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Alan
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Politicized science

January 2nd, 2020, 6:47 pm

From the Economist: nice update on what to build and where for the next big particle collider. Small amount of politics, but otherwise, didn't know where to put it.

Finding new physics will require a new particle collider
 
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katastrofa
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Re: Politicized science

January 2nd, 2020, 7:07 pm

It's a cushy post to be in the team of researchers working in this field. A few PhDs and postdocs turn the knobs, and you just add your name to the ever growing list of authors. Then they organise a conference, announce the discoveries, praise each other and celebrate. Have you noticed that lately all scientific results are correct?
BTW, I've always wondered how they can know that the Higgs boson is the actual Higgs boson (there's always some confidence and accuracy involved - show me the numbers, I'd say), and not some another resonance? There must be many such resonances in that energy range (?) I tried to ask those guys on several occasions, but they were too busy drinking coffee or turned upset
In today's Western physics when you get inquisitive, question someone's scientific work or point obvious errors (lots of them due to the broken peer review process and lowering quality of journals), you are being non-PC and become persona non grata in the community/clique. Praise what is good, and if you don't like something, shut up. Infantilisation of science.
Image
 
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Alan
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Re: Politicized science

January 2nd, 2020, 9:55 pm

Re "is it really the Higgs", the article mentioned predicted decay modes. 
And a little googling turned up 
Scientists now know the fate of most Higgs bosons produced in Large Hadron Collider
My impression is that it's a duck behaving like a duck.

Agree that's it's a cushy life -- well, all academic physics is.
For example there's Bavarian night with the Nobel laureates  :D
 
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katastrofa
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Re: Politicized science

January 3rd, 2020, 5:10 am

Thanks. I've also found this: Is the resonance at 125 GeV the Higgs boson?
The recently discovered resonance at 125 GeV has properties remarkably close to those of the Standard Model Higgs boson. We perform model-independent fits of all presently available data. The non- standard best-fits found in our previous analyses remain favored with respect to the SM fit, mainly but not only because the {\gamma}{\gamma} rate remains above the SM prediction.
I instinctively don't trust such results. Science can never be sure that the duck is actually a duck. It didn't bother me that much when I worked in materials science, because regardless of what really was inside studied samples (which rarely had much to do with the simplistic theoretical models), we wanted stable and repeatable experimental results. It didn't matter if it was a dog if he/she had enough quacking talent. Similarly, all we know about the LHC quacks is that they were heard at certain frequencies - it could have been strangely sounding rhino's farts. But what really bug me is that they had been desperately listening at those frequencies for almost 10(?) years - the 5 sigma confidence doesn't account for the involved bias, especially that - as far as we can tell - they stopped listening once they achieved the result.

Lindau! ISayMoo can share his experience :-)
 
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katastrofa
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Re: Politicized science

January 3rd, 2020, 7:00 am

I'm no longer sure whether it's me or my flu and B12 deficiency talking, so please forgive me the last and the probably the coming week :-)
 
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ISayMoo
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Re: Politicized science

January 3rd, 2020, 9:19 am

I saw Willis Lamb speaking there! The Great Old Ones...
 
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Alan
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Re: Politicized science

January 3rd, 2020, 4:59 pm

I saw Willis Lamb speaking there! The Great Old Ones...
How cool! It made me google his obituary, which said
"His fondest life memories were two -- his years at New College, Oxford University, and his summer trips to the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, a gathering of Nobel laureates and talented young students held annually at Lindau on Lake Constance. We were planning to attend the Lindau meeting this summer," Mrs. Lamb said.
@katastrofa: Get Well!
 
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ISayMoo
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Re: Politicized science

January 3rd, 2020, 11:35 pm

He was very critical of modern quantum mechanics.
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Politicized science

January 4th, 2020, 12:24 am

He was very critical of modern quantum mechanics.
Physics is full of bugs. QM is like applied linear algebra AFAIR and doesn't get you very far.
 
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ISayMoo
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Re: Politicized science

January 4th, 2020, 12:30 am

The world is full of bugs.
 
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Cuchulainn
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Re: Politicized science

January 4th, 2020, 12:37 am

The world is full of bugs.
Ethical vegans respect bugs.
not like these yobbos
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHBbJAIcnBI
 
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katastrofa
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Re: Politicized science

January 4th, 2020, 2:27 am

I like bugs, but why12qvb do we look for them only when something doesn't agree with the well-established theory (vide faster-than-light neutrinos in OPERA experiment)?
 
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ISayMoo
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Re: Politicized science

January 4th, 2020, 11:37 am

Anchoring.
 
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tags
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Re: Politicized science

January 4th, 2020, 1:34 pm

I'm not sure of scientific bugs, but negative externalities of science happen to make people's lives difficult. For instance, and as I already mentioned, my nails grow uncontrollably since I live in the LHC area (literally, somewhere in between Point 7 and Point 8).
 
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katastrofa
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Re: Politicized science

January 4th, 2020, 4:30 pm

You have 8 pointing finger?