Was CERN’s Large Hadron Collider a financial failure?

[Nava]

@Flyer

The whole point of the modern scientific method is repeatability. If you do experiments where you already “know” the answer, and you get the expected result, then you can be reasonably sure that the previous experiments were done correctly.

You might as well criticize high school teachers for rehashing the same old tired experiments over and over, even though those are done for the purpose of showing students what science really is.

But if you never try anything new… we’d still be hunter-gatherers in Africa.

Repeatibility makes results reliable, but if our methods are good enough we do not need to repeat the exact same experiment multiple times: we can trust the first result already.

[Hari_Seldon]

Actually, the cited article does make some good points. The paragraph that caught my eye was:

There are also medium-scale experiments that tend to fall off the table because giant projects eat up money. One important medium-scale project is the interface between the quantum realm and gravity, which is now accessible to experimental testing. Another place where discoveries could be waiting is in the foundations of quantum mechanics. These could have major technological impacts.

That said, $5 billion spent on the LHC is still a hell of a lot more sensible than on a stupid fucking wall. Not to mention the over a half trillion a year sent down the military hell-hole. Talk about cost overruns! I’m not saying we don’t need a military, but we don’t need a military-industrial complex.

[Pasta]

@Hari_Seldon

That said, $5 billion spent on the LHC is still a hell of a lot more sensible than on a stupid fucking wall.

Man, the science we could do with a Wall’s worth of budget… :mad:

[Dinsdale]

I readily acknowledge that I’m pretty damned ignorant about just about every aspect of physics. But I do enjoy having Fermilab cranking away just west of me. Played at a square dance there a week ago. My impression is that a heckuva lot of interesting science gets done out there - despite the “obsolescence” of it’s main collider ring. One thing that always impressed me about Fermilab was their ability to “repurpose” their facilities to adjust to developments and limitations. I’d imagine similar good work is being done by all the smart people associated w/ CERN and the LHC.

I’m a big fan of having my tax dollars go towards basic science, even tho I personally don’t understand much of it.