Summer 2008 will see the turning on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This is the worlds largest subatomic particle accelerator and collider. It is housed in a 17mile circumference tunnel crossing the Swiss French boarder twice and sits 450 feet underground. It is funded by the CERN [European Organisation for Nuclear Research] member states, which include the main Western European countries, to the tune of multiples of billions of Euros. Turning on this behemoth of an instrument is possibly the most important experiment in theoretical physics since the ‘big bang’! One of the main aims of this experiment is to find the Higgs-Boson! Yes I did say the Higgs-Boson. Exciting stuff, I know. If you are not that excited you are probably wondering what is this ‘Higgs-Boson’. I am happy to tell you that the answer is as interesting as the question. The Higgs-Boson is a theoretical particle which we do not know if it exists! So should you care if it exists? Why fund a project for the search of something that may not be there? Well I will try and explain, using my humble engineers understanding, what the Higgs-Boson is and why we should care about the experiment if not the outcome. And why in the future we should fund such large scale theoretical physics and space exploration projects.
The Higgs-Boson is a theoretical particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of Particle Physics. This standard model has been very successful at predicting the basic building blocks of the universe. This Higgs-Boson is a particle that gives other particles mass but is in a sense a victim of it’s own success. An astrophysicist friend of mine, one of the smartest women I have ever met, explained it to me like this. Imagine a room full of physicists [substitute economist, politician, engineer, mathematician, statisticians, musician, artist, poet here] socialising at a cocktail party [I would love to be at that party]. They would be equally distributed about the room talking to their nearest neighbour. Now imagine a famous figure, for example, Einstein [substitute John-Maynard Keynes, Nelson Mandela, Denis Gabor, John von Neumann, Karl Pearson, Bach, Escher, Rimbaud as appropriate ] walked into the room. Suddenly the distribution of physicists [appropriate insert] around him [her] would gravitate towards that personality while those left would return to their equal spacing. As they gravitate towards him [her] it would become more difficult for him [her] to move through the room. Because of the knot of people around the personality they acquire a greater mass. Kind of like what particles do to the Higgs-Boson. Unfortunately this particle has not been observed and remains theoretical!
I will attempt to answer whether you should care in the outcome of the experiment. Finding the particle is extremely important for the understanding of our early universe our current universe and where it is going. Currently I believe we have an understanding up to the resolution of t=+10exp(-34)s after the big bang [don't quote me on this number I can't remember ]. It is also extremely important for validating the laws of physics that we have been formulating [proving that if nothing else that we are extremely clever people]. What is for sure is that a brave new area of physics will be born. Unfortunately this understanding does not have a direct causal effect on human kind in general [unless you enjoy subjects like Monte Carlo Methods for Particle Physics]. Conclusion, you probably should not care on the outcomes of the experiment. Not finding it would mean all our clever mathematical physicists will have to spend some more hours writing some more equations and designing more experiments and more instruments. At least they will not be out of a job like many so called ‘educated’ city traders!
But this process is extremely expensive! Apart from objections from doomsday sensationalist journalists and politicians who site the creation of black holes [without ever taking the most basic course on astro physics; it is my opinion that the profligate attitudes of the city bankers will bring us closer to a doomsday scenario by the creation of derivative products contingent on collateralized debt obligations as is being proved by this 'credit crunch'] as a case not do such experiments. There is a prevalent argument about who should fund such large scale projects which appear to have not direct benefit for Joe public [excuse me here]. Why not use the money for development work in the third world [I am sure many a Bollinger drinking bourgeois Bolshevik will write a protest song about the evils of spending money on such projects]? I would answer, “Technology spin offs”! Large scale projects like those undertaken by CERN bring together a coalition of the finest mathematicians, physicists and engineers. They need to be able to conduct high precision experiments, have access to powerful data processing platforms and methods to share information. Such demands of researchers lead to a CERN project known as ENQUIRE aimed at facilitating sharing information between researchers. This project was the first incarnation of the World Wide Web! It became public in 1993 becoming what we now know to be the internet. There is a long list of technology spin offs that have resulted from such projects. Others more abstract but having a direct influence on medical sciences, communication and technology. This I believe to be the strongest case for funding such large scale, theoretical and apparently pointless projects.
After reading your article I care! Although I agree that governments should help fund science projects because the benefits trickle out (in the same way F1 car technology eventually gets into road cars) there must be a point where you just question whether there really is any chance of there being any benefits trickling down, especially ones that are value for money.
Holy humongous wall of text Batman!
But the real question is the one that you fudge on at the end. Cui bono?
Should not the research be paid for by those who stand to gain from it’s results?
… also, what the hell is that smiley face doing at the bottom of this site?
Hmm, you address one of the issues i always feel a little uncomfortable with as a physicist, especially one who, like the particle physicists, does very expensive research - out in space in my case, and also astronomically expensive.
Given, as you say, that these sums could be very well spent on issues far closer to home for most people (would we really spend it altruistically though?), I’m never sure the spin-offs are necessarily the key: you’re arguing funding sth on the grounds that it may incidentally produce sth useful. What I don’t like about that argument is that to me, it always seems a lot cheaper, and more efficient to me to fund a lot of engineers - say “here’s some money, think about sth which might be useful”.
Although the research helps create problems which then have to be solved creatively - a breeding ground for spin-offs - I’m not sure that given a tiny fraction of the money going to the whole physics project, you can’t fund your way “outwards” towards discovering new and better technical solutions.
That turns the funding on its head - put spin-offs at the centre, as the end goal - if one uses them to justify the research (you join most physicists in doing this!) they must be the most important element, no? Hence we should go towards them in the most efficient way possible)
Relying too heavily on possible serendipity seems risky to me - if you don’t come up with the goods, or your research is purely blue-skies, this argument leaves room for politicians to undercut you, slash your budget! Vide the recent STFC debacle…
That said, I’m a firm believer that the goal of these experiments is to further our knowledge - that’s the key point - and that the spin-offs are an attractive aside. Which pragmatically, yes, can be used as the justification for the research. And that, though exploring “outwards” may be cheaper, really you have to be foraging in the wilderness to discover worthwhile solutions you can build a spin-off on - if you stick in the “safe” zone you’ll never discover many. No matter how much money you throw at the engineers, there’s a risk that the spin-off equivalent of Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns remain just that - a well-funded flight of fancy is never as focussed as a mind trouble-shooting a concrete problem.
I also think one spin-off, which rarely gets the press it deserves, as it’s intangible, is the effect of this knowledge on society. Ignoring the benefits of having a scientifically literate society at large - too hard to quantify - I nevertheless think the case can be made if we focus on the children. Tackling the big questions, like the particle physicists or the cosmologists do, engages with the young public’s imagination far more than any other more ‘mundane’ areas of physics, even though the latter may have a far greater impact on society. Show me a child (before the age of seven, of course!) who, upon looking into the box of magic that is a mobile phone, is inspired to go into science/engineering because of that, and I bet I can find you hundreds who’ll go down the same route because they’ve seen that famous Hubble image of the Eagle nebula, and in trying to conceive of clouds of gas light years across, the birthplace of stars, have been awestruck. Despite being at least as abstract as the phone, and clearly of far lesser importance to our daily life, it’s the concepts far beyond which draw in the future generations of engineers, so vital to our economies, as well as the scientists. Granted, most of them will decide that such matters are too abstract for their liking, and that they prefer to focus on more practical issues, but it’s precisely this that makes the “big science” worthwhile! They nurture the younger minds, and provide the entry point to the science and engineering arena - though they’re “lossy” disciplines themselves, they’re net providers, as chances are that a child inspired in this manner will retain an interest in science and engineering, and may well follow a career in the area.
‘Nuff said - except, of course, good entry!
E
Hi! I’m a particle physicist (we met yesturday at the poster competition), and I’m ashamed to say that I have yet to come across a sound argument that can justify the money spent in my research area relative to, say, relieving Third World debt.
I did a quick straw poll around the office after we spoke, and everybody said the same thing: 1) Because we can, and should push the boundaries of our scientific understanding 2) Spin-off technologies/understanding.
I personally like the story of Euclid’s student. When trying to understand tricky geometry concept, the student asked Euclid what would he profit from understanding the problem. Euclid stood there angrily, threw a coin at the student and told him “Now you have profited from todays lesson, leave”.
I suspect Euclid’s argument will only really appeal to the converted, so I’ll resort to a more pragmatic argument. There are policies/schemes/industries that waste far more money that fundamental research projects ever could. So before you drop the LHC project for the sake of 10 billion Euros (saved over all CERN member states), why not cut the EU budget/Defense Spending/Northern Rock bail out (or whatever particular political initiative you feel opposed to!) by 5% - I’m sure you would save a lot more money!