I have been too absorbed with work to make any postings lately, but now that I have some free time, I want to talk about a momentous event: The switching on of the Large Hadron Collider (the most powerful particle accelerator ever built) last Wednesday. Why is this exciting? Aside from it being likely to change our fundamental understanding of the Universe, for someone like myself, who grew up reading science-fiction and day-dreaming about what wonders FTL, or anti-gravity, or wormhole technology, or force fields, (non-sensical or not) may bring, it feels like a re-awakening of hope that the future will arrive, not in tiny bits and pieces, but in a resounding, trumpet-blaring, triumphantly big chunk. For all of my life, there have been no major applied physiscs breakthroughs. We have basically two types of motors: electrical and chemical -stop counting. Electrical motors are about one century old; rockets are centuries old, internal combustion about century also, and jets (the cutting edge!!!) a mere 60 years old. OK, there is potential with nuclear propulsion especially in space, but those are basically glorified rockets (or glorified steam engines in ships). So why haven't we developed anything better in all this time?
I think because we have gone as far as good engineers can go -that is, by learning through experimentation, trial and error, and testing prototypes. There is only so much we can do by perfecting and building on what we already know; We need new, raw knowledge to start a new cycle of discovery. It is also true that a theory without a means to test it and get specific data, won't bear much fruit.
With the LHC, we have a tool to test those theories. Will we find the mass-carrier particle? Will we find the hidden dimensions that superstring theory predicts? Will we find dark matter? Will we finally figure out the "Theory of Everything"? I don't think anyone has a clue, I sure don't. What I do know, is that major new discoveries are usually followed by a cornucopia of pratical applications.
Maybe even a gravity-generator engine, to swiftly propell us accross space ;)
