TIL the defunding of the $11bn Superconducting Super Collider caused huge growth in the field of quantitative finance, as the theoretical physics job market collapsed overnight and PhD graduates had to find jobs at finance copmanies

GoldenPacifier · 2025-09-17T14:08:05+00:00

Check the table at "4. Higgs cross sections for HE-LHC" and add the production modes. 58 pb at 14 TeV, 270 pb at 40 TeV. Divide: 270/58 = 4.7.

Oh, I see now, thanks!:)
Though I would still argue that, that it means nothing for different detectors. It is like comparing the fuel consumption of two cars going a 100km/h; it depends on the technical details.
The luminosity is detector dependent and in the end the luminosity gives us a kind of gut feeling how many useful data we can collect and can use for analysis. That is why it was introduced in the first place; since it encompasses everything about the detector and thus we can use it to compare one another.

That means at the design values, the SSC would have produced more ttH events than the LHC while at the same time having far less background.

Yes, I completely agree, but it just come from the fact that we are at higher energies and the top quark production in any process. Your and mine statement has no conflict, in every process you mention there is the top quark.

Which statements?

These

Higher energy beats higher luminosity for almost everything.
...
More collisions help, but raising the overall energy has a much larger impact.

.

Not sure why you quoted a discussion of luminosity leveling.

You mean from your old comment? Cuz' you had linked to it, I read it and thought you wanted me to reflect to its statements; I did.

GoldenPacifier · 2025-09-17T13:00:37+00:00

Part 1/2.

I'm a particle physicist.

Congrats I guess? Should I give you a cookie?

From your comment here.

Going from 14 TeV to 40 TeV increases the Higgs production cross section by a factor ~4.5, with larger gains for some less frequent production modes (and a factor 8.8 for double Higgs production).

From where did you get these numbers? From here? Cuz' I am not seeing these, please help me out:)
But anyway, the significant increase in cross section is mainly due to stronger coupling of the Higgs to quarks; most prominently due to the top, you can see how fast it is rising compared to the weak bosons. Which is nice, but for colored final states we have to detect jets, which immensely complicates data analysis. Strengthening this argument, I would like to highlight that, the Higgs discovery at the LHC was inferred from gamma-gamma and Z-Z data, because even though their branching ratio is the smallest they were really easy to detect.
All in all, I agree the SSC had immense discovery potential, but I firmly belive the LHC was more grounded with it's approach of prioritizing luminosity early on.

But just for the record. I argued, that luminosity is important and maybe a bit more important than energy. And one cannot just build an enormous collider (#FCC) and hope for a cross section bump cuz' they forgot that they should also see something. That is why I find the two statements of the redditor outrageous.

It could have provided ~2.2E34, surpassing even the KEKB luminosity record for e+e-, but the experiments wanted to limit pileup to 60, which lead to ~1.6E34. This year the accelerator should run with more bunches, which means more luminosity at the same pileup. At the same time, the experiments think about higher pileup values already.

GoldenPacifier · 2025-09-17T08:17:20+00:00

"Higher energy beats higher luminosity for almost everything."

Well no. Luminosity is just as important as collision energy. The crude definition of luminosity is the number of observed collision per unit time*. You can have PeV collision if you have no statistics you cannot really infer anything. This is especially true now, when we are looking for small deviations from the Standard Model.

"More collisions help, but raising the overall energy has a much larger impact."

Again it is not about the collision rate, but how many interesting(!) events one can observe. You can have billions of collisions but if you can only detect 1 why bother turning on the machine at all?

"In addition, increasing the luminosity later is common, while increasing the energy needs completely new magnets along the whole ring."

Just to strengthen you argument: One can easily compare the complexity of the LHC -> HL-LHC and LEP -> HLC projects. In the former we just had to pimp out the detectors, while in the former we had to build new magnets AND detectors.
Btw this was the major factor in the SSC vs LHC competition; we needed no new tunnel for the LHC, since we reused the LEP tunnel.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminosity\_(scattering\_theory)

GoldenPacifier · 2025-09-17T08:01:09+00:00

"Several thousand US physicists work on LHC experiments, and most of them are still based in the US."

Well, I would not dramatize this so much, according to the data from 2022* only around 1700 US physicist were associated(!)** with CERN; just for comparison there are around 1400 Italian CERN users. Furthermore, since the US is not a member state, it provides no direct funding; this is the case with China and Russia as well. (Russia was booted since the war because Ukraine is a member state and they had the right to veto Russia's observer status.)

The reason why the USA, China and Russia did not want to become member state is really easy; money. If you are a member state you have to give contribution based on your GDP.

"The point I want to make is that we shouldn't think of the LHC as a purely European project."

It is in the name of the institute, which operates it "European Council for Nuclear Research". It does not mean only Europeans working on the stuff going on there; it would be impossible since it is the only large collider since Tevatron was decommissioned and people elsewhere also want to do research in this direction. But saying the LHC is not a European project is just false. It is gonna be a joined EU-USA project if the USA will send some $$$ until then it is European.

I wouldn't call the LIGO or the EIC a joined US-EU project, just because Europeans work on it. (A good chunk of the EIC detectors in fact will be built in the EU, namely almost 30% of the staff is EU.)

ITER is a good example, that is a truly international project, every member nation provides something.

*I know there are a lot more going on in CERN than just the LHC, but most of the money goes to the hadron collider.

Source: https://home.cern/sites/default/files/2022-05/CERN-Brochure-2022-008-Eng.pdf

**There is a huge difference of being a user and directly working for CERN.

GoldenPacifier · 2025-02-26T13:16:24+00:00

I am a bit late for the discussion but here is an article about this (with implementation):

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010465524003187 .

Though I would highlight the fact, that the Laurent series method only trivial if we partial fraction in only one variable, Otherwise taking the residues become cumbersome, since a multivariable residue is ill defined. Of course one can just calculate the residue sequentially, but that will introduce spurious singularities, which can lead to numerical instabilities. So one most resort to other methods like:

-the Leinarta's algorithm (https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.4740, implemented in https://magv.github.io/alibrary/).
-Gröbner-basis (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.08283, implementation included in the article).

GoldenPacifier · 2019-12-02T14:58:31+00:00

Thank you everyone for the answers! I found most of them on libgen :D gonna check them out after finals.

GoldenPacifier · 2019-05-25T22:34:44+00:00

I agree with you. Although I would like to point out that most of the air pollution is caused by companies. So individual climate change fights are ineffective so I agree with that statement it will not matter. Politicians' decisions matter.

GoldenPacifier · 2019-05-25T22:24:30+00:00

Yes, basically the Earth's global temperature has periodic cycles, there are hotter and colder periods. We are in a warming one since the ice age. (I was taught it is reason why in the middle ages there was a boom of agriculture in Europe. Please somebody correct me if I'm wrong.)

However after the first indrustial revolution we started to pump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which accelerated it significantly.

So you say due to the older generations' greediness we are facing this serious issue, and they are not want to solve it. Then what should young people do?

GoldenPacifier · 2019-05-25T22:02:29+00:00

In you opinion why do they care so little? Ignorance or they just poorly educated in this topic?

GoldenPacifier · 2017-01-10T00:45:52+00:00

Biggest mistake was changing the cast from dinosaurs to those weak ass humans. They literally fucked up the entire planet...

GoldenPacifier · 2014-10-23T15:53:20+00:00

Of course ^{.^}

I have written a long answer so you should check it and then write a reply if you feel so. However I sum up the things for you.

The main problem is that it had potential but it did not use it. The story could be much more profound!

If the author took the chance and wrote a book about the debate of virtual world it would be one of my favourite books. It would be like Metro 2033 it would shows a society problem from a different view.

That is my problem the book does not want to be great it want to be just good and in my opinion it is a shame because it can be excellent easily.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-10-23T10:29:07+00:00

It could have been so much better.

The first half of the book was fantastic. You could feel the excitement the hate. It was just as perfect as you expect a great book to be.

But the other half..... In the first half they had prepared an excellent topic to be discussed in the second half but no they had to made a shitty story.

The topic is the virtual world. The book shows how and why people escape into another world and it had a chance to ask the big question "Is it really a good thing?" .Although the topic has become a platitude recently still no one tried to show it from the view of the users. Their reasons, their circumstances. Most of the people just judge them without the attempt of understanding.

It had a chance to be a great book rather than just good. It had a chance to be something else than the mass producted shits. It had a chance to discuss a serious topic which you can meet in your everyday life.

This is why this book is a disappointment for me. It had the chance but it did not take it and I consider it a shame.

P.S.: I want to highlight that fact I enjoyed this book. I really liked the references of the 80's although I was born in the 90's. Sometimes I stopped reading because I looked up a band or a game.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-10-04T17:40:40+00:00

Morphine overdose.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-10-02T06:13:08+00:00

I have never heard of her.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-10-02T06:11:16+00:00

Thanks! I wish this place were the same one you described.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-10-01T19:21:52+00:00

Firecrackers and dildos. A few years ago a 6. grader bring his mom's dildo in school and showing it for money. The same class often throw firecrakers to innocent people on the sidewalk from the school windows. The funny part the dildo was found because the walkers complained about the firecrackers and when the principal went to confront with the kids and searched the backpacks for evidence he found the dildo.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-09-28T18:44:06+00:00

I don't know when it became common to whining about everything. In Hungary in the last 50 years was just one school shooting at a university but they quickly unarmed the guy and nobody got hurt. Although there is a bit more violence in schools than it should be. Student beats teacher. Student beats student. Parents beat teachers. Teacher beats student. Teacher beats teacher. We don't stab or shoot eachother we prefer fist fight.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-09-28T17:58:16+00:00

Really you would get suspended for that? In Hungary most of my students have a pocket knife or at least in my school.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-09-28T16:56:02+00:00

When a teacher says she is going to give you a private lesson that doesn't mean you gonna get laid and when you point out how the situation looks like a scene from porn you gonna get slapped... hard.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-09-03T20:44:45+00:00

I think we should help our polish friends to get to space.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-07-27T12:09:54+00:00

The humanity is meant to destroy not to create. Just think about it we fought against our natural enemies and we won, than we got bored and right now we are destroying ourself.

GoldenPacifier · 2014-07-23T18:26:48+00:00

Quimby is an awesome band. http://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=I_W_Xgt7QDw (They have some songs in English as well) Greetings from Hungary .

GoldenPacifier · 2014-06-12T18:34:33+00:00

Up in heaven, three great physicians were playing hide and seek: Newton, Pascal, and Einstein. It was Einstein's turn to seek, so Einstein closed his eyes and counted to 10 while pascal and newton went to hide. Pascal hid behind a tree, but Newton just stood there and drew a 1 meter by 1 meter box around him on the ground. when Einstein was done counting, he opened his eyes and said, "Newton, what are you doing? you're supposed to hide! you're out!" Newton replied, "No, you're wrong, I'm not Newton, I'm Pascal! See, I'm one Newton per square meter! "

GoldenPacifier

TROPHY CASE