Physicist Begs Colleagues Not to Build Another Large Hadron Collider

Some of the most significant discoveries in the world of theoretical physics have been made by the Large Hadron collider.

Scientists are excited to build a particle collider that will be four times the size of the current one and cost $25 billion to build.

Tom Hartsfield is a physicist. In a new essay for Big Think, Hartsfield argues that the funds should be spent somewhere else.

Supersymmetry

Particle colliders' discoveries are becoming more obscure and theoretical. There's a chance that supersymmetry, a highly involved set of rules that scientists have used to fill in the gaps of the Standard Model of particle physics, may not be able to explain a lot of things.

He writes that symmetry is not a tight and efficient theory. There is a convoluted mess of mathematical models that could possibly explain anything.

Spending billions of dollars on a bigger particle collider might not be able to test the theory.

Penny Wise

It could be a huge mistake to spend up to 100 billion dollars on a new version of the LHC.

It's better to focus on problems that you know are out there when you don't have much to go on. There are things that will lead to new discoveries.

100,000 smaller physics experiments could be funded with 100 billion dollars.

He suggested that a lot of money could be used to solve other big issues, like fusion energy.

The design for a 62 mile Future Circular collider is in the early stages of development and is expected to be completed by 2040.

Some people disagree that a huge collider would lead to better understanding of the universe.

Don't build another Large Hadron collider. Big think.

There may be a mirror universe in which time runs backwards, according to scientists.