Re:Did the W-boson just “break the standard model”?
by godelski on Saturday April 30, 2022 @10:32PM
(#31221613)
Yeah I would say that there are two means in which it does.
1) Direct means: this is stuff like finding helium in the sun, and from there being able to see its signature and find it elsewhere (we can say this for other atoms and molecules too). Stopping nuclear war, due to tracking the proper origin (and providing an explanation) of the source of gamma bursts. Studying reactions in nature and then attempting to replicate them on earth (fusion is an obvious example but there are others). These tend to be kinda weak if we don't include things like justification to go to space, which is iffy either way.
2) Indirect means: These are probably providing the most value. This is pretty true for any advance science though. When you're pushing the extremes of our knowledge you have to invent new things to measure and test. You might say that these could be built by industry, but the thing is that these are often extremely expensive. So one can also think of science as a means for governments to inject innovation into their economies. You need to detect a star really far away? Well you're going to also be building cutting edge mirrors, radio instruments, and other things. Want to detect gravitational waves? You got to write code that is really good at detecting noise and differentiating a signal that is smaller than fp64 precision. These all have huge benefits. The science becomes public and as these things are being invented papers are being written and industry is able to learn from these challenges and transfer the lessons learned to their own applications, which dramatically reduces R&D costs. Additionally, a lot of mathematical frameworks and tools are build out of this (I was considering putting this under #1). These maths apply far beyond a specific problem. You might find things like how to do fast QR decomposition or signal analysis.
I'll add a bit to #2 too. You might ask why not push that money into industries. Well there's a few reasons. First, science is exploratory by nature. You may have no idea about all the challenges you're going to face and all the things you need when undertaking big projects like these (that's why there's constant delays). I mean we got the internet out of a problem like this with CERN. Second off, scientists don't give a shit about industry (well not to the same degree). They say that happiness is worth 10 IQ points. If you've ever talked to scientists in a big lab they will nerd out on you. It is exciting just exploring what makes the universe and us. Maybe it is just my degree in physics, but I also think there's something poetic to trying to understand the environment around us. Does everything have to have a direct monetary value? What's wrong about learning for the sake of learning? Also, sometimes the return on investment on science is hundreds of years, but it does seem to always pay dividends.
1) Direct means: this is stuff like finding helium in the sun, and from there being able to see its signature and find it elsewhere (we can say this for other atoms and molecules too). Stopping nuclear war, due to tracking the proper origin (and providing an explanation) of the source of gamma bursts. Studying reactions in nature and then attempting to replicate them on earth (fusion is an obvious example but there are others). These tend to be kinda weak if we don't include things like justification to go to space, which is iffy either way.
2) Indirect means: These are probably providing the most value. This is pretty true for any advance science though. When you're pushing the extremes of our knowledge you have to invent new things to measure and test. You might say that these could be built by industry, but the thing is that these are often extremely expensive. So one can also think of science as a means for governments to inject innovation into their economies. You need to detect a star really far away? Well you're going to also be building cutting edge mirrors, radio instruments, and other things. Want to detect gravitational waves? You got to write code that is really good at detecting noise and differentiating a signal that is smaller than fp64 precision. These all have huge benefits. The science becomes public and as these things are being invented papers are being written and industry is able to learn from these challenges and transfer the lessons learned to their own applications, which dramatically reduces R&D costs. Additionally, a lot of mathematical frameworks and tools are build out of this (I was considering putting this under #1). These maths apply far beyond a specific problem. You might find things like how to do fast QR decomposition or signal analysis.
I'll add a bit to #2 too. You might ask why not push that money into industries. Well there's a few reasons. First, science is exploratory by nature. You may have no idea about all the challenges you're going to face and all the things you need when undertaking big projects like these (that's why there's constant delays). I mean we got the internet out of a problem like this with CERN. Second off, scientists don't give a shit about industry (well not to the same degree). They say that happiness is worth 10 IQ points. If you've ever talked to scientists in a big lab they will nerd out on you. It is exciting just exploring what makes the universe and us. Maybe it is just my degree in physics, but I also think there's something poetic to trying to understand the environment around us. Does everything have to have a direct monetary value? What's wrong about learning for the sake of learning? Also, sometimes the return on investment on science is hundreds of years, but it does seem to always pay dividends.