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Comment by btrettel | Hacker News Reader

Not about the article per se:

Why do particle/high-energy and quantum physics get so much media attention compared against other branches of physics?

HEP and quantum physics are fairly uninteresting to me but I'm wondering about others.

I my case - and I could well imagine this to be true for many - it is not really about physics at all. It is more about the philosophical aspect, wanting to know how the universe works at a fundamental level, what exists, what is space, what is time, what does this mean for free will and consciousness. In everyday life relativity, quantum mechanics, and particle physics are as useless as being able to calculate stresses in a beam or understanding turbulence or knowing about metamaterials. From time to time I may actually need some classical mechanics or electrodynamics to understand how something works or to solve a specific problem, but unless it is part of your hobby or job non-fundamental physics beyond some basic knowledge is just as irrelevant as fundamental physics in most peoples life. Fundamental physics and cosmology on the other hand fills in a certain sense the same spot that religion does for other people.

Thanks for your comment. I don't seem to appreciate the philosophical aspects as much as others.

I feel the same way about databases.

Because probing the fundamental building blocks of the universe is very interesting to some people. So now your question is: why do people care what we're made of? Not sure about that one although i spend over a decade in HEP... on the other hand, if they don't then what do they care about? It is easier to do physics than to understand people...

I suppose I disagree about what is "fundamental".

On some level I can see how HEP and quantum mechanics are "fundamental" in that they describe the "building blocks" of the universe.

But these branches of physics really only describe matter at very small scales. In terms of being actually useful to understand the vast majority of physical situations encounted in practice, HEP and quantum physics are mostly useless. "Classical" physics is more "fundamental" in the sense that it is more useful in a wider variety of contexts.

Or at least this is my view, as a fluid dynamicist. Turbulence is far more important than HEP, but unfortunately it receives far less media attention and far less attention from the brightest people. (I think turbulence has HEP beat in funding, though. :-)

> Turbulence is far more important than HEP

maybe ("importance" is somewhat subjective and I think it's totally valid to have that opinion), but I would argue HEP and maybe early universe cosmology are more fundamental meaning they study the most fundamental building blocks of physics itself. But "fundamental" is not the same as "important" so I'm not trying to suggest these fields are more or less important than others.

Let us not forget that Heisenberg did his PhD thesis on turbulence, probably found it too difficult, and then went to do easier things: winning a Nobel for the creation of quantum mechanics, building the Leipzig L-IV atomic pile, etc. etc.

"fundamental" is very different from "useful". ...and I don't even agree that turbulence is more useful. It's only more useful right now. ...but understanding the building blocks of all matter is probably more useful for humanity in the long run.

I am not saying fluid dynamics is boring, but a lot of people are really interested in small and large things - on whole other level than turbulence. This is not just pr, i think people really care. Of course i could be wrong...

You might be coming at it from a purely technical angle, rather than thinking about the story. "Humans build giant machine to uncover the secrets of the universe" is an interesting story with mass appeal. The physics are irrelevant.

I heard an interesting theory, I wish I could credit whoever thought it up but I've forgotten. The theory is that the success Dirac had and all of the successes of the other luminaries around the early 1900 - 1930's (essentially everyone in the picture of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_Conference#Fifth_Confer...) has created the perception that HEP and quantum physics are this dynamic field where the mysteries of the universe are being rapidly discovered. According to this theory, this romantic vision has led kids to get into the field even when real discoveries have actually ground to a halt and what is achievable has shrunk and shrunk. Basically, this area of science is played out or is in a natural ebb causing everyone in the field to have an existential crisis. Interesting theory.

Something like that would make a lot of sense to me. Today, I think quantum physics isn't such a bad field for scientists to work in, but only because of quantum computing. On the other hand, I can't see any compelling reason to work on HEP.

The story of quantum and particle physics is more accessible to most people because of its interplay with modern (i.e., post World War I) popular culture. People may not know the technical details, but they've heard of the players (Einstein, von Neumann,...) and they've seen the impact on the world (Manhattan project, World Wide Web). This gives them some basis for relating to news about particle physics. Maybe if we lived in a different world (underwater?), everyone might have heard of Kolmogorov instead. Then we'd be treated to lots of arm-chair speculation about whether Navier-Stokes solutions exist...

Even if one doesn't find the physics intrinsically interesting, one can at least appreciate the engineering achievements.

I'll agree with you that culture is a major factor and that in a plausible alternative history Kolmogorov and others who worked on fluids would be better known. However, I disagree on the point that people see the impacts of modern physics more readily:

> Maybe if we lived in a different world (underwater?), everyone might have heard of Kolmogorov instead.

We are immersed in a fluid: air. One could argue that the 3 orders of magnitude difference in density could be a factor in popularity, but I'm not so sure.

> one can at least appreciate the engineering achievements

I don't think that (e.g.) aerospace engineering had worse achievements or marketing than nuclear weapons. Around and after WWII both made huge and impressive advances. One could argue that aerospace engineering was more visible as well, with flying being a common mode of transportation and the exploration of space being of popular interest. For some reason that doesn't seem to make fluid dynamics as interesting to most folks as modern physics. (Though I certainly would claim that the space race in particular improved the standing of fluid dynamics.)

They're focusing on answering questions that has been wondered about since the beginning of human civilization, and the earliest philosophers. "What are the fundamental building blocks of the universe? Why is there something rather than nothing?" Questions like that are more universally interesting than 'how can we build a room temperature super conductor'

CERN has a bigger marketing budget than lots of little labs doing smaller scale stuff.

Because there is still a persistent and almost certainly naive hope that HEP will eventually give us warp drives and accessible interstellar colonization. You know, the things sci-fi is made of.

Turbulence is just about as likely to offer up such secrets, but that's less obvious :)

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