Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MonkeyHead]

Given me a job?

I will leave a quote here from Teodore Maimann, Co-Inventor of the forst working lase based on Einsteins theory of Stimulated emission (snigger).

The laser is a solution looking for a probelm.

[Osmosis Jones]

Oh lasers, you sexy sexy beasts. Especially the ones coming out of the US Naval research facilities...

[Darvi]

WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE!?

[Loud Whispers]

So.. totally useless fucking particle for anything else than masturbating the ego's of quantum physics socalled "scientists"?
I mean, we cant cure all cancer with a higgs boson, we cant even make massless material. Nothing.

Just another useless brick. Like discovering what kind of colour that was your great grandma's favorite, just as useful.

OR

Did i miss anything?

You missed the part where we gain a more intricate understanding of the freaking material fabric of the universe, yes.
1. You can never cure cancer.
2. This isn't some textiles project going on, this is science. This is the expanding of the collective human knowledge horizon. This is history in the making.
3. Inconsequential notes done in experiments have all been cumulative. The more we understand, the more questions are raised and the more we can answer. With said answers, we can make life better for humanity, with you know, science. The same one that gives so much to the ungrateful...

Science bitches, it works.

[DrPoo]

I never said science is redicolous, i asked, what the fuck can we actually do with this particle? It feels so god damn inert, like just another filler number on that big database of known particles and their use.

The difference between the higgs boson and electricity is that electricity is a kind of energy we can translate to useful energy, we can heat shit, we can make shit move, and even in itself its useful, you know, electrolysis and lighting and shit.

[Darvi]

I never said science is redicolous, i asked, what the fuck can we actually do with this particle? It feels so god damn inert, like just another filler number on that big database of known particles and their use.

They said the same thing about gravity, too.

Actually no, I think they were all "DAMMIT, how do I launch my mother-in-law into space now?"

Also the point of science isn't to figure out the solution to every problem the world has. Science is all about "okay, now we've got this new thing, how can we market it to be both useful and awesome at the same time?". Maybe, no probably, the Higgs boson has some uses they haven't figured out yet. Maybe it makes space travel easier. Maybe they can use it to grow more crops. Maybe it does help treat cancer. Or maybe the Higgs mechanism just results in really good muffins.

[MrWiggles]

So.. totally useless fucking particle for anything else than masturbating the ego's of quantum physics socalled "scientists"?
I mean, we cant cure all cancer with a higgs boson, we cant even make massless material. Nothing.

Just another useless brick. Like discovering what kind of colour that was your great grandma's favorite, just as useful.

OR

Did i miss anything?

Even if the discovering and studying the Higgs leads to nothing (which would be just about impossible), the search for knowledge is a noble quest in of itself.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There aren't that many known kinds of particles. The Higgs field is the property of the universe which gives things mass, the Higgs boson is a temporary excitation of that field to a higher state. Without the presence of the Higgs field, everything in the universe would be moving at the speed of light and would never move any slower than that.

Knowing about the Higgs completes the Standard Model, and will allow us to expand our knowledge of how the universe functions. We just discovered this. You're asking the Wright brothers for supersonic jets.

[DrPoo]

So the idea behind discovering this Higgs Boson... is.. that they think theres more to discover from it?
But what practical uses can we derive from this higgs particle? Besides it having an awesome nickname, the god particle.

So the only reason why we spend so much money and energy that could have been used on irrigating Sahara or something else directly useful, is only because we /imagine/ that the discovery will be followed by useful new discoveries leading to practical use? Its like all those useless arctic missions they made back in time, they sent out people on dangerous and expensive missions, thinking there would be something great to be found.

I dont know, i am in two pieces right now, one saying "This is such a wonderful discovery! Because there might be useful things to be found in it!", another saying "Thanks god they found that useless speck of dust, now i hope you guys can concentrate on bigger issues as for example the fact that our planet is slowly turning into a pressure boiler or the fact that most brownies you find in the supermarket tastes like crap compared to home made ones."

I might just be one big dumbass redneck that isnt even a real redneck, and if so, just tell me.

[Darvi]

But what practical uses can we derive from this higgs particle? Besides it having an awesome nickname, the god particle.

WE DON'T KNOW WHICH IS WHY THEY'RE SO BUSY STUDYING IT.

Also, that nickname has no relation to the particle except for crazy people.

[kaijyuu]

Superconductors wouldn't of been discovered if people hadn't asked, "hey, what happens if we make things really damn cold?" Then we found out some things go wacky concerning electron flow, and there you have it: medical equipment and a bunch of other stuff.


You don't start with practical applications. You ask questions, get answers, then look for practicality. The "pointless" questions always come first.

[MrWiggles]

So the idea behind discovering this Higgs Boson... is.. that they think theres more to discover from it?
But what practical uses can we derive from this higgs particle? Besides it having an awesome nickname, the god particle.

I dont know, i am in two pieces right now, one saying "This is such a wonderful discovery! Because there might be useful things to be found in it!", another saying "Thanks god they found that useless speck of dust, now i hope you guys can concentrate on bigger issues as for example the fact that our planet is slowly turning into a pressure boiler or the fact that most brownies you find in the supermarket tastes like crap compared to home made ones."

I might just be one big dumbass redneck that isnt even a real redneck, and if so, just tell me.

There isn't a question of 'might this be useful', its going to be useful. There has never been a scientific discovery which hasn't found an application in some way. If you're asking for exactly what application the Higgs will provide? I have no fuckin idea. But, when radio were first transmitted, it was deemed pretty useless. A novelty. When the telescope was first invented, that too was a novelty. When magnetism was first discovered? That too was consider a novelty.

Yet, their applications and uses have blossomed and shaped everyones lives greatly.

Did Newton know that figuring out force is equal to mass times acceleration that we'd get to the moon? Did Eistenstien envision GPS satellites? And to rephrase MSH, did the Wright Brothers think about ultra sonic jets? Or none stop flights to Australia? Or the monumental impact they their invention and new discoveries would have on the worlds military industry or socio political fallout from being able to travel so fast and readily across great distances? Of course fuckin-not.

The bitching you're doing, DrPoo, is infantile.

So the only reason why we spend so much money and energy that could have been used on irrigating Sahara or something else directly useful, is only because we /imagine/ that the discovery will be followed by useful new discoveries leading to practical use? Its like all those useless arctic missions they made back in time, they sent out people on dangerous and expensive missions, thinking there would be something great to be found.

OH SHIT, guys! He's right! Fuck. fuck. Wait. We need to get all all the particle physicist and materiel engineers, mathematicians over to start digging ditches in the Sahara, because their skill sets are totally transferab... wait thats an extremely stupid idea.

Investment in the future is never a waste. You really seem to be operating under the delusion that fundamental research cannot give any return on investments, which is really fucking ridiculous as we're all typing on COMPUTERS, CONVERSING OVER THE FUCKING INTERNET. All at one time, started as fucking expensive larks being paid for by grant money with no real aim for mass application or how it'll reshape our entire lives.

And not only that, but you posit this If Or kinda of thing really blindly? You seem to be imply that there isn't any effort to irrigate the Saraha. Or that we can't possibly split our focuses in multiple directions. When there is an article with Pop SCi (I think) with a massive plan to do huge amount of irrigation of the sarahra to retard or reverse the effects of global warming via changing global weather patterns, all at the same causing millions and millions of gallons of desalinated water to be used for agriculture or industrial use. But it'd cost 2 trillion dollars a year to maintain.

Or that there are countries in the Sahara desert which do irrigate, and irrigate quite successfully. Libya springs to mind.

[MonkeyHead]

Irony: this post is now on the internet, which was first implemented by a CERN CompSci looking for an easy way of distributing scientific data between people working in different areas of a vast site. Hell, he (Tim Berners Lee) was even in the opening ceremony of the London Olymics where he tweeted "This is for everyone" live to the world from the ceremony and it appeared in the stadium on a display mechanism connected to the stadium seats. If that isnt cool, then nothing is. Anyway, I digress...

So what has the work performed in discovering the Higgs Boson done for DrPoo? Its allowed him to bitch about it on the internet.

[alway]

Basic scientific research is all about learning the rules. That in itself holds value, as it tells use more about our place in the universe. After the rules have been discovered, others can come in, learn the rules, and try their damndest to exploit the hell out of those rules. And that's where technology comes from. Without a constant refining of our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics, technological progress, especially in the realm of computers, would slow down dramatically after a few decades; Moore's Self-Fulfilling Law would cease to be, the basic materials science which makes better materials for everything else would grind to a near-halt.

[DrPoo]

Basic scientific research is all about learning the rules. That in itself holds value, as it tells use more about our place in the universe. After the rules have been discovered, others can come in, learn the rules, and try their damndest to exploit the hell out of those rules. And that's where technology comes from. Without a constant refining of our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics, technological progress, especially in the realm of computers, would slow down dramatically after a few decades; Moore's Self-Fulfilling Law would cease to be, the basic materials science which makes better materials for everything else would grind to a near-halt.

Finally someone with an answer i could use for anything.