Particle physics - why bother?

[Kaeroll]

Hope that's not too provocative a title...

 

In brief: does particle physics actually have any applications?

 

I am a strong believer in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. It seems to me, particle physics - smashing atoms together at the LHC (or not as the case may be, heh) - is pretty much the ultimate realisation of this. I was wondering, does this kind of research have any applications outside of its own field? For example, relativity seems obscure to the layman, but is used in, say, GPS satellites.

 

Cheers

Kaeroll

[insane_alien]

we don't know what possible applications could be.

 

using your gps example, how long after relativity was discovered did applications spring up?

 

just because we can't find applications immediately does not mean that there will never be applications. who knows, we might find out what makes gravity taick and a way to produce artificial gravity for long space missions(i'll admit thats a bit far out) or a cheap way of creating antimatter for energy storage(less far out).

 

we'll need to wait a few decades to find applications of current high energy particle physics but i doubt there will be absolutely none.

[ajb]

If you are talking about experimental particle physics then such endeavours can be huge feats of engineering and we have many spin-off technologies.

 

Examples are to be found in medical physics and the internet itself.

[swansont]

If you are talking about experimental particle physics then such endeavours can be huge feats of engineering and we have many spin-off technologies.

 

Examples are to be found in medical physics and the internet itself.

 

One such medical physics example is proton therapy

[D H]

using your gps example, how long after relativity was discovered did applications spring up?

I wouldn't call GPS an application of GR per se. GPS is essentially a space-age application of the techniques used by surveyors for hundreds of years. We would still be able to a GPS system if the universe obeyed Newtonian mechanics rather than general relativity.

 

 

If you are talking about experimental particle physics then such endeavours can be huge feats of engineering and we have many spin-off technologies.

If that's the justification, then why not focus the research monies on those potential applications directly and be done with it? How does the economic value from these spin-offs compare to the amounts of money spent?

 

Another justification is politics: "Nyah, nyah. My collider is bigger than your collider!" These political reasons were part of what motivated the moon race (and what continues to motivate spending on space research to some extent).

 

The LHC is tiny compared to the size of Eurasia. Why not make a huge collider that more-or-less hugs the coast of Eurasia? Even better, make a collider than encircles the Earth! The engineering spin-offs from building the oceanic segments alone would be immense. Then again, so would the costs. At some point the law of diminishing returns will kick in.

 

Whether we are past the point of diminishing returns with the LHC remains to be seen. We don't know what they will find and how it will change our world. It's already been built, so the best thing to do is to use it. Stopping now would be the equivalent of throwing all the money spent to date in a big hole in the ground, much like the US did with the SCSC.

[ajb]

If that's the justification, then why not focus the research monies on those potential applications directly and be done with it? How does the economic value from these spin-offs compare to the amounts of money spent?

 

When you compare the money involved I am sure it would be difficult to argue that fundamental research can be justified directly via the spin-offs.

 

However, the spin-off technologies is one answer to the question that was put before us.

 

Space research also has been a success in that respect, but again I would not like to do the sums with the money.

 

 

People may find this link to to CERN interesting.

Edited April 14, 2009 by ajb
added link

[GDG]

Direct applications of particle physics would include synchrotron radiation and electron beam machining.

[GutZ]

I would think communications has been largely affected by particle physics.

 

Energy. I think this one will be one of the biggest because of what it will allow us to do for other things.

 

Technology, AI and computing.

 

You could have discoveries that just add new information to existing knowledge but doesn't drastically need change inthe technology that utilizies it. Like it either gives it new options or more efficiency. You can make a signal travel farther by eliminating attenuation...or something

 

Then you can have new discoveries that changes the actual way of looking at physics. Information where technology needs to be adapted to it.

 

I am pretty sure we thought we would have car's running on nuclear fuel by now, or alteast protoyped. Reading up on it though apparently getting the shielding correct would make a car weight far too much. I am sure no car company want to adhere to the strict standards that would need to apply to it either, you have a gas leak...fine...you have a nuclear leak...bad very bad.

 

You can't have just anyone on the line building these things anymore, lines people who assemble the cars would need working knowledge of physics. No offense I've work in plants...not every one of those guys are up to the task.

[John Cuthber]

I'm not convinced that the best answer to the original question involves all the spinoffs.

Surely it is like asking "Art; why bother?" and the answer is that it's what humans do.

On the other hand, my favorite example is that particle physics like atom smashing makes lots of data and that some bloke at CERN wanted a way of sending lots of data round the place.

There's a reference to it in that page ajb cited. The outcome was called the web.

[Severian]

Let me quote Philips Research Director:

 

I have heard statements that the role of academic research in innovation is slight. It is about the most blatant piece of nonsense it has been my fortune to stumble upon.

 

Certainly, one might speculate idly whether transistors might have been discovered by people who had not been trained in and had not contributed to wave mechanics or the quantum theory of solids. It so happened that the inventors of transistors were versed in and contributed to the quantum theory of solids.

One might ask whether basic circuits in computers might have been found by people who wanted to build computers. As it happens, they were discovered in the thirties by physicists dealing with the counting of nuclear particles because they were interested in nuclear physics.

One might ask whether there would be nuclear power because people wanted new power sources or whether the urges to have new power would have led to the discovered of the nucleus. Perhaps - only it didn’t happen that way.

 

One might ask whether an electronic industry could exist without the previous discovery of electrons by people like Thomson and H A Lorentz. Again it didn’t happen that way.

One might ask even whether induction coils in motor cars might have been made by enterprises which wanted to make motor transport and whether then they would have stumbled on the laws of induction. But the laws of induction had been found by Faraday many decades before that.

Or whether, in an urge to provide better communication, one might have found electromagnetic waves. They weren’t found that way. They were found by Hertz who emphasised the beauty of physics and who based his work on the theoretical considerations of Maxwell. I think there is hardly an example of twentieth century innovation which is not indebted in this way to basic scientific thought.

[Norman Albers]

One might well ask why should I care about short-lived energy/particle states. They fall apart so why the big deal. Well, there are indeed physical regimes where these are the relevant alphabits, the constituents of the soup of possibilities.