NA8
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I suspect the real question is whether it's true that "the universe isn't stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine".
We're living in the Matrix - Told 'ya so
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js
Flashlight Enthusiast
There's no way to know for sure, I don't think. Many say that--for sure--it must be so, but there's no way they could actually KNOW that.
Enzo Morocioli
Enlightened
Interesting article.
Anyone notice the relationship to Toltec sorcery's description of the "Eagle's Emanations"?
Don Juan Matus would laugh heartily and with great intrigue over how rational science is trying to determine what the eagle is and how it emanates.
Anyone notice the relationship to Toltec sorcery's description of the "Eagle's Emanations"?
Don Juan Matus would laugh heartily and with great intrigue over how rational science is trying to determine what the eagle is and how it emanates.
Nyctophiliac
Flashlight Enthusiast
Follow the white rabbit...
So, to a lay person, who never even got the chance to get past basic Math, what does it do for me? Does it affect me or my world? Does it help put food on my table, or a better paycheck? Not hardly.
Why not spend all those millions and millions of dollars, and use all those precious minds working on things like how to stop the destruction of the earth we live on within the next 50 years, before we don't have a sustainable atmosphere any more. Or does the Hologram idea suggest that this isn't really here so we don't have to worry about it?
Fourth paragraph up from the bottom, in that article Link basically sums it up. What good does all this do, it it's really there? Well it gets some guys some great awards and notoriety, plus it gets us more money to do more cool things. (my lay translation).
Apologies, I'm a very grumpy old man, but wouldn't it be better if we saved and control the world we live in first, before we decide to try to control the space-time continuum?
Why not spend all those millions and millions of dollars, and use all those precious minds working on things like how to stop the destruction of the earth we live on within the next 50 years, before we don't have a sustainable atmosphere any more. Or does the Hologram idea suggest that this isn't really here so we don't have to worry about it?
Fourth paragraph up from the bottom, in that article Link basically sums it up. What good does all this do, it it's really there? Well it gets some guys some great awards and notoriety, plus it gets us more money to do more cool things. (my lay translation).
Apologies, I'm a very grumpy old man, but wouldn't it be better if we saved and control the world we live in first, before we decide to try to control the space-time continuum?
BB
Flashlight Enthusiast
Well, all of of this may be for naught...
"Black holes from the LHC could survive for minutes"
-Bill
PS: Good chance that this is the crack-pot side of physics--not takings sides on this one (don't have the math for that).
"Black holes from the LHC could survive for minutes"
-Bill
PS: Good chance that this is the crack-pot side of physics--not takings sides on this one (don't have the math for that).
We need it to understand, to be able to use what we find in order to better understand other things and develop new stuff from there. It pays off on the very long run. The discovery that earth is a bowling ball instead of a flat disc didn't feed the children either. But now it is somewhat useful. Everywhere.
Then again ... don't you want to know? Aren't you curious? Those questions are so absolutely deep and far reaching ... I think humans just want to know. It is philosophical. It is the craving for the final answers to the world, the universe, to life. To God for some.
We must know I say.
bernie
I guess that for many of you, it's if we came from God or from accident. The diefinitive absolute proof of why we are here. For me, no I don't care. I only care about this world and the shape it's in. I only care about the fact that we are here and what we are going to do to protect what we have real time, in the present.
I just think the money is better off spent for the things we need in the here and now. All the people dead already over time, didn't know the answer, we won't either. We can wonder, but we won't know. It's pointless to me and it wastes time & money needed elswhere.
It is not only about god. That is a tangent and is interesting only for some. It is about knowledge. Basics. Without basics you can't come up with interesting new concepts for the here and now of tomorrow.
Your view is short-sighted in this way. Most important innovations are based on the groundwork that looks so uninteresting in itself, but is necessary to provide the basics for the actually useful inventions.
So yes, even when completely disregarding the philosophical aspect of the issue, even then I think we should spend more and not less on this research.
bernie
Your view is short-sighted in this way. Most important innovations are based on the groundwork that looks so uninteresting in itself, but is necessary to provide the basics for the actually useful inventions.
So yes, even when completely disregarding the philosophical aspect of the issue, even then I think we should spend more and not less on this research.
bernie
blasterman
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Because theoretical physicists and other 'all theory / nothing applied' types don't want to get their hands dirty. They have a degree, and hence feel they are owed a research job and grants while using the same part of their brain as victorian era theologians.
Will the LHC help us develop more efficient batteries or solar panels? Nope.
"Don't you want know....?"
Science is the pursuit of knowledge, not truth (my quote). The later is for religion. Conceptually I have little problem with these theories, but the fact remains the universe is what it is, and the past 50 years have seen a depressing migration of science away from applied theory to models that appease mathematicians more than humanity in general. 10 years from now the 'Matrix' theory will be ancient, and it's inventors seen as quacks while we are told to embrace the 'Olsen Twin Theory' (all matter has a bulimic pair) or something.
LLCoolBeans
Flashlight Enthusiast
Umm...This discussion is starting to stray pretty far off topic, even for the off topic forum. I don't thing the OP intended for this to be a discussion about how private individuals or firms should be spending their money, or how taxpayer money should be spent.
Many things you enjoy and take for granted have been invented by people who were allowed to "play" while others plowed the fields so to speak. A great many things have been discovered and invented more or less by accident. If humans, like animals, had always only perused the goals with immediate rewards, you would indeed be living a miserable life. I don't think any one of us can even begin to imagine how utterly tormented a life humans had in the stone age for example. Broken leg? You're done, but only after weeks of unimaginable suffering. A simple tooth ache could cause you a horrible and painful death.
No one can know up front what will be the next discovery, you have to let the great minds work with this stuff. If all humans did was to seek food and shelter etc. like the animals, it would indeed be a very sad world for us all. Fortunately a lot of people still understands this so that the scientists can get the funding they need to "play".
clbnc
Newly Enlightened
If scientists were not allowed to "play" we would not have these great flashlights, computers, medical science, etc...
Quantum mechanics was not created so we could have the personal computer, the personal computer happened only after the knowledge brought about by quantum mechanics. Now, try and imagine where we would be without the computer as we know it...
The computer is only the tip of the iceberg. We have only been at this knowledge thing in a serious manner for a few hundred years. I can not imagine what amazing discoveries lay ahead.
Quantum mechanics was not created so we could have the personal computer, the personal computer happened only after the knowledge brought about by quantum mechanics. Now, try and imagine where we would be without the computer as we know it...
The computer is only the tip of the iceberg. We have only been at this knowledge thing in a serious manner for a few hundred years. I can not imagine what amazing discoveries lay ahead.
NA8
Flashlight Enthusiast
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You could look at it several ways:
The only way you'll save this planet is if you understand physics enough to make fusion or something similar work as a clean source of energy.
The planet is doomed and the only way to get somewhere else is antigravity and exotic forms of travel.
The people who really count dominate the planet with cutting edge nuclear weapons and are going to darn well keep it that way, pilgrim.
I don't think you really have any choice in the matter, either in terms of will or options.
The only way you'll save this planet is if you understand physics enough to make fusion or something similar work as a clean source of energy.
The planet is doomed and the only way to get somewhere else is antigravity and exotic forms of travel.
The people who really count dominate the planet with cutting edge nuclear weapons and are going to darn well keep it that way, pilgrim.
I don't think you really have any choice in the matter, either in terms of will or options.
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lctorana
Flashlight Enthusiast
Message to NA8:
Hugo Weaving is about to knock on your door, Neo. He has an earphone and is not afraid to use it.
Hugo Weaving is about to knock on your door, Neo. He has an earphone and is not afraid to use it.
Everyone has his/her right to an opinion and I think we should just leave it as that right guys? :welcome:
My own two cents is that we need to be 'moderate' (being 'moderate' is in itself a highly debatable term!) with what we do with our time and money. We shouldn't spend disproportionate amounts of money and effort to fulfil our basic sense of 'curiosity' by performing very specialised experiments or projects, but neither would it be wise to spend only on things which are seen to be immediately effective to mankind or society or spend only on things which are related to our problems of today and in the near future.
'We' need to establish a framework which will allow us to prioritise what is needed more urgently and yet not neglect what may be needed later down the line in some unforeseeable situation or requirement.
On that matter, I'd like to say that laboratory scientists, theological scientists, philosophical scientists or whatever kind of 'scientists' -are not always responsible much of the technology that exists today. I'm sure we all know that a lot of the technologies in use today or have been discovered recently were made by large corporations, small companies, engineers, commercially employed scientists or ordinary joes who have had very non-abstract and very real and applicable goals and intentions on their 'research' agenda. Recently, these are the people who have been making the difference, not scientists who are researching on abstract theories or concepts.
However, we still need these mind-boggling or theory-heavy experiments because we'll never know when they might make the next big discovery that is important, applicable and beneficial to mankind today or in the forseeable future.
There was a time when the study of astronomy or relativity, lead to important discoveries like how the Earth was not flat or that astroids might wipe us all out one day, or that the moon affects our tides, or that nuclear reactions in the Sun can one day provide us with electricity in our homes or et cetera... But as time goes on, more and more of astronomy or the study of relativity becomes increasingly abstract and who knows when or if it'll ever help us. We should still keep at it though. Once again, there should be no right or wrong on the issue.
Hope my post sounded objective and neutral. I'm not trying to take any sides on any issue other than for being 'moderate'. Thanks for posting the article matrix!
My own two cents is that we need to be 'moderate' (being 'moderate' is in itself a highly debatable term!) with what we do with our time and money. We shouldn't spend disproportionate amounts of money and effort to fulfil our basic sense of 'curiosity' by performing very specialised experiments or projects, but neither would it be wise to spend only on things which are seen to be immediately effective to mankind or society or spend only on things which are related to our problems of today and in the near future.
'We' need to establish a framework which will allow us to prioritise what is needed more urgently and yet not neglect what may be needed later down the line in some unforeseeable situation or requirement.
On that matter, I'd like to say that laboratory scientists, theological scientists, philosophical scientists or whatever kind of 'scientists' -are not always responsible much of the technology that exists today. I'm sure we all know that a lot of the technologies in use today or have been discovered recently were made by large corporations, small companies, engineers, commercially employed scientists or ordinary joes who have had very non-abstract and very real and applicable goals and intentions on their 'research' agenda. Recently, these are the people who have been making the difference, not scientists who are researching on abstract theories or concepts.
However, we still need these mind-boggling or theory-heavy experiments because we'll never know when they might make the next big discovery that is important, applicable and beneficial to mankind today or in the forseeable future.
There was a time when the study of astronomy or relativity, lead to important discoveries like how the Earth was not flat or that astroids might wipe us all out one day, or that the moon affects our tides, or that nuclear reactions in the Sun can one day provide us with electricity in our homes or et cetera... But as time goes on, more and more of astronomy or the study of relativity becomes increasingly abstract and who knows when or if it'll ever help us. We should still keep at it though. Once again, there should be no right or wrong on the issue.
Hope my post sounded objective and neutral. I'm not trying to take any sides on any issue other than for being 'moderate'. Thanks for posting the article matrix!
js
Flashlight Enthusiast
The amount of money being spent on science and scientific research in this country is quite small compared to social programs and military funding, both. However, there is still a considerable amount of money being spent on theoretical scientific research.
I work at just one such theoretical laboratory, in fact, and we are primarily funded by the National Science Foundation. I work at Cornell University's particle accelerator. It used to go by "CESR" = cornell electron storage ring, and the lab used to go by either Wilson Lab, or LNS = Laboratory of Nuclear Science. But now it goes by either LEPP = Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics, or CLASSE = Cornell university's Laboratory for Applied Science and Science Education.
So . . . that said, I will weigh in on the issue of whether the money spent on theoretical science research would have been better spent on protecting the environment or feeding the poor, and so on.
There is a defense--a practical defense--to be made for funding such highly theoretical research, and I will talk about it in a minute, but honestly, I don't believe it is the right way to go about thinking about the issue.
Robert Wilson, the founder of our lab, back many decades ago, was asked by congress to explain why funding the construction of our 12 GeV Synchrotron would "help the national defense" (this was during the so-called cold war). He answered that IT WOULD NOT. He didn't try to go into all the eventual benefits that might come due to the application of the science discovered, despite the fact that that is true. We wouldn't have nuclear power, the nuclear bomb, computers, or solar cells, or anything like that, if it weren't for the work of the early 20th century physicists like Einstein and Bohr and Schrodinger and company.
So, why didn't he take the rhetorical tact? Simply because NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS A PRACTICAL JUSTIFICATION.
Do we ask why anyone should spend any time or effort or money on music? After all, what does it do for human survival and practical needs? Nothing. It feeds no one, it clothes no one, it houses no one. Similarly for art, cinema, theater, dance, and literature. It has no practical justification, and many are the artists who had to undergo severe and regular recrimination for how they "wasted" their time and money and effort on such "useless" pursuits as writing or painting.
What did Shakespeare do for England? What did Beethoven or J.S. Bach do for Germany? What did Debussy do for France?
They didn't provide for the national defense by writing or composing. They didn't feed or clothe anyone by these efforts.
No. But what they DID do was help make life worth living in the first place. They made the country more worth defending in the first place.
Humans do not live on bread alone, my friends.
The work at LHC is a great cultural and artistic contribution to the entire world. We should all rejoice at the incredible achievement it represents, and incarnates. It's amazing. It's brilliant. And it is inspiring.
Do you think you could have inspired those same minds, those same people, to make the same effort towards feeding the poor, or curing AIDs? I don't think so. Worthy goals though those both are, some are called to different paths than others, and can not ignore their vocation (their "calling") without terrible consequences, like depression and anomie.
There is no reason we can't have BOTH the LHC and other particle accelerator labs, at the same time as we have many labs trying to cure aids and engineer more disease and drought resistant crops, alongside many volunteers who work at soup kitchens and other social institutions. It isn't one or the other, all or nothing. We are rich enough for both.
Now, if some poor country decided to starve its' citizens in order to build a nuclear bomb, that would be a different (and not so hypothetical) story. But neither the USA, nor Europe fits that category.
As for "miniature black holes" I have spoken about that before: it's utter non-sense and I wish so much media attention wasn't spent on it.
As for THIS:
It is a TOTALLY unfounded statement to say that scientists have moved away from applied theory. The majority of scientifically trained individuals work in the area of applied theory. I do, for example. The survey work I do here at LEPP involves only the application of well known Large Scale Metrology theory. And even the theoretical physicists all try to follow Einstein in creating theory that can be tested via experiment. The theoretical physicists that work here at our lab, and at SLAC, are the ones who help dictate where and what we will be looking for with our giant accelerators. They aren't just dreaming up mathematically appealing theories. Although, yes, there are some who do that. But so what? It certainly doesn't characterize physics as a whole, nor does it indicate any kind of "migration" away from reality, from application.
The reason it might seem like that is because that exciting, far-out stuff is the stuff that popularizers of science like to talk about, because IT SELLS, because it is "exciting and far out".
But, please let's not confuse the hype from the real work being done, OK?
Now, all of that said, I believe it is a near certainty that the theoretical advancements of understanding being made possible by the LHC and SLAC and LEPP and etc. will translate into very useful technology in five or six decades. You can almost count on it, judging by past history.
I work at just one such theoretical laboratory, in fact, and we are primarily funded by the National Science Foundation. I work at Cornell University's particle accelerator. It used to go by "CESR" = cornell electron storage ring, and the lab used to go by either Wilson Lab, or LNS = Laboratory of Nuclear Science. But now it goes by either LEPP = Laboratory for Elementary-Particle Physics, or CLASSE = Cornell university's Laboratory for Applied Science and Science Education.
So . . . that said, I will weigh in on the issue of whether the money spent on theoretical science research would have been better spent on protecting the environment or feeding the poor, and so on.
There is a defense--a practical defense--to be made for funding such highly theoretical research, and I will talk about it in a minute, but honestly, I don't believe it is the right way to go about thinking about the issue.
Robert Wilson, the founder of our lab, back many decades ago, was asked by congress to explain why funding the construction of our 12 GeV Synchrotron would "help the national defense" (this was during the so-called cold war). He answered that IT WOULD NOT. He didn't try to go into all the eventual benefits that might come due to the application of the science discovered, despite the fact that that is true. We wouldn't have nuclear power, the nuclear bomb, computers, or solar cells, or anything like that, if it weren't for the work of the early 20th century physicists like Einstein and Bohr and Schrodinger and company.
So, why didn't he take the rhetorical tact? Simply because NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS A PRACTICAL JUSTIFICATION.
Do we ask why anyone should spend any time or effort or money on music? After all, what does it do for human survival and practical needs? Nothing. It feeds no one, it clothes no one, it houses no one. Similarly for art, cinema, theater, dance, and literature. It has no practical justification, and many are the artists who had to undergo severe and regular recrimination for how they "wasted" their time and money and effort on such "useless" pursuits as writing or painting.
What did Shakespeare do for England? What did Beethoven or J.S. Bach do for Germany? What did Debussy do for France?
They didn't provide for the national defense by writing or composing. They didn't feed or clothe anyone by these efforts.
No. But what they DID do was help make life worth living in the first place. They made the country more worth defending in the first place.
Humans do not live on bread alone, my friends.
The work at LHC is a great cultural and artistic contribution to the entire world. We should all rejoice at the incredible achievement it represents, and incarnates. It's amazing. It's brilliant. And it is inspiring.
Do you think you could have inspired those same minds, those same people, to make the same effort towards feeding the poor, or curing AIDs? I don't think so. Worthy goals though those both are, some are called to different paths than others, and can not ignore their vocation (their "calling") without terrible consequences, like depression and anomie.
There is no reason we can't have BOTH the LHC and other particle accelerator labs, at the same time as we have many labs trying to cure aids and engineer more disease and drought resistant crops, alongside many volunteers who work at soup kitchens and other social institutions. It isn't one or the other, all or nothing. We are rich enough for both.
Now, if some poor country decided to starve its' citizens in order to build a nuclear bomb, that would be a different (and not so hypothetical) story. But neither the USA, nor Europe fits that category.
As for "miniature black holes" I have spoken about that before: it's utter non-sense and I wish so much media attention wasn't spent on it.
As for THIS:
It is a TOTALLY unfounded statement to say that scientists have moved away from applied theory. The majority of scientifically trained individuals work in the area of applied theory. I do, for example. The survey work I do here at LEPP involves only the application of well known Large Scale Metrology theory. And even the theoretical physicists all try to follow Einstein in creating theory that can be tested via experiment. The theoretical physicists that work here at our lab, and at SLAC, are the ones who help dictate where and what we will be looking for with our giant accelerators. They aren't just dreaming up mathematically appealing theories. Although, yes, there are some who do that. But so what? It certainly doesn't characterize physics as a whole, nor does it indicate any kind of "migration" away from reality, from application.
The reason it might seem like that is because that exciting, far-out stuff is the stuff that popularizers of science like to talk about, because IT SELLS, because it is "exciting and far out".
But, please let's not confuse the hype from the real work being done, OK?
Now, all of that said, I believe it is a near certainty that the theoretical advancements of understanding being made possible by the LHC and SLAC and LEPP and etc. will translate into very useful technology in five or six decades. You can almost count on it, judging by past history.
Thanks for taking the time for that post js... I'm in full agreement. It's largely our curiosity that drives the species forward -whether through the inventions, knowledge and understanding that results, or the pure emotion, motivation or progress that adds meaning or that gets us out of the bed everyday.
