Tech and Particle Accelerators (are they worth it?)

[sabianq]

Discussing the LHC with someone at work the other day, she asked about how wize it was to spend money on projects like the LHC or CERN or the Stanford Linear Collider and what benefit they have. she mentioned the fact that there is speculation about the danger of the world coming to an end and if the money was actually worth it to build and use these things.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,373302,00.html
(the real problem seems to be fox news but that is not the topic of this thread)

so i decided to check out what types of technology have been realized and are in use from scientific play with atom smashers.

in this article:
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000605

60 years ago, the Synchrotron was built and the problem of hard X-ray light was looked at. now, the "problem" is utilized:

The early decades of accelerator research centered on firing beams of particles at fixed targets to probe the inner workings of atoms. But in the 1970s, a group of physicists at SLAC, led by Burton Richter, proposed a project to store accelerated particles in a ring-shaped vacuum chamber lined with magnets. Within this ring, opposing beams of positrons and electrons could circulate for hours at a time, colliding many times a second; in the debris, scientists looked for clues about the behavior and identity of subatomic particles, deepening our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics....

Electrons, positrons, and other charged particles dislike being forced to travel in a circle, and they express their displeasure by radiating waves of electromagnetic energy. That energy was a downright nuisance for early particle physicists, who had to shield themselves and their sensitive equipment from this synchrotron radiation....

X-ray physicists began to take notice. When operated at energies of a few billion electron volts, or GeV, colliding-beam rings produced synchrotron radiation in the form of very bright hard X-rays...

“Sebastian Doniach and William Spicer came to me and said that if we could let the X-rays out, they could revolutionize condensed matter physics,” says Richter. The two men, he says, delivered on that promise.

Thirty years later, more than 60 light sources around the world generate intense beams of synchrotron light, mostly in the form of X-rays and ultraviolet light.

Almost all branches of science have benefited from “letting the X-rays out.” Synchrotron users are developing better ways to capture solar energy and store and use hydrogen as an energy supply.



the X-ray laser let researchers look directly at RNA and proteins

Synchrotrons have made it possible to conduct such studies in volume, creating a growing library of protein structures that are invaluable for research in biology and medicine. However, some proteins refuse to be crystallized, leaving no way to study their structures in detail.

At the Rocky Flats weapons plant in Colorado, synchrotron studies saved taxpayers billions in cleanup costs by showing how uranium binds with soil, giving specialists the key to efficiently halting its movement.


http://networks.silicon.com/broadband/0,39024661,39259981,00.htm

high density, ultra wide bandwidth Grid or cloud computing will be another break through.

The Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid (LCG), a super high bandwidth network, will channel about 15 petabytes - 15 million gigabytes - of data from the LHC to about 5,000 scientists in 500 institutions every year for at least 10 years.

just building the thing brought advances in production of superconducting magnets, and detectors.

http://www.er.doe.gov/Accomplishments_Awards/Decades_Discovery/54.html

not to mention a "training ground for the next generation of physicists, who may go on to develop new types of computers, medical imaging technologies, cancer treatments, or other ways of observing and controlling the physical world."

Particle therapy is a direct technology related to atom smashers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_therapy

In 1932, they split the lithium atom with 400 keV protons
http://documents.cern.ch/archive/cernrep/1994/94-01/p1.pdf


isn't the linear collider the father of the TV?
every cathode ray tube contains one.
(Fox news channel relies on this technology to spread their fair and balanced propaganda)


I am sure that there are many, many examples of technology that have been spawned from the creation and use of these fantastic devices.

does anybody else have any to add?

[eric_marsh]

In my opinion, the search for truth and knowledge is the highest human endeavor. Most all other behaviors are simply more sophisticated versions of what cats, lizards, and all other species do.

So yes, it is absolutely worth the money.

[alexvorn2]

With LHC they want to make big cash!:evil:

[nauthiz]

I suspect that for every endeavor of pure discovery, there has always been a crowd of naysayers who try to suggest that there's no practical benefit to the basic research of the day. A number of years down the line, these same naysayers are probably oblivious to the fact that much of the new technology that they have grown to depend on was built using the same basic research they once criticized as being useless.

Which isn't to say that the LHC is guaranteed to revolutionize our lives, but there's definitely an established pattern that goes back for centuries, and things like the LHC fit into it.

[tdvance]

History shows us that learning basic laws of nature pays for itself and then some. Of course, those who say the science is useless probably say that studying history is equally useless.

[sabianq]

History shows us that learning basic laws of nature pays for itself and then some. Of course, those who say the science is useless probably say that studying history is equally useless.

idunno doesn't that depend on which "history book" is studied? I can think of a couple that are studied by people who believe that nature has only ten laws.
:wall:

speculation aside, it truly is a sad fact that society has such a short term memory showing that the effects of ambiguous research has such a great impact on everyday life is lost on the people.

just the other year an office mate of mine was ridiculing NASA (in an off hand conversation) for spending so much money to send people to "space" and having nothing to show for it. she was interrupted in the middle of her diatribe by the sound of her ringing cell phone. I found it ironic that the very technology she was using came as a direct result of the space program.

at the same time, i have noticed that the short term memory issue with society works both ways, and eventually, nobody will remember the controversy over such technology when such technology brings social rewards.

[peteshimmon]

I cannot help thinking "Boondoggle" at the
expence of the LHC. But if the people on it
would otherwise tend to be in the armaments
industry then perhaps it is worth it.

[Swift]

I cannot help thinking "Boondoggle" at the
expence of the LHC. But if the people on it
would otherwise tend to be in the armaments
industry then perhaps it is worth it.
From the FoxNews article in the OP (my bold)
...some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.

From this link (http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending)
World military expenditure in 2006 is estimated to have reached $1204 billion in current dollars;
From this link on military spending (http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/fy09_dod_request_global/)
2008 Total Global Spending = $1.47 Trillion

Remind me again about which one is the boondoggle...:(

[KaiYeves]

In my opinion, the search for truth and knowledge is the highest human endeavor.
You said it!

just the other year an office mate of mine was ridiculing NASA (in an off hand conversation) for spending so much money to send people to "space" and having nothing to show for it. she was interrupted in the middle of her diatribe by the sound of her ringing cell phone. I found it ironic that the very technology she was using came as a direct result of the space program.
That is ironic. You should have pointed it out to her.