Scope of Scientific Research (Split from "Is this at all possible?")

[spoirier]

While this is usual, I am amazed to see such absurd irrational fallacies and acts of faith in the name of science, and even sometimes by high level scientists ready to tell any bullshit to politicians in order to keep the credits on their projects. People still fancying that anything might be possible because, supposedly, "nobody knows" what can be discovered, and what can have potential applications.

What is this based ? On history, maybe ? Of course, in general, it is true that scientific research can be useful, and that some discoveries in fundamental science had wonderful application. But... Is this a good reason to tell any bullshit and to worship science in a religious way, practically ignoring everything that has been discovered as if it could just be completely overthrown tomorrow ?

 

Of course it is true that fundamental physics has found wonderful applications that were not previously expected.

But this were unexpected details from a time when, precisely, the laws of physics were not known yet. We knew that the laws of physics governing everyday phenomena were not yet known at that time. Therefore it was always clear and logical, that, of course, the discovery of these yet unknown laws underlying the everyday phenomena could potentially have tremendous applications to our daily lives, and that the details were not known yet.

 

But now the situation is very different. We do know the fundamental laws of physics underlying every accessible physical phenomena, at least those that have any chance of being economically affordable to involve for any potentially useful technological application outside the pure concerns of the curiosity of physicists. And even if we don't know what dark matter is made of, its well-known character of extreme scarcity of its interaction with ordinary matter is anyway sufficient to reliably conclude that it will never become any usable source of energy in any foreseeable future worth caring of now.

This does not mean that there is no more possibly useful fundamental research at all, but only that such a potential must be found in other fields of research, outside particle physics in a strict sense.

 

For example, somewhere in between the fundamental laws and the macroscopic effects, there may be a lot of possibilities of how to better manage energy (more efficient solar panels, new forms of energy storage etc). Maybe some new quantum effects could help there. However we do know that any new possibly useful phenomenon there will be just another consequence of the already known laws of quantum physics, so that there is no more use of wondering what can happen beyond them.

 

And there are many more fields of research that can bring breakthroughs too. I mean, fields of research that can be about as intellectually wonderful as research in theoretical physics, but still outside it. Such as, what I did : a conception of a new monetary theory, for a stable and decentralized online money system. Or also (another theory that I did not fully write yet), a theory of how to make an optimized (and also decentralized) online dating system, that will give the best possible chances for user to find their match in a minimum time spent on the computer, in a network of millions of user.

This is also a genuine theoretical work. It does not require to imagine that the basic laws of physics might be turned upside down tomorrow nor after a few decades. And I did find the plan of a solution.

The same for the job market, which has a similar mathematical structure.

 

The point is : as long as no genuine thinker effectively comes to these subjects, but all remain in the clouds of the Higgs boson and the like, well, sorry but, this is precisely what keeps the world from making any progress.

 

In short : why insist to pretend that the best usefulness of scientific research should be seeked in the very exact fields of research where it is clear from well-established scientific knowledge that they are not the right ones for this purpose anymore ? Therefore leaving some other much more plausibly useful research areas completely ignored with absolutely nobody there, while just a little bit of work there could make a huge difference ?

[Bignose]

In short : why insist to pretend that the best usefulness of scientific research should be seeked in the very exact fields of research where it is clear from well-established scientific knowledge that they are not the right ones for this purpose anymore ? Therefore leaving some other much more plausibly useful research areas completely ignored with absolutely nobody there, while just a little bit of work there could make a huge difference ?

 

Dude, did you even read my post? I didn't insist on anything -- I precisely said that it is fair to question whether the money spent couldn't be put to better use.

 

All I said is that research into fundamental questions often pays off in dividends later.

 

If someone has said around 1900 -- "you know, Newtonian physics is pretty darn excellent is all the 'accessible physical phenomena' we have today, there really isn't much a need for anything else" ... we wouldn't have discovered the theory of relativity. And hence we wouldn't have a working set of GPS satellites that, I have to say, are pretty darn useful.

 

So, my point is that fundamental research can very well be worth-while. The knowledge we gain from it often isn't immediately applicable to something tangible, but often that knowledge IS key for future applications. And really, no one when working on the theory of relativity was aiming for a set of GPS satellites... they were just looking for answers to more fundamental questions than what the current answers could provide.

 

I'll say again, to be very clear, I do think it is a fair question to wonder if the money spend on the research couldn't be better spent somewhere else. For example, better plant genetics for more drought and pest resistant crops to help feed a quickly growing population. BUT, you do have to acknowledge that we can talk about that research precisely because the fundamental research which allows us to map genomes, and change molecules on an atomic level are due to previously having spent the money fundamental research into genetics and studies on quantum physics. If you had tasked someone 50 years ago with breeding more drought-resistant crops, they would have started getting out paintbrushes to gather pollen from one set of flowers to pollinate another set of flowers. We have the tools today to more directly do that research precisely because we spent the money before on fundamental research.

 

So, it is always a balance. I think it is foolish to swing the pendulum too far in either direction. I can use your same argument against you that we don't know what laws or results from the fundamental research will come out -- it may be a 1 ppm refinement to a current law, or it may be a game-changer. You're right, we don't know. But, I for one think it is worthwhile to spend some money on seeing what we find.

 

And, in full disclosure, none of this at all affects any of my 'projects'. I don't know if you meant to toss me into your characterization of "high level scientists ready to tell any bullshit to politicians in order to keep the credits on their projects", but it certainly doesn't apply to me.

 

[spoirier]

Sorry, but I did really read and understand your post, and you did not succeed to refute anything that I said. I had already understood what you just explained further as I had already read it many times before from others.

 

First :

You misunderstood me if you try to defend fundamental research as if I was attacking it : I did not mean to deny the value of fundamental research. Instead, I meant the necessity to broaden the scope of fundamental research, (and try to redistribute it to better reflect the shares of potential usefulness of different fields), to encompass completely new fields that are currently completely let down by everybody because they are currently neither in the scope of usually admitted "fundamental research" nor of "applied research", and I gave an example : the fundamental research in the theoretical foundations of money, in order to design new money systems on cleaner and more optimal foundations.

 

Second : I am perfectly aware that :

someone has said around 1900 -- "you know, Newtonian physics is pretty darn excellent is all the 'accessible physical phenomena' we have today, there really isn't much a need for anything else"

 

However, my point is that this comparison between the situation now and this claim of that time is superficial and in fact invalid. My claim is that not only in retrospective but also actually at that time and contrary to now, that optimistic claim which you quote was irrational and baseless. People of that time were just over-enthousiastic about their recent discoveries, and in fact they did not really know how much their fundamental physics could really explain. They were in fact many unexplained phenomena, especially the detailed laws of chemistry, which they actually could not explain. The gap was not small. The gap was very big and right under their eyes. They just did not yet evaluate it properly, because they did not yet have the time to check things and make a proper assessment on the question.

The situation now is very different. Contrary to then, the currently established laws of fundamental physics encompass the ultimate explanation of almost everything we can experiment in physics, to an amazing accuracy (well, I'd say, except conciousness, but this another debate).

 

My point is that now and contrary to then, the claim that no new discovery in particle physics (in particle accelerators) can anymore have any technological application with any significant economic benefit for the next 10,000 years (well, of course possibly except the economic benefit of better managing the shares of funding to the theoretical research activities among competing theories of physics, please let this aside), is clearly sure at 99.9999... %, and any other opinion is just ridiculous and based on ignorance. Yet this does not mean that I want to stop this research; on the contrary I do think it should keep a place (as I do think that its only real goal, that is pure intellectual curiosity, has its part of legitimacy). What I want is the known truth on the subject to be said, in order for the choice of its share of funding to based on reason and not on lies (because pretending that the perspectives of technological applications of something cannot be reliably predicted while in fact they can, is a lie).

 

Because just looking at history and making the quote you made to compare the situation now with the end of 19th century, and just satisfying yourself with your very vague considerations, without entering the effective look at what we do currently know in physics, is just a superficial viewpoint giving an ignorance-based conclusion, that cannot be taken seriously by anyone who did take the effective look at the current knowledge which you are refusing to take.

 

"And hence we wouldn't have a working set of GPS satellites"

That argument is nonsense. Research is based on the actual problems. And there were actual problems at that time, so that the continuation of research in fundamental physics was inevitable as determined by the actual needs and gaps to be filled. The fact that some people seemed to pretend otherwise ran no risk of stopping the inevitable continuation of fundamental research as determined by the effective needs anyway.

 

As for relativity, and while it was in fact already implied in the equations of 19th century electromagnetism (but just required time to notice), its application to GPS is not even a good example to support your point.

Relativity is not at the basis of GPS. It is only at the basis of the necessary corrections in the GPS data, to cancel the distortion from relativistic effects in the computations. Even if relativity theory had not been seeked for, at any time of history when some technology or observation would have been faced with the relativistic effects, these effects would have been directly measured from these observations and thus integrated in the calculations (and relativistic formulas themselves would have been deduced from these observations), so that the necessary relativistic corrections to the GPS would have been made on time anyway.

 

So I perfectly agree that fundamental physics had tremendous applications, especially quantum physics. I just wanted to point out that in details your arguments are flawed, so that your personal conclusions from your inaccurate reasonings cannot be taken seriously.

 

And in general, even when an argument is put forward for a conclusion with which I agree, I do not like to see when the chosen example is bad and if the argument is flawed, and I feel the necessity to criticize the argument (and give right ones instead).

Edited December 25, 2012 by spoirier

[Bignose]

The situation now is very different. Contrary to then, the currently established laws of fundamental physics encompass the ultimate explanation of almost everything we can experiment in physics, to an amazing accuracy

 

I am curious how you know this (and the rest). Seems to me that there are plenty of large open questions at the moment -- relating the quantum scale with the astronomical scale, for example. Not having these two unified, I would call that a significant fundamental law that we are currently missing.

 

Most everything you write are opinions you currently have, not facts. And I'm not going to 'refute' opinions, just put mine out there and see where the chips may fall.

Edited December 25, 2012 by Bignose

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

Topic split from, 'Is this at all possible.'

[spoirier]

Maybe I was not clear, as the claim you attribute to me is definitely not what I meant.

 

What I meant is not any claim about the abstract/physical "existence" of unknown things (as I'm perfectly aware of this existence of unknowns), but a claim about the average expectable financial value of any industrial application in the 3rd millenium, of the discoveries of the answers to these questions which you are mentioning.

My claim is that these "plenty of large open questions" that you are mentioning, no matter how large they are in the minds of physicists (and I do agree they are large there), are anyway close to a total of zero in this financial scale of measure.

 

" I don't know if you meant to toss me into your characterization of "high level scientists ready to tell any bullshit to politicians in order to keep the credits on their projects"

No I did not mean you, sorry. I meant in the risk of such bias in general.

Edited December 25, 2012 by spoirier

[Bignose]

but a claim about the average expectable financial value

 

How, exactly, does one calculate this?

[spoirier]

Well that is quite simple to calculate this.

 

What are the industrial and other human needs except for the pure intellectual curisity of physicists, in very general ways:

- How to process tools, objects (clothes, housing etc)

- Processing energy (from available sources to their use)

- How to make food

- Health (biology)

- How people can connect : travel and communicate with each other,

- Any kind of useful information processes from human/practical information sources to human/practical targets. Thus, not information about the ultimate laws of physics for the pure sake of knowing these laws, but information about what we can do on this Earth in practice for the sake of living and having fun on this Earth when oneself is not a particle physicist.

 

This is the financial measure I was mentioning.

 

Now let us specify the kinds of potential advances of fundamental physics.

 

I was speaking about the possible discoveries in particle physics, what we can find in particle accelerators.

 

I was not speaking about other possible fields that may also be callled "fundamental research" depending on your vocabulary, where I agree that possible applications may be expected : quantum computing and other quantum phenomena : superconductivity, states of matter, biochemistry, interpreting DNA, managing nuclear reactions in nuclear plants, etc.

 

I also did not mean to enter the discussion of another possible field that may also be called "fundamental research" : personally I do think a completely different kind of fundamental process still needs to be examined that may have important human applications (so that in this sense I am less skeptical on the potential of fundamental research than what many other physicists'views logically imply even if they won't explicitly declare these logical implications): those of mind/matter interaction and parapsychology, related to the underlying origin of the quantum measurement paradoxical issues. I don't mean to enter this point, but only to point out that anyway this has in common with the above that it is also disconnected from particle physics, dark matter and the unification of physics theories.

 

My point is that the many physical (i.e. not psychical) phenomena which may have possible industrial applications, and that are not all yet understood phenomena (so a lot of discoveries there is possible), are now separated from the current edges of fundamental physics, as they are mere indirect logical consequences of the known laws : those quantum electrodynamics and nuclear physics as they are largely established now.

 

So, how can I know the value of the quantity I mention ? Well, stretching my imagination to consider a possible industrial application of still unknown laws of particle physics, I have a proposition : the industrial production of magnetic monopoles. That would be awesome, uh ?

The problem is: any perspective of profitable industrial production of magnetic monopoles in the 3rd millenium is extremely unlikely. Because, we already had detectors of magnetic monopoles from cosmic rays on the International Space Station, and neither there nor generally anywhere else could any magnetic monopole be observed. And, you know, some cosmic rays are much more energetic than any individual collision in the LHC.

So, how to go from a total absence of any magnetic monopole ever detected, including from very high energy processes such as cosmic rays, to a profitable industrial production of them ? Such a speculation would seems quite crazy to me.

 

Now, what else ? Dark matter ? We don't need to know what dark matter is made of, to already notice that its interaction with ordinary matter is so scarce that it has no chance to serve as a profitable source of energy in a reasonable future while much more practical energy sources (solar, nuclear etc) are available. Or do we ?

The interactions between dark matter and ordinary matter are so exceptional, that such interaction events, if observed, can only provide information for the pure intellectual interest of physicists or astronomers, and not any socially or industrially useful information in the list of practical interests I mentioned above, or would they ? They cannot even be useful for us to communicate with aliens and receive and try to apply their experience of how to organize a peaceful, prosperous, happy society, or would they ?

 

Now do you have any other idea of potential industrial applications of future discoveries in particle physics ?

For example, do you think there is any chance to discover that these high energy particle collisions which have this very tiny chance to produce Higgs bosons, would turn out to be the best tool to cure cancer thanks to this property ? Or to produce any substance with any industrial application ?

[swansont]

In short : why insist to pretend that the best usefulness of scientific research should be seeked in the very exact fields of research where it is clear from well-established scientific knowledge that they are not the right ones for this purpose anymore ? Therefore leaving some other much more plausibly useful research areas completely ignored with absolutely nobody there, while just a little bit of work there could make a huge difference ?

I don't see that you've shown this to be true. What areas are being ignored?

 

[Bignose]

So, how can I know the value of the quantity I mention ? Well, stretching my imagination...

 

I asked, exactly, how to calculate the value you mentioned. I want to know what percentages/likelihoods you give each possibility. I'd like an actual calculation, please, with citations or sources on each number, as you seem to represent that such a calculation has been done, and its results are obviously conclusive.

 

Because, keying off the word 'imagination' above, all I really see are your personal opinions about what is and isn't more valuable and more likely.

 

And these are fine things to debate -- again, I fully agree that they are good questions to talk about -- but I don't think it is fair to represent either side as 'clearly correct', with some hand-waving opinion-based math.

 

I also still don't know how you can be so sure that there are areas that "are not the right ones for this purpose anymore?" If anything, we know that the models we have today are wrong or incomplete. Almost all published research is wrong, in the sense that it is at least incomplete See http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 for an example from medicine, but fully applicable to all sciences. I don't understand why you think that there aren't possibly tremendously useful things to learn in more fully completing this knowledge.

 

And I don't know how you can be so sure which areas will be more productive that others. I have my opinions about which ones would be more productive, too, but they are only just opinions, and I recognize them as such.

Edited December 25, 2012 by Bignose

[spoirier]

Calculations don't need to be exact : a factor 100 or even 1,000,000 times more or less likeliness does not matter when discussing probabilities approaching 10^-100 or smaller.

 

Your remark about the fact much research is wrong in general, and particularly in medicine, is completely out of subject.

The subject here is : how accurately do experimental results for any phenomena that might be industrially useful, thus only those at quite lower energy levels than those currently experimented in the LHC, confirm the Standard Model of particle physics.

An important example of how well it is confirmed, is the coincidence between theoretical predictions and experimental results for the magnetic moment of the electron. This calculation involves quite a deal of the contents of the theory.

This and many other things, all contribute to confirm that the theory is very good to an amazing accuracy. We are definitely not lost in the clouds there.

 

You want citations ? I did not take time searching for best ones but okay, here is something:

 

The book "Beyond the science wars", http://books.google.fr/books?id=ZQWv6swqU40C

I did not check it all but for example, page 53, under the title "Disciplinary Dilemmas":

"Practitioners of the social sciences have not learned, in their own disciplines, much that is operationally indisputable, readily reproducible, and internationally agreed to; so they cannot easily conceive such a thing to be possible in any field. Knowing in their own discipline that ideology governs "knowledge" as well as theory, they presume that must be so in all fields."

 

http://www.particleadventure.org/standard_model.html

"The Standard Model is a good theory. Experiments have verified its predictions to incredible precision, and all the particles predicted by this theory have been found".

 

http://www.frogheart.ca/?tag=standard-model-of-particle-physics

"The Standard Model of Particle Physics has been a triumph of particle physics – many thousands of experiments have confirmed predictions of this simple and elegant model."

 

If I said that fundamental research in monetary theory is valuable, it's because I already found a theoretical solution with rather detailed description of one aspect of the solution (P2P credit) and some general principles for how to look for the needed details on the other aspect (how to stabilize the value).

[Bignose]

Calculations don't need to be exact : a factor 100 or even 1,000,000 times more or less likeliness does not matter when discussing probabilities approaching 10^-100 or smaller.

 

Your remark about the fact much research is wrong in general, and particularly in medicine, is completely out of subject.

 

I think the remark about research being wrong, in general, is exactly on subject because your main assumption is that our current models do not need any further refinement. Yet, basically, the probability is hugely on the side that the current models are wrong and are at least incomplete.

 

You throw another number out there, 10^-100. Where exactly do you get that? I mean, I can make up numbers, too. That doesn't mean they are right in any way.

[spoirier]

"your main assumption is that our current models do not need any further refinement."

 

Sorry but no, this was definitely not my assumption.

I was inviting to a precise discussion on a precise subject, but you are continuously destroying any possible meaningfulness of the discussion by your way to systematically reformulate questions into senseless ones or completely different ones. You continuously try to replace one subject that I was trying to address by some completely different suject or by too vague claims to make any sense.

You try to reformulate one specific claim of mine by some much more vague sentence that might have completely different interpretations ; you expect your reformulation to be valid as one of the possible interpretations of this claim can indeed be mine, but it also leads to completely different interpretations which have absolutely nothing to do with what I meant, and which I actually of course disagree with.

 

And I strongly protest against this way of distorting my views, which is extremely fallacious and far away from any decent reason. This is becoming ridiculous (Uh I mean I think this must be so in the eyes of any logical person, which you seem not to be), and anyway extremely illogical, unscientific practice that you are having here.

 

So your formulation of what you pretend to be my claim, does not make any sense, by the fact you use the word "need" in a senseless way, outside the context of what it is about. For the word "need" to make sense, you have to specify a purpose.

A claim of "need" of something can only make sense relatively to a purpose, did you ever notice this ?

 

Your sentence is expressed in such a way that the obvious reaction will be "Of course, our current models do need refinements !"

The problem is : need for what purpose ?

Answer : of course, it is for the purpose of making a complete and fully consistent picture of the universe. So, a purely theoretical purpose.

Yeah but this is completely out of subject.

 

Because while on the other hand, I do have sensitivities to this theoretical purpose, the problem is that this was not the subject which I was proposing to discuss here.

What I was trying to discuss here, is the kind of "need" relative to the purpose or measure that is the financial measure of possible applications for the interest of people who are not theoretical physicists. I even wonder if you still remember that such people exist and that, as they are the ones actually providing the funding of fundamental research, it can make some sense to discuss whether they will benefit this research in the long term.

I understand that they already greatly benefited from past discoveries of fundamental physics and therefore they owe some thanks to physicists, but still, it is yet another question. The question exists, and the different variants of the questions should not be confused with each other. It may not be among the most serious questions of the world, but it exists...

 

So my claim is very general : I see no possible kind of profitable technological application of future discoveries from high energy particle physics that is not clearly unlikely, to an extreme, ridiculous degree.

 

If you don't think so, it's up to you to specify a (vague and general but still something) kind of profitable technological application which you think is not ridiculously unlikely in the next millenium. Either from the examples I gave or any other one

 

(I can still give more suggestions if you like : producing wormholes or other teleportation apparatus for visiting other star systems, time machines to go and capture dinosaurs or to prevent the holocaut from having happened, or to save Evariste Galois from having been killed at that young age...)

 

"You throw another number out there, 10^-100. Where exactly do you get that?"

You seem seriously unable to read a sentence and catch its meaning. If you had the ability to read and understand a sentence, you would have noticed that this number does not need to come from anywhere, as replacing it by 10^-50 or 10^-100000 would not have changed the actual meaning of the claim the least bit, and there needs not be any reason to justify a choice of a number to put in the expression of a sentence whose meaning is independent of this choice.

[swansont]

So my claim is very general : I see no possible kind of profitable technological application of future discoveries from high energy particle physics that is not clearly unlikely, to an extreme, ridiculous degree.

 

Why does science have to lead to profitable technological application to be worthwhile?

[Bignose]

We do know the fundamental laws of physics underlying every accessible physical phenomena,

 

 

 

"your main assumption is that our current models do not need any further refinement."

 

Sorry but no, this was definitely not my assumption.

 

 

I'm not sure why it was wrong, considering the first statement I quoted there, to assume that you think our current models don't need any further refinement. As I see it, that's precisely what the 1st quote says (along with the text around it).

 

What I saw in your posts was some sort of calculation that the unknown future benefits of some kinds of research are worth less than the unknown future benefits from some other kinds of research. But no details of that calculation.

 

It is my opinion, that arguments like this are almost wholly based on opinions; all we can really do is look at history and try to learn lessons from that. And the lessons from history are rather clear, in my mind:

 

1) that when research into the fundamental questions are dug into, the answers they yield are often very surprising, and then the knowledge from those answers are often applied in an incredibly wide and rarely initially imagined way.

 

2) we know that all of our current models are wrong, or at least incomplete. Which means that there are answers to these fundamental questions that we don't have yet.

 

3) some big open problems I see -- and I'll admit I am not a physicist so these observations are from an more amateur point of view -- is the resolution of quantum level phenomena with astronomical level phenomena, e.g. some kind of quantum gravity. And the other is a unified theory of forces: doing to electromagetism, weak, strong, and gravity what has currently been accomplished for the electromagnetic and the weak forces: the so-called electroweak force. These two 'big' open problems aren't unrelated, of course.

 

And really, it is my opinion that if we had a unified description of all the forces, that there is great potential for many valuable applications.

 

 

 

 

So my claim is very general : I see no possible kind of profitable technological application of future discoveries from high energy particle physics that is not clearly unlikely, to an extreme, ridiculous degree.

 

If you don't think so, it's up to you to specify a (vague and general but still something) kind of profitable technological application which you think is not ridiculously unlikely in the next millenium.

 

Ok, fine. That is your opinion, and mine is stated above -- that I think resolving some of these large problems are actually quite likely to yield 'profitable' applications (whatever your definition of profitable is).

 

----------------------------------

 

I actually think all the above was rather clear. Where it got opaque from me, was when you started using phrases like "average expectable financial value", which to me implies some kind of calculation of probability distributions and payoffs of $ spent in various forms of research.

 

If this wasn't actually a calculation -- and again just your opinion -- of just you 'gut feeling', then that is fine. But may I suggest dropping words that imply calculation like 'average' and 'value'.

 

It was when you were using words like that, that I start to question the calculation. Not even necessarily because I think you are wrong, but because I'd like to see how those calculations were done. I'd like to see what assumptions went into such a calculation, see what data was generated or created to support those assumptions etc. Especially in light of what I see as the recent history of successes stemming from research into the basic fundamental laws of physics.

 

----------------------------------

 

Lastly, really, the personal attacks are uncalled for. I haven't come even close to using them against you, and I've shown you all the requisite manners in this thread. Additionally, ad hominem attacks really aren't a terribly valid form of argument.

 

If you could just leave them out of the thread from now on, I'd appreciate it.

[spoirier]

Well ok sorry if my sentences may have lacked exactness, but given the context I did not think it could lead to that ambiguity.

When I wrote "We do know the fundamental laws of physics underlying every accessible physical phenomena", I meant : the phenomena that are accessible under the scope of reasonably affordable means, which have a chance to be involved in any profitable industrial applications for the next few centuries. Not phenomena that can only take place in a billions dollar accelerator which must consume a huge lot of energy just for the sake of providing some information about the subtle properties of high energy physics. And while its cost may decrease in the future, it will still keep a huge cost and, in my opinion, no use except testing theories of physics can be expected.

 

Now, taking your previous message where you seem to have already specified the perpective that you maintain :

 

"the potential is there to be able to develop some novel energy source, or propulsion source, or many other technologies that could go a long way toward alleviating some of those issues. Such as war over energy sources like oil. "

 

If I understand well, you claimed that the current state of knowledge in physics leaves a non-ridiculous chance (does not exclude) that future discoveries in particle physics would provide new profitable energy sources. Are you serious ? Do you maintain this claim, did you hear it from any particle physicist, and/or do you expect particle physicists to agree with it ?

 

"Why does science have to lead to profitable technological application to be worthwhile? "

 

I thought I was clear that this was not my claim, it is not the subject I was trying to discuss here. But if you insist to discuss this, here are my views.

 

I can indeed be senstive to some claims that something or something else in life can be "worthwhile" even if they do not lead to profitable technological applications. The problem is that many people have completely different ideas about what is "worthwhile" : music, theater, football, sending humans to space at much higher costs than robots in proportion to the amount of scientific goals, and many other things.

But meanwhile, aside this sort of World Miss contest that are these discussions about whether something or something else is "worthwhile", there are some other people with completely different concerns: whether they can eat tomorrow, whether they can remain safe, not be raped, when is their home island going to be submerged by the sea. And future generations are probably going to have many other concerns too : why did their f***ing grandparents support those policies of public deficits that lead their countries to bankrupcy, why did we continue so much release of greenhouse gases that has lead the world to so many droughts, hurricanes, rise of sealevel and other disasters.

But the most serious concern in my opinion is the extinction of so many species and the resulting destruction of their DNA information.

Indeed, this is the world heritage of millions of years of evolution, that amounts to yet unexplored and irreplacable amounts of scientific knowledge worth thousands of libraries in the hands of future scientists in the next millions of years, that is being burnt right now.

If one wants to be reasonable and long-sighted in the assessment of priorities between different concerns and "worthwhile" things that are not directly profitable, I think this should be priority number 1.

While, in this long term, well, particle physics has all its time. If we don't build more powerful accelerators to discover the secrets of high energy physics in this century, we will still have all the time to do it at lower costs in next centuries, with nothing lost.

[swansont]

"Why does science have to lead to profitable technological application to be worthwhile? "

 

I thought I was clear that this was not my claim, it is not the subject I was trying to discuss here. But if you insist to discuss this, here are my views.

 

Not your claim? You discussed it in the piece I quoted, and again earlier in the post I'm responding to.

 

 

I can indeed be senstive to some claims that something or something else in life can be "worthwhile" even if they do not lead to profitable technological applications. The problem is that many people have completely different ideas about what is "worthwhile" : music, theater, football, sending humans to space at much higher costs than robots in proportion to the amount of scientific goals, and many other things.

But meanwhile, aside this sort of World Miss contest that are these discussions about whether something or something else is "worthwhile", there are some other people with completely different concerns: whether they can eat tomorrow, whether they can remain safe, not be raped, when is their home island going to be submerged by the sea. And future generations are probably going to have many other concerns too : why did their f***ing grandparents support those policies of public deficits that lead their countries to bankrupcy, why did we continue so much release of greenhouse gases that has lead the world to so many droughts, hurricanes, rise of sealevel and other disasters.

Basic research enables economic expansion, even when the direct result has no commercial application — some of the research equipment is often cutting-edge, which helps commercial technology advance, and some areas of research include food production. And you include greenhouse gases on this list, as if the scientific establishment is the impediment to recognizing the harm of climate change?

But the most serious concern in my opinion is the extinction of so many species and the resulting destruction of their DNA information.

Indeed, this is the world heritage of millions of years of evolution, that amounts to yet unexplored and irreplacable amounts of scientific knowledge worth thousands of libraries in the hands of future scientists in the next millions of years, that is being burnt right now.

If one wants to be reasonable and long-sighted in the assessment of priorities between different concerns and "worthwhile" things that are not directly profitable, I think this should be priority number 1.

Again, is this somehow a failure of science?

While, in this long term, well, particle physics has all its time. If we don't build more powerful accelerators to discover the secrets of high energy physics in this century, we will still have all the time to do it at lower costs in next centuries, with nothing lost.

 

 

Particle physics gets a fait bit of press, but it's not a proxy for all of physics. As I pointed out before, there are enabling technologies for such experiments, which do have economic impact. If you shut projects down, there is also an issue of "brain drain"; not all knowledge can be passed down in recorded form (e.g. books or video), as much as we might try and preserve it. Some knowledge would be lost, and regaining it much more difficult and expensive, as you would be, in essence, reinventing the wheel. There is a possibility that some trick of the trade would simply be lost. The claim that nothing would be lost in putting off experiment ignores that.

[Bignose]

If I understand well, you claimed that the current state of knowledge in physics leaves a non-ridiculous chance (does not exclude) that future discoveries in particle physics would provide new profitable energy sources. Are you serious ? Do you maintain this claim, did you hear it from any particle physicist, and/or do you expect particle physicists to agree with it ?

 

yes, it is my opinion that there is indeed a non-ridiculous chance that future discoveries would indeed be profitable. I don't think that it is too much of a stretch to think that if a unification of the 4 forces could be found, that that could lead to many developments.

 

 

 

When I wrote "We do know the fundamental laws of physics underlying every accessible physical phenomena", I meant : the phenomena that are accessible under the scope of reasonably affordable means, which have a chance to be involved in any profitable industrial applications for the next few centuries. (emphasis mine)

 

This span that I added the emphasis to in your quote is almost unbelievable. There is not a single person in 1712 who would have imagined 1% of the technology the world is using today. What a scientist in 1712 would have called 'reasonably affordable' or 'accessible' -- is stuff we do in grade school science labs today. I, for one, am glad that a 300 year old policy is not governing science today.

 

And, I really don't understand how you can be so sure what will be reasonably affordable or accessible 25 years from now, much less 300.

 

300 years ago, one could call themselves a 'scientist', and be reasonably up-to-date with most of the rest of the science being performed in the world. Today, that just isn't true. Not only is it impossible to be a 'scientist' (again, one who keeps up with all branches of science), one can hardly call themselves a 'chemist' or 'physicist'.... they are 'polypeptide chemists' or 'solid matter physicists' etc. A 'physicist' cannot keep up with all the developments just in physics, they end up pretty much out of necessity to specialize on one area like solid matter and read just the journals devoted to solid matter physics and going to the conferences on solid matter physics.

 

My point here being that I am curious what knowledge you possess that lets you so confidently know what will be affordable and accessible over the next 300 years? Why you think you have such a grasp of the current and future states of science to be able to make such bold predictions?

 

This is why I was asking about calculation-implying terms like "average expectable financial value". Because I thought maybe you did actually have some knowledge to could lead to reasonable calculations. It doesn't appear so, however.

 

Again, to summarize: it looks like you have your opinions, and the rest of us have ours. It is always good to see someone else's opinions, even if one doesn't necessarily agree with them.

[hypervalent_iodine]

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Moderator Note

spoirer,

 

Please keep your posts free of insulting comments.