Richard Milner on a new U.S. particle accelerator
news.mit.edu
news.mit.edu
http://rmitz.org/freebsd.daemon.html
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/02/23/come-and-take-it-emi...
More importantly, the SSC site was sold to private industry more than a decade ago.
There are tens of thousands of us still driving the field (with many open questions) forward.
I wouldn't imagine that particle physics would be coming to an end until we had an experimentally proven model that explained all phenomena we can observe
They know exactly what they are searching for, read the paper. Esp. in QCD there's a lot still missing. Sea quarks, gluons.
But even on the astronomic level GR leaves the dark matter hole, which is a non-satisfactory explanation to many. Elegant yes, but certainly not proper.
I'd also prioritize manned exploration above particle physics, but I think they should continue and grow in tandem as I see no way of knowing exactly what the future of these endeavors holds, other than that there is a reasonable argument to be made that either could produce discoveries of tremendous value.
This is an extremely pessimistic view. Yes, we're almost certainly going to find something there, but that doesn't mean there's nothing before then. I'd bet a reasonably large sum of money that there's something before around 10TeV.
Also, this collider isn't looking for new particles so much as trying to improve our understanding of ones we know about already.
It's exactly the same thinking that leads people to conclude that global warming isn't a problem, because they found a climate scientist who also disagrees.
Unless we all, en masse, want to go get physics degrees to properly critique the arguments, the only responsible thing for a member of the public to do is trust majority opinion. It can be wrong, certainly, but it's vastly less likely to be than any of the dozens or hundreds of minority opinions which oppose it.
"trust majority opinion"
Trust those who get those billions of EUR, you mean.
But I would be interested in the track record of particle science in the last 50 years on improving the human condition.
No it isn't.
You've read the book?
The point is, particle scientiests have shown no fundamental progress in the last decades, and claimed several times there will be progress for sure with the next billion EUR. But this has not materialized.
Hossenfelder argues that the "for sure" part comes from the perception of beauty by the scientists, and they have no other basis for being convinced there is possible progress than that the current theories are not beautiful (e.g. no quantum gravity, no unified theory, no super symmetry).
Climate scientists have shown massive progress over the last decades.
"[...] because they found a climate scientist who also disagrees."
It's not that "one" scientist says there is no progress, all scientists agree there is no progress in particle science (except showing a particle exists that everyone was sure existed already and waves that everyone also was sure exist, no new insights). So listen to the scientists about their progress, when billions of EURs and broken promises have not brought any progress and decide if they should get more, or the billions are better spend on scientists that make progress (climate, health, AI, ...).
Wouldn't most alternatives be significantly cheaper and more likely to provide new scientific information?
Finally, after seeing the politics of the Superconducting Super Collider, I don't envision any hope of a significantly larger accelerator within the next 100 years unless some incredible theoretical breakthrough makes it irresistable.