got great
results, then if you pump in more you'll get even more achievements
(particularly given that we don't even know if those achievements are
realizable by the laws of this universe).
Do you really think that as long as we pump enough money into it,
Moore's law will hold forever?
--
Ground yourself, THEN hug your motherboard!
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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somebody wrote:
>>> That's easy: $100,000 billion.
>
>>> And that's a very low figure when you think about it. Even if it only
> saves
>>> 10 lives (gross, gross underestimate), I'm saying that the value of one
>>> human's life to me is about the same as satisfying the curiousity of
> about
>>> 1000 or so physicists. If you were faced with such a dilemma and were
> given
>>> a two buttons, which one would *you* push?
>
>> So put another way, your answer is essentially "Never".
>
> Not quite what I said. That's a pessimist admission on your part that we
Well, yes. I do have trouble seeing humanity spending $100 trillion per
year on medical research, in today's Dollars. I may even be opposed to
it, because I'm sure it'll imply a lot of other things being neglected.
In case you missed it, my original question was with relation to today's
dollar and today's resources.
--
Ground yourself, THEN hug your motherboard!
/\ /\ /\ /
/ \/ \ u e e n / \/ a w a z
>>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
anl
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"Mueen Nawaz" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:48dd7242$1@news.povray.org...
> 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.
Is that a challenge? Then, no, it wasn't!
> > 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.
Actually I was thinking of Becquerel, who is the discoverer of
_radioactivity_ since that's what previous poster mentioned. Roentgen, as
you indicate, is the discoverer of x-rays.
Anyway, maybe calling uranium part of everyday life is a stretch, but my
point is, uranium had an observable effect when brough near a photographic
plate. Much the same as magnets have an observable effect when brought near
each other or ferrous material. When you observe a natural occurance like
that, you can bet there will be practical uses one way or another (if
nothing, you immediately have at your possession a detector of uranium
salts). Uranium is readily (relatively anyway) available, so are
photographic plates. So even though the mechanism is not understood, there's
an obvious effect that applies to "everyday" life.
Contrast this to, say, with the discovery of the top quark. With a mass ~180
times the proton, lifetime of ~1E-25 seconds, only produced by the handful
in most energetic collisions we could muster (that will change a little with
LHC), it's not going to have a use in practice in the foreseeable future.
One needs only undergraduate level physics to come to this conclusion.
Discovery of top quark was an intellectually interesting, but ultimately
useless feat. LHC will make even more interesting, but at the same time,
even more useless discoveries.
> Specifically, he was *not* trying to investigate any effect specific to
> x-rays. He was investigating cathode rays.
That's not my point.
> > 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.
Physicists have a general but pretty good idea.
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