Reply To: Energy output calculations?

[Tulse]

Steven Sesselmann wrote: Look at some of the rediculous projuect that have been funded, such as LIGO and the LHC and soon ITER, where governments have sunk billions into the project, only to be told in a billion page document how the negative outcome of the experiment was a great success, and that not finding gravity waves or Z bosons proves that we had it all wrong.

That’s precisely how good science works, by ruling out possibilities. It’s silly to say that LIGO and LHC are failures because they did not confirm existing theories (and it is way too early to say that LHC is a failure even by that criterion).

You might as well say that the Michelson-Morley apparatus was a failure because it didn’t demonstrate the luminiferous aether.

I also think it is hugely important to distinguish between basic science and more applied or practical science. LIGO and LHC are designed to answer fundamental questions about the universe, whereas ITER is designed with a far more practical final goal, to produce fusion energy. Sure, it involves a lot of theoretical physics to do so, but the ultimate aim is very pragmatic. To me it makes far more sense to criticize such practically-targeted projects when they are spending huge amounts of money with no results, since such negative outcomes are antithetical to the final goal, unlike in basic science, where a null result can be hugely informative.