1
00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:10,920
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, not that I'm looking, but where can I

2
00:00:10,920 --> 00:00:14,400
Speaker 1: find the world's biggest laser? Oh, that's here in the

3
00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:17,599
Speaker 1: United States at the National Ignition Facility. To have a

4
00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:20,680
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety two beams. Oh man, it sounds awesome.

5
00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:24,200
Speaker 1: How about the world's biggest telescope that's actually also an

6
00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:28,400
Speaker 1: American project at Mount Graham in Arizona. It's twelve meters

7
00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:32,559
Speaker 1: across twelve impressive. And who's got the record for the

8
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:37,400
Speaker 1: biggest particle accelerator. That's actually a European project. That's the

9
00:00:37,479 --> 00:00:40,480
Speaker 1: large agar and collider at CERN. What happened? Why don't

10
00:00:40,479 --> 00:00:42,400
Speaker 1: Americans have the record for that too? Well, you know

11
00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:46,760
Speaker 1: we could have had a super jumbo Texas sized collider. Well,

12
00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:49,640
Speaker 1: let's just say there's a super story there. Nice, it's

13
00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:53,440
Speaker 1: a Texas size tall tale. I'm guessing it's a true

14
00:00:53,479 --> 00:01:12,920
Speaker 1: story of entriguing and politics, super colliding story. I am

15
00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:16,600
Speaker 1: more Hammond, cartoonist in the creator of PhD comments, I'm Daniel.

16
00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:20,720
Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist, and I definitely want more government

17
00:01:20,760 --> 00:01:23,840
Speaker 1: dollars to build bigger particle colliders. Nice, I think we

18
00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,679
Speaker 1: both agree on that. I also want more dollars. You

19
00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:30,160
Speaker 1: didn't specify what you're gonna do with all that government cash.

20
00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:34,440
Speaker 1: Make more podcast episodes and welcome to our podcast, Daniel

21
00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:37,400
Speaker 1: and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio,

22
00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:40,680
Speaker 1: a super podcast in which we super collide your brain

23
00:01:40,800 --> 00:01:44,800
Speaker 1: with super crazy ideas. We go all over the universe

24
00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,240
Speaker 1: to talk about the biggest things, the smallest things, the

25
00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:50,720
Speaker 1: weirdest things. But mostly we talk about the most wondrous

26
00:01:50,760 --> 00:01:54,520
Speaker 1: and curiosity invoking things, the things we want to understand,

27
00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:57,040
Speaker 1: and the things that science is working right now every

28
00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:00,400
Speaker 1: day twenty four seven in white lab coats to figure

29
00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:03,360
Speaker 1: out for you, tried all the amazing and wonderful things

30
00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:05,880
Speaker 1: to discover out there in the universe. But we also

31
00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:08,720
Speaker 1: kind of like to talk about the process of discovery

32
00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:11,760
Speaker 1: because you know, it's a human endeavor and there are

33
00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:14,480
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting stories that happen in our search

34
00:02:14,639 --> 00:02:17,760
Speaker 1: for the truth about the universe. That's right, Science is

35
00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:21,200
Speaker 1: for people. It's not for just AI bots to digest

36
00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:24,400
Speaker 1: and understand. We do it because it's our curiosity about

37
00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:26,960
Speaker 1: the universe. It's the things that we want to know,

38
00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:30,000
Speaker 1: and so not only is it done for people, is

39
00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:33,280
Speaker 1: done by people, and those people have names and jobs

40
00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:36,960
Speaker 1: and real lives and ambitions, and they make mistakes, and

41
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:40,520
Speaker 1: sometimes those mistakes are supersized. Yeah, and sometimes the science

42
00:02:40,520 --> 00:02:43,560
Speaker 1: has even done on people. I am fortunately not involved

43
00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:45,760
Speaker 1: in any of that kind of science. You never had

44
00:02:45,760 --> 00:02:48,720
Speaker 1: a particle collide with you, Daniel. I am particles, and

45
00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:52,320
Speaker 1: I collide with particles, but I've never intentionally collided particles

46
00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:55,160
Speaker 1: with people for science. You know. That's actually one of

47
00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:58,560
Speaker 1: the only positive spinoffs of particle physics is that you

48
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:00,960
Speaker 1: can use particle beams to treat answer. That's right. Yeah,

49
00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:04,360
Speaker 1: But mostly we build these big particle colliders because we

50
00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:07,360
Speaker 1: want to replicate the situation in the early universe. We

51
00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:10,000
Speaker 1: want to create a little environment where nature can reveal

52
00:03:10,080 --> 00:03:13,160
Speaker 1: to us some of the secrets of how the universe

53
00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:15,880
Speaker 1: is put together. But it is a human endeavor, and

54
00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:18,519
Speaker 1: as such, there are always a lot of interesting stories

55
00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:22,320
Speaker 1: about how discoveries are made or what people were thinking

56
00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:26,639
Speaker 1: at the time, and sometimes great stories about big experiments

57
00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,400
Speaker 1: and why they didn't work, or why they work, or

58
00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:32,080
Speaker 1: why some of them weren't even built. That's right. The

59
00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:34,840
Speaker 1: history of particle physics is sort of an escalating series

60
00:03:34,880 --> 00:03:39,000
Speaker 1: of colliders, bigger and bigger, more and more energy, Probing

61
00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:42,520
Speaker 1: higher and higher into the secrets of nature. They got

62
00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:45,200
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger and more and more expensive, until one

63
00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:47,760
Speaker 1: day they got maybe too big. And so right now,

64
00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:51,400
Speaker 1: the Europeans have the biggest particle collider basically as far

65
00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:54,400
Speaker 1: as we know in the universe, right, as far as

66
00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:57,320
Speaker 1: we know, the biggest collider as far as we know,

67
00:03:57,440 --> 00:04:00,560
Speaker 1: although you know, it doesn't create the most energetic particles.

68
00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:03,120
Speaker 1: We've seen those come from space, and so it could

69
00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:06,880
Speaker 1: be that there are alien particle physicists out there shooting

70
00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:10,480
Speaker 1: their particle accelerator acces. So it's the biggest human made

71
00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:13,160
Speaker 1: particles that we know of that we know, and so

72
00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:16,760
Speaker 1: the Europeans have it at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. Right,

73
00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:19,760
Speaker 1: that's the biggest one, that's the record holder. And so

74
00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:21,960
Speaker 1: the question is why don't the Americans have it? You know,

75
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,599
Speaker 1: we have the biggest laser, the biggest telescope, and the

76
00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:29,120
Speaker 1: biggest gravitation wave detector at least at the moment. So

77
00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:31,560
Speaker 1: there's kind of an interesting story there, and so to

78
00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:38,279
Speaker 1: be on the podcast, we'll be asking the question what

79
00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:42,880
Speaker 1: happened to the super conducting super collider. It's super mysterious.

80
00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:48,159
Speaker 1: It's super fascinating, and it's something that came up briefly

81
00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:50,160
Speaker 1: in a podcast episode we did a couple of weeks

82
00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:53,320
Speaker 1: ago about the discovery of the Higgs boson and we

83
00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:56,160
Speaker 1: mentioned the super conducting super collider, and I remember you

84
00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:58,159
Speaker 1: were like, what is that a real name for a

85
00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:00,320
Speaker 1: real thing? It sounds like you just made that up.

86
00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:03,640
Speaker 1: Why would you put super twice in the title? I mean,

87
00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:06,920
Speaker 1: that's that's like an extra superlatives. It's so good they

88
00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:09,200
Speaker 1: used it twice, And a lot of listeners were curious

89
00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,240
Speaker 1: about this and wanted to hear more about this incredibly

90
00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:14,960
Speaker 1: named super collider, so we decided to do a whole

91
00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:18,279
Speaker 1: episode on why people built it and what it meant

92
00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:21,200
Speaker 1: and why it didn't end up getting finished right, And

93
00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:23,240
Speaker 1: this is kind of part of the story of particle

94
00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:26,120
Speaker 1: physics in the sense that, you know, I guess we

95
00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:29,880
Speaker 1: started probably with like small, little particle colliders, and then

96
00:05:29,880 --> 00:05:31,880
Speaker 1: they've just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger

97
00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:36,120
Speaker 1: and bigger over the years. And the question is maybe

98
00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:39,360
Speaker 1: one of these gods too big? Yeah, because the only

99
00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:42,080
Speaker 1: thing that limits us from building them bigger is money.

100
00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:44,840
Speaker 1: The more money you give us, the bigger the collider

101
00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:47,680
Speaker 1: that you can build, but also the more seco to

102
00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:50,160
Speaker 1: you can reveal from nature. So it's sort of like

103
00:05:50,240 --> 00:05:52,880
Speaker 1: you can just buy information, like you want to know

104
00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:56,120
Speaker 1: more about the basic way the universe works, spend more money.

105
00:05:56,200 --> 00:05:58,719
Speaker 1: It's really very direct. But you know, we live in

106
00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:01,360
Speaker 1: practical times, and it's not always infinite cash to fund

107
00:06:01,400 --> 00:06:05,640
Speaker 1: your science projects. So these machines operate in a political environment.

108
00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:09,080
Speaker 1: They need support, they need funding, they need continued funding

109
00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:11,599
Speaker 1: to be finished. And so it's a fascinating story of

110
00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:14,200
Speaker 1: sort of how much money you could ask for for

111
00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:17,960
Speaker 1: your particle physics toys. Yeah, I guess science is political

112
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:21,800
Speaker 1: and itself, but also it depends on politics, right, that's right. Well,

113
00:06:21,839 --> 00:06:23,839
Speaker 1: you know, we try not to be political. We're serving

114
00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:27,279
Speaker 1: information that's of course used to make important political and

115
00:06:27,320 --> 00:06:29,880
Speaker 1: policy decisions, but we try to be as fact based

116
00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:33,760
Speaker 1: as possible. But anytime you're spending money, that's political, right,

117
00:06:33,839 --> 00:06:36,840
Speaker 1: And any dollar you're spending on a particle colliders that

118
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:41,240
Speaker 1: dollar you're not spending on poverty programs, or on weapons systems,

119
00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:44,320
Speaker 1: or on anything else. And so it's always a political

120
00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:47,120
Speaker 1: decision about how much to spend on science and what

121
00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:49,200
Speaker 1: kind of science to spend it on? Do you want

122
00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:53,080
Speaker 1: the biggest laser, the biggest telescope or the biggest microscope.

123
00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:55,680
Speaker 1: And there's another fascinating angle there, and that most of

124
00:06:55,720 --> 00:06:59,240
Speaker 1: these experiments end up being pretty international, like the folks

125
00:06:59,279 --> 00:07:00,960
Speaker 1: on them like me, I don't really care if it's

126
00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:04,160
Speaker 1: a Russian or a Chinese person or a South American

127
00:07:04,400 --> 00:07:07,520
Speaker 1: or Canadian who's working with me. But when we sell

128
00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:11,120
Speaker 1: these projects to our national governments who fund them, a

129
00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:13,160
Speaker 1: lot of times we end up pitching them like, hey,

130
00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:16,160
Speaker 1: this is an American national pride project, all right. So,

131
00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:18,840
Speaker 1: as usual, Daniel went out there into the Internet to

132
00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:22,680
Speaker 1: ask how many people out there knew about the almost

133
00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:28,800
Speaker 1: bill superior super conducting super collider superlatively named. And so

134
00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:32,040
Speaker 1: before you listen to these answers, think about what comes

135
00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:35,440
Speaker 1: to mind when you hear the words super conducting super collider.

136
00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:37,880
Speaker 1: Here's what people had to say. It was a particle

137
00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:40,920
Speaker 1: accelerator that was planned for the United States. I think

138
00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:43,400
Speaker 1: it was meant for Texas, and I believe it was

139
00:07:43,400 --> 00:07:45,360
Speaker 1: supposed to be two or three times bigger than what

140
00:07:45,440 --> 00:07:47,960
Speaker 1: we have at the LHC at CERN, But I could

141
00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:50,920
Speaker 1: be wrong on that. Part and it never happened because

142
00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:54,840
Speaker 1: the US government cut funding for it. Actually, I've never

143
00:07:54,920 --> 00:07:58,000
Speaker 1: heard the word super conducting super collider. I think it's

144
00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:03,000
Speaker 1: similar to the let's see the larger collider, but but

145
00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:06,680
Speaker 1: condly colliding the conductive particles. Maybe two things stand out

146
00:08:06,720 --> 00:08:08,520
Speaker 1: to me. One is you say it in past tense,

147
00:08:08,560 --> 00:08:11,000
Speaker 1: so it's not around anymore. And the second one is

148
00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:13,360
Speaker 1: there's a lot of supers being used, So I mean

149
00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:17,320
Speaker 1: superconductor makes sense because that means that it's very efficient

150
00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:21,840
Speaker 1: and it's not losing any energy as heat or other items.

151
00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:25,320
Speaker 1: So the difference between a conductor and a superconductor is understood.

152
00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:28,640
Speaker 1: But a super collider, that's so if you've got a

153
00:08:28,680 --> 00:08:31,320
Speaker 1: regular collider. I'm wondering what the difference between a large

154
00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:34,560
Speaker 1: collider and a super collidery So that sounds like it

155
00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:40,720
Speaker 1: is massive or planning on crashing large items together. I

156
00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:45,040
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm super anxious to find out if I

157
00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:49,400
Speaker 1: have the right one. The super conducting super collider was

158
00:08:49,440 --> 00:08:55,080
Speaker 1: the United States attempt to create the biggest super collider

159
00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:58,200
Speaker 1: before was created. I believe we try to do it

160
00:08:58,200 --> 00:09:01,760
Speaker 1: down in Texas or something like that, and Carn's just

161
00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:05,680
Speaker 1: either never approved the funning or cut off the funning.

162
00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:08,640
Speaker 1: All Right, I like these answers. They're pretty super I

163
00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:10,920
Speaker 1: like the person who broke it down. They're like trying

164
00:09:10,960 --> 00:09:13,120
Speaker 1: to figure it out like you used to past tense.

165
00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:15,480
Speaker 1: So I know it's not around anymore, and there's a

166
00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:18,040
Speaker 1: lot of super so it must be pretty cool. I

167
00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:19,840
Speaker 1: was impressed, you have. They made a lot of progress

168
00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:21,880
Speaker 1: just based on the name of the thing and how

169
00:09:21,920 --> 00:09:24,680
Speaker 1: I read the question. So super job to that person

170
00:09:25,040 --> 00:09:29,520
Speaker 1: like asking if super is bigger than large? That sounds

171
00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:34,040
Speaker 1: like a Starbucks question. It's venty larger than small. Who knows.

172
00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:38,560
Speaker 1: I'd like a venti conducting hyper collider, coffee grande collider.

173
00:09:39,640 --> 00:09:41,560
Speaker 1: Al Right, So this was a big experiment that was

174
00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:45,040
Speaker 1: almost built. So step us through Daniel. What was the

175
00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:48,400
Speaker 1: super conducting SuperCollider? So the super conducting super collider. It's

176
00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:51,760
Speaker 1: really a tragedy and it still pains me to this

177
00:09:51,880 --> 00:09:55,400
Speaker 1: day that we didn't build this thing because not only

178
00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:58,200
Speaker 1: would it have been a huge collider, it would have

179
00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:01,680
Speaker 1: been the biggest collider of its time, and even still today,

180
00:10:01,880 --> 00:10:04,640
Speaker 1: it would be bigger than any collider we have. Now,

181
00:10:05,320 --> 00:10:08,240
Speaker 1: you know, we measure these colliders not just in size, Like,

182
00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:11,760
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter how physically large they are. Yes,

183
00:10:11,800 --> 00:10:14,600
Speaker 1: it does, Daniel. If you're gonna put it in Texas,

184
00:10:14,679 --> 00:10:17,240
Speaker 1: it has to be the biggest one. We measure these

185
00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:20,200
Speaker 1: things in terms of their energy, So it really is

186
00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:23,520
Speaker 1: about the energy of the particles. Because remember, the goal

187
00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:25,520
Speaker 1: of building a big collider is not just to say,

188
00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:28,720
Speaker 1: look upon my works, e mighty. It's because we want

189
00:10:28,800 --> 00:10:31,840
Speaker 1: to create a lot of energy in a small space,

190
00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:36,240
Speaker 1: because that allows us to probe really massive particles. Remember

191
00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:39,599
Speaker 1: e equals mc squared. If you put a lot of

192
00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:41,960
Speaker 1: energy into a small space and then as long as

193
00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:45,200
Speaker 1: you're above some m that nature has, you can create

194
00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:47,520
Speaker 1: that particle. And so it's a great way to just

195
00:10:47,520 --> 00:10:50,520
Speaker 1: sort of like search the cosmos for new kinds of

196
00:10:50,559 --> 00:10:53,880
Speaker 1: particles without knowing in advance that they are there. Right.

197
00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:55,880
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of like having a big telescope and

198
00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:59,600
Speaker 1: just having more magnification or having a better microscope and

199
00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:02,920
Speaker 1: having better you know, ability to look at smaller things.

200
00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:05,200
Speaker 1: It's like the more energy you have, the more you

201
00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:09,320
Speaker 1: can probe what happens at the quantum level. Yeah, and

202
00:11:09,320 --> 00:11:12,560
Speaker 1: it's very similar to having a more powerful microscope because

203
00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:16,320
Speaker 1: the more energy you have, literally the smaller distance scale

204
00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:20,079
Speaker 1: you can probe, because there's this anti correlation between sort

205
00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:22,080
Speaker 1: of the width of the wave function and the energy

206
00:11:22,080 --> 00:11:26,040
Speaker 1: of the particle, and so higher the energy you're probing,

207
00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:29,080
Speaker 1: the smaller the feature you can look at, for example,

208
00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:32,320
Speaker 1: like inside the proton or inside the cork or whatever.

209
00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:36,400
Speaker 1: Oh I see, it's like literally the particles are smaller

210
00:11:36,559 --> 00:11:38,800
Speaker 1: the fact where they go sort of you know, it's

211
00:11:38,840 --> 00:11:41,880
Speaker 1: like you can probe substructures of the proton or if

212
00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:44,439
Speaker 1: there is substructure to the cork, so to the electrons,

213
00:11:44,600 --> 00:11:47,000
Speaker 1: you can see them only with higher energy collider that

214
00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:50,480
Speaker 1: could break those tight bonds and and sort of resolve

215
00:11:50,559 --> 00:11:53,680
Speaker 1: them at those very high energies. And so yeah, we

216
00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:56,000
Speaker 1: want to explore the universe, and a one great way

217
00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:58,880
Speaker 1: to do that is to create these really high energy collisions.

218
00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:00,720
Speaker 1: So again it's not about the eyes of the colliders,

219
00:12:00,760 --> 00:12:03,960
Speaker 1: about the energy stored. And we measured that in terms

220
00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:07,760
Speaker 1: of electron volts. But there's so many electron volts in

221
00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:10,760
Speaker 1: these collisions that we have a crazy unit called tera

222
00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:15,880
Speaker 1: electron volts trillion electron volts and to orient you, a

223
00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:18,920
Speaker 1: billion electron volts is about how much energy they're stored

224
00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:22,040
Speaker 1: in a proton, So a terra electron volts is like

225
00:12:22,160 --> 00:12:25,440
Speaker 1: a thousand times the energy of a proton. Take me

226
00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:28,199
Speaker 1: back in history, So we're talking about the eighties, right,

227
00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:31,080
Speaker 1: So the super conducting super collider was going to be

228
00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:33,319
Speaker 1: built in the eighties, and it was actually conceived by

229
00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:36,360
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, the president. Yeah, and so we're back in

230
00:12:36,559 --> 00:12:39,800
Speaker 1: the Cold War, you know, and back then a lot

231
00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:44,079
Speaker 1: of science was closely linked to national pride and to

232
00:12:44,720 --> 00:12:47,480
Speaker 1: national security. People felt like as long as we were

233
00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:50,680
Speaker 1: on the cutting edge of science, including space and including

234
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:54,840
Speaker 1: particle physics and weapons physics, that we were secure and

235
00:12:54,880 --> 00:12:57,480
Speaker 1: we were beating the Russians or the Soviets at the

236
00:12:57,559 --> 00:13:01,199
Speaker 1: time in all these technologies, which you know, contributed to

237
00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:03,960
Speaker 1: our national defense dot dot dog. But it's literally like

238
00:13:04,040 --> 00:13:06,880
Speaker 1: bragging rights, like the moonshot, like getting to the moon,

239
00:13:07,240 --> 00:13:11,080
Speaker 1: you know, didn't directly improve our national security, but just

240
00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:13,040
Speaker 1: being able to say that we didn't and they didn't

241
00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:16,480
Speaker 1: just it was just kind of a a national pride thing. Yeah.

242
00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:19,679
Speaker 1: I think it motivates the population and makes us feel

243
00:13:19,679 --> 00:13:22,360
Speaker 1: secure and all that stuff. And there's also some direct

244
00:13:22,400 --> 00:13:24,599
Speaker 1: spin offs, you know, going to the moon helps you

245
00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:27,559
Speaker 1: develop rockets, which is important for I. C. B M. S.

246
00:13:27,640 --> 00:13:30,719
Speaker 1: For you know, dropping weapons on your enemies, populations, and

247
00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:34,719
Speaker 1: all sorts of terrible things. Particle physics is much less direct, right,

248
00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:37,880
Speaker 1: maybe if you are understanding the nature of the universe,

249
00:13:37,920 --> 00:13:41,160
Speaker 1: eventually you could tap into that energy source or build

250
00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:43,640
Speaker 1: new things or whatever. You know. World War two was

251
00:13:43,679 --> 00:13:46,760
Speaker 1: a lesson that, like nuclear physics and particle physics could

252
00:13:46,760 --> 00:13:50,199
Speaker 1: directly lead to weapons technology, you know, the development of

253
00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:53,440
Speaker 1: the atomic bomb and the understanding of the atom. So

254
00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:55,440
Speaker 1: there was a lot of ideas wrapped up in there,

255
00:13:55,480 --> 00:13:57,920
Speaker 1: like we should be at the forefront, Americans should be

256
00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:00,800
Speaker 1: at the leading edge of particle So you tell me

257
00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:04,320
Speaker 1: that no politician at that time said the words you mean,

258
00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:07,600
Speaker 1: you want to build a giant particle gun, great, can

259
00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:12,280
Speaker 1: we aim it? You definitely can't aim this kind of

260
00:14:12,280 --> 00:14:14,880
Speaker 1: thing at all. And you know, at the time people

261
00:14:14,920 --> 00:14:17,400
Speaker 1: were thinking about particle guns, but mostly in terms of

262
00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,480
Speaker 1: star wars. This was more for science. And so this

263
00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:24,080
Speaker 1: was a project originally conceived by Reagan and they thought, well,

264
00:14:24,160 --> 00:14:27,360
Speaker 1: let's build a huge particle collider, bearer than anybody's ever

265
00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:30,720
Speaker 1: built one before, and we'll just put American particle physics

266
00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:32,800
Speaker 1: on the map. I mean, we're already were sort of

267
00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:35,600
Speaker 1: leaders in this area, a lot of Nobel prizes for

268
00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:38,960
Speaker 1: developing the technology behind particle colliders and you know, and

269
00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:43,080
Speaker 1: Lawrence developed the sincratron technology. So Americans were already leaders,

270
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:45,520
Speaker 1: and this was like, let's hang onto the leadership in

271
00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:48,720
Speaker 1: this area. And so it was like three and he

272
00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:51,840
Speaker 1: started this project. But these things take, you know, decades

273
00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:54,760
Speaker 1: to plan in decades to build, and so you're at

274
00:14:54,800 --> 00:14:58,160
Speaker 1: the mercy of the changing political time, right because you

275
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:01,960
Speaker 1: can change government in between a project or at least

276
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:05,880
Speaker 1: support potentially absolutely. And you know, then the Berlin Wall

277
00:15:05,920 --> 00:15:08,640
Speaker 1: fell down and the Soviet Union collapsed and we no

278
00:15:08,720 --> 00:15:12,120
Speaker 1: longer had the same adversary, which fueled the Cold War,

279
00:15:12,360 --> 00:15:15,960
Speaker 1: which made us want to necessarily fight these battles and uh,

280
00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:19,920
Speaker 1: you know, beat the Russians, all right. So Reagan was involved,

281
00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:23,800
Speaker 1: he championed in and it was aiming pretty high, like

282
00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:26,600
Speaker 1: at the time, what was the biggest collider in terms

283
00:15:26,640 --> 00:15:30,520
Speaker 1: of energy. The Europeans were planning their own collider, which

284
00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:33,360
Speaker 1: was going to be around thirteen or fourteen terror electron

285
00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:36,680
Speaker 1: volts that eventually became the LHC. The only C was

286
00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:39,920
Speaker 1: on a similar time scale to the super Connecting super Collider.

287
00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:43,240
Speaker 1: Of course, it ended up being delayed by ten years, etcetera, etcetera.

288
00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:47,440
Speaker 1: But that's sort of the scales like fourteen TV at CERN.

289
00:15:47,880 --> 00:15:50,720
Speaker 1: But this one, the super conducting super collider, This thing

290
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:53,840
Speaker 1: was going to be forty t EV. It was three

291
00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:57,720
Speaker 1: times almost three times more energetic than the LHC is today.

292
00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:00,600
Speaker 1: That's there were swinging for the fences. It really were,

293
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:03,840
Speaker 1: and they were like, let's go really really big. And

294
00:16:03,880 --> 00:16:05,480
Speaker 1: you can read the stories of the time and the

295
00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:08,200
Speaker 1: discussions among the physicists and some of them were thinking, wow,

296
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:10,880
Speaker 1: that's really big, Like is that maybe too big? Should

297
00:16:10,920 --> 00:16:12,960
Speaker 1: we go for thirty five? Should we go for thirties?

298
00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:15,640
Speaker 1: And a lot of this internal discussion was like, no,

299
00:16:15,720 --> 00:16:18,640
Speaker 1: we gotta hold for forty because if we start sliding

300
00:16:18,680 --> 00:16:20,920
Speaker 1: down and they're just gonna dial the knob down and

301
00:16:20,960 --> 00:16:22,680
Speaker 1: then we're just gonna get a small one, like the

302
00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:25,320
Speaker 1: Europeans are getting start high, Start high. I have a

303
00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,240
Speaker 1: big starting offer. But there was also there was some

304
00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:31,800
Speaker 1: you know, arrogance there. They were like, you know, America's

305
00:16:31,800 --> 00:16:34,120
Speaker 1: in the lead. There's no way the government's not gonna

306
00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:36,200
Speaker 1: build this thing and fund this thing at a lot

307
00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:38,920
Speaker 1: of political support in the beginning, and so they thought,

308
00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:40,800
Speaker 1: you know, let's just ask for as much as we

309
00:16:40,800 --> 00:16:43,080
Speaker 1: can get. There's no way they're going to cancel this thing.

310
00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:47,320
Speaker 1: Famous last words, his last words, they flew a little

311
00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:49,240
Speaker 1: too close to the Sun's where they're going to cancel

312
00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:52,840
Speaker 1: this podcast. In no way they're going to cancel this podcast,

313
00:16:53,320 --> 00:16:55,440
Speaker 1: not until it costs as much as the super connective

314
00:16:55,480 --> 00:16:58,840
Speaker 1: super collider, and we're always off from that. But they

315
00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:02,840
Speaker 1: had a huge competition to see where this thing should go.

316
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:06,200
Speaker 1: Because it's such a big project. They can't just say, well, look,

317
00:17:06,359 --> 00:17:08,639
Speaker 1: firm Lab is the center of particle physics, we'll just

318
00:17:08,680 --> 00:17:11,359
Speaker 1: put it there. It was, you know, billions and billions

319
00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:14,200
Speaker 1: of dollar projects. So they had to have it politically balanced,

320
00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:17,040
Speaker 1: and they had this big competition, and Texas offered a

321
00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:19,679
Speaker 1: lot of money to help build the thing. So they

322
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:22,119
Speaker 1: decided to put it south of Dallas in this town

323
00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:25,760
Speaker 1: called Waxahatchie, Texas. It was a really little town and

324
00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:27,080
Speaker 1: they were gonna build the thing. Was going to be

325
00:17:27,119 --> 00:17:29,399
Speaker 1: all the way around the town, like the whole town

326
00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:32,640
Speaker 1: was going to be surrounded by this thing, all right, well,

327
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:36,640
Speaker 1: let's get into what happened and what we learned from

328
00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:52,320
Speaker 1: this project. But first let's take a quick break. All right,

329
00:17:52,359 --> 00:17:58,359
Speaker 1: we're talking about the superlatively superiorly named super condieing super Collider,

330
00:17:58,520 --> 00:18:02,600
Speaker 1: which was almost old in a small town outside of

331
00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:06,159
Speaker 1: Texas in the eighties, started by Reagan, but it was

332
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:09,639
Speaker 1: never built. And so the question is what happened? What

333
00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:11,159
Speaker 1: did they have a name for it? Was it the

334
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:13,480
Speaker 1: super conducting super collider? From the start, there were a

335
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:15,680
Speaker 1: lot of names floated around. You know. Some people wanted

336
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:17,960
Speaker 1: to call it the Desert Tron because it was out there,

337
00:18:18,080 --> 00:18:23,200
Speaker 1: the Desert Tron no no, or even worse. Some people

338
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:25,679
Speaker 1: wanted to call it the Gipper Tron for Ronald Reagan,

339
00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:28,120
Speaker 1: you know, because he championed the project. Should have called

340
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:30,480
Speaker 1: the Reagan Tron. There were some pretty silly names. He

341
00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:33,360
Speaker 1: is used a little robotic himself. That makes me sound

342
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:35,359
Speaker 1: like you're colliding Reagan's and you know we only have

343
00:18:35,480 --> 00:18:38,800
Speaker 1: one of them, but Reagans, I guess. You know. So

344
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:41,439
Speaker 1: they actually did start building this thing, I mean they

345
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:44,320
Speaker 1: decided to build it. They started saving the money, they

346
00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:47,000
Speaker 1: proved the money, they started spending. The money was the

347
00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:49,840
Speaker 1: initial budget for it. The initial budget for this thing,

348
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:52,960
Speaker 1: you know, depends on what you call initial And these

349
00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:56,720
Speaker 1: things always start out for, you know, a couple billion dollars,

350
00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,359
Speaker 1: and in eight seven Congress was told it was going

351
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:01,879
Speaker 1: to be ours and about four billion dollars, four and

352
00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:04,800
Speaker 1: a half billion dollars. And then a few years later

353
00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:08,320
Speaker 1: the project cost looks like they were rising to eight billion,

354
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:11,960
Speaker 1: ten billion, eventually up to like twelve billion dollars. What

355
00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:15,480
Speaker 1: in comparison, the large Hadron Collider was about a ten

356
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:20,080
Speaker 1: billion dollar project. So twelve billion for a collider three

357
00:19:20,119 --> 00:19:22,680
Speaker 1: times the size of the Late C is not really

358
00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:25,800
Speaker 1: that outrageous, right, you know, they sold it for four

359
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:29,000
Speaker 1: and then it turned out costing twelve so they were

360
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:31,160
Speaker 1: in a bit of a political buying there. And these days,

361
00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:33,360
Speaker 1: like a few billion dollars, I feel like we throw

362
00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:36,199
Speaker 1: that number around like like nothing. Well, these days, in

363
00:19:36,280 --> 00:19:38,720
Speaker 1: the epic of the pandemic, you know, we're spending tons

364
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:41,000
Speaker 1: of money just to dig ourselves out of this economic hole.

365
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:44,159
Speaker 1: But you're right in in the scale of like government projects,

366
00:19:44,320 --> 00:19:46,359
Speaker 1: a few billion dollars is not a lot of money.

367
00:19:46,359 --> 00:19:49,840
Speaker 1: It's a it's an aircraft carrier, it's half an aircraft carrier,

368
00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:52,480
Speaker 1: it's a few fighter jets. It's it's not that much

369
00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:56,200
Speaker 1: money for secrets of the universe, but it's a lot

370
00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:59,120
Speaker 1: of money for science. You know. The only other project

371
00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:01,480
Speaker 1: that had ever been at this scale was like the

372
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:05,320
Speaker 1: International Space Station, which also ballooned in cost and went

373
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:08,199
Speaker 1: up from ten billion to a hundred billion dollars. All right,

374
00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:10,679
Speaker 1: So it balloons and couts. And what happened like did

375
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:13,919
Speaker 1: they start digging and suddenly they hit rock or something?

376
00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:17,440
Speaker 1: Why did they underestimate or why did cause go up? Well,

377
00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:20,480
Speaker 1: costs always go up. You know, these are physicists, they're

378
00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:26,000
Speaker 1: not financial planners. You just gave me so much pressure

379
00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:29,879
Speaker 1: us here Daniel as their business partner. One problem was

380
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:34,080
Speaker 1: that we expected, or we hoped for international cooperation. We

381
00:20:34,080 --> 00:20:36,280
Speaker 1: were hoping other countries were gonna be like, hey, that

382
00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:38,719
Speaker 1: sounds like a great project. Will pitch in a billion,

383
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:42,760
Speaker 1: or here's here for this piece. And that's commonplace these

384
00:20:42,840 --> 00:20:45,720
Speaker 1: days for the big international projects. For example, the US

385
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:48,720
Speaker 1: contributed huge amounts of money hundreds of millions, if not

386
00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:51,680
Speaker 1: billions of dollars towards the LHC. And it's like it's

387
00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:53,920
Speaker 1: like you're buying a place at the table or at

388
00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:56,960
Speaker 1: the science table kind of right, Like Japan can be like, hey,

389
00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:59,800
Speaker 1: here's a few billion dollars, but we get DIBs on

390
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:02,240
Speaker 1: and having a certain number of scientists or is it

391
00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:04,280
Speaker 1: like office space, what do you negotiate? Well, that's a

392
00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:06,679
Speaker 1: great question. Really what you get is just access to

393
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:08,879
Speaker 1: the data that you get to use the data to

394
00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:11,880
Speaker 1: do science. But it's a little thickier. It's also it's

395
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:14,399
Speaker 1: just national pride. Like you can say this was a

396
00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:17,800
Speaker 1: Japanese project, and the Japanese Parliament can say, look, we

397
00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:19,680
Speaker 1: have proved this thing, and look the Higgs boson was

398
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:24,000
Speaker 1: discovered using Japanese technology and Japanese scientists, and there's a

399
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:27,080
Speaker 1: lot of national pride involved, like we're awesome. Yeah, Like

400
00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:30,439
Speaker 1: Congress would have preferred if the money they spent to

401
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,360
Speaker 1: build the LHC had been spent on an American collider

402
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:36,200
Speaker 1: to discover the Higgs boson on American soil. I mean,

403
00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:40,120
Speaker 1: I don't personally care. I'm happy to work with international scientists.

404
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: I think the whole nationalism and science thing is a

405
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:46,040
Speaker 1: red herring. But it's also important to the people who

406
00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:48,960
Speaker 1: make the political decisions about money. So you got to

407
00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:52,320
Speaker 1: play that game a little bit. Anyway, the Americans, they

408
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:55,399
Speaker 1: hype this thing so much as an American project that

409
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:58,320
Speaker 1: the international community didn't really want to jump on board.

410
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:00,480
Speaker 1: You know, you can't be like, look, this is an

411
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:03,640
Speaker 1: awesome American red, white, blue project. We're going to dominate

412
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 1: this thing. Oh and by the way, can we have

413
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,160
Speaker 1: a billion dollars so you can be part of our

414
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 1: American is awesome project. Yeah. And you know, CERN was

415
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:15,399
Speaker 1: building their competing set of colliders, the Large Electron Positron

416
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 1: Collider and also the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider, so

417
00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 1: they weren't gonna be pitching in and so, um, we

418
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:24,679
Speaker 1: were going to ask the Japanese for a bunch of money.

419
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:27,160
Speaker 1: But then we actually got really unlucky with that one.

420
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:29,840
Speaker 1: What happened so that by then it was a Bush

421
00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 1: Bush Senior, that's where it was. President Bush was president,

422
00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:35,000
Speaker 1: and there was a bit of a political delicate moment

423
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 1: there in the Japanese government and where they going to

424
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 1: support this thing. And so the Americans got Bush to

425
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:43,919
Speaker 1: agree to raise this issue with the Japanese Prime Minister

426
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:46,480
Speaker 1: in person. And you know he doesn't get that much time.

427
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:48,760
Speaker 1: You gotta really happy, like an important issue to get

428
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:51,280
Speaker 1: all the way up to like the presidential negotiation level.

429
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 1: So everybody was primed for Bush to like press this

430
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:56,200
Speaker 1: issue with the Japanese Prime minister. But I don't know

431
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,200
Speaker 1: if you remember there was this one trip where Bush

432
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 1: went to Japan and they were having a Nancy dinner

433
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:03,679
Speaker 1: and he actually fainted and puked on the Prime minister

434
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:07,280
Speaker 1: as he was about to ask about the collider. Yeah,

435
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 1: that was the night he was supposed to ask for

436
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:12,959
Speaker 1: money for the super conducting super collider, but instead, you know,

437
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:16,920
Speaker 1: rolfed on his lap, and so it's like, hey, can

438
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: you give us a big and so that didn't work out,

439
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,919
Speaker 1: you know, so we didn't end up getting money from Japan. Really,

440
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: do you think that Japanese based that decision on the puking. No.

441
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 1: I think it just never really got discussed. You know,

442
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:32,920
Speaker 1: if this is a priority for Americans, they're going to

443
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 1: bring it up. This is our opportunity just sort of

444
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: didn't happen, and then other things came up that were

445
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:42,199
Speaker 1: more important, and so the Japanese didn't contribute. So it

446
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: was going to be an all American project, and you know,

447
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:48,120
Speaker 1: costs start going up and nobody else is helping out.

448
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 1: And then the political support started to dwindle, but they

449
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 1: did start digging and they started spending money. They spent

450
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:59,360
Speaker 1: like billions of dollars. They dug kilometers and kilometers of tunnels. Well,

451
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: maybe to take a step back here and paint a

452
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,440
Speaker 1: picture for us. So this was going to be three

453
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,400
Speaker 1: times more powerful than the LHC. And it's a collider.

454
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 1: So what are we talking about like a tunnel, a

455
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:13,920
Speaker 1: ring building? What what was this collider going to look like? Well,

456
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: you got to build a whole new laboratory, right, the

457
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,399
Speaker 1: consequences of not building it at Firmi Lab where you

458
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,119
Speaker 1: already have a laboratory and a community and land. Is

459
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 1: it gonna buy new land and build a whole new

460
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: laboratory and build the collider itself. The collider itself is

461
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:30,679
Speaker 1: a huge tunnel and it was going to be ninety

462
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: kilometers around. So you have to dig this tunnel underground

463
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 1: that's nine kilometers in circumbent, and then in it you've

464
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: got to build the instrument, the actual collider itself, which

465
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: is you know a series of vacuum tubes and little

466
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 1: accelerator cavities and magnets to bend the thing. So it's

467
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:49,920
Speaker 1: a lot of work. It's a huge piece of infrastructure.

468
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: You're talking about a ring like a tunnel in the

469
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 1: shape of a circle, kind of like the large Hadron collider,

470
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 1: but bigger. I imagine, much bigger, Like if you looked

471
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: at a map, you could fit like you know, eight

472
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 1: l ah c's inside the super conducting super collider. I

473
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 1: mean the large hadron colliders like thirty kilometers around. This

474
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: thing's ninety kilometers around. So it's much bigger. And it

475
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:12,679
Speaker 1: was so big. In fact, they were going to make

476
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: it not a perfectly a circle. They were gonna have

477
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: some straight shot parts of it, like stretch out the

478
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,879
Speaker 1: circle light into more of like an oblong Well, you

479
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: don't need to bend it all the time. You can

480
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 1: have linear sections where you just accelerating like a running track,

481
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: like a running track exactly. But then they had to

482
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: build experimental halls where they were going to surround the

483
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: collider with the detectors to see the collisions. And you

484
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: have to build a whole place for the scientists to live.

485
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:39,679
Speaker 1: And you know, one problem was just like getting scientists

486
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: out there. You know, you're working at firmula, you're living

487
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and now your next job opportunity is like

488
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 1: waxa hatchie Texas. It was not always that attractive. You know,

489
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: nothing against small town Texas, but not everybody wanted to

490
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: move there. So there were a lot of obstacles to

491
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: get into this thing off the ground. Had to convince

492
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: Starbucks to open a branch there. It was a man.

493
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:02,880
Speaker 1: And you need a bigger circle because the more energy

494
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: that you have in your beam and your particles that

495
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: you're accelerating, it's harder to kind of make them go

496
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: in a circle when they're they're going faster. That's right,

497
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 1: That's what the magnets are for. They're there to curve

498
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,880
Speaker 1: it into a circle. So you either need a larger

499
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: tunnel if they're going faster, or you need stronger magnets.

500
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: And so the Large Hadron Collider made a different choice.

501
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 1: They were like, we're going to build our collider inside

502
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: an existing tunnel. We're just gonna work really really hard

503
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: on the magnet technology to make them bend even harder.

504
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: So the LEDC went for smaller tunnel, bigger magnets, and

505
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 1: the super Conducting super Collider were like, hey, we're in Texas,

506
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: let's just make it huge, and that worries so much

507
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: about the magnets, I see, because it's tricky, right, I mean,

508
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: those magnets are really tricky. These magnets are really tricky.

509
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 1: And that's the super conducting part. Even though the magnets

510
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: at the SSC weren't going to be as powerful as

511
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:55,439
Speaker 1: the LHC, they still have to be really really cold

512
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: because remember these are electro magnets, and the way you

513
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: generate those magnets, you have loops of wire and a coil.

514
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 1: You turned on the current and you get a magnet

515
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: through the center of it, and the stronger the current,

516
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 1: the stronger the magnet. And if you have super conducting coils,

517
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: then you have really high currents and you have really

518
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 1: strong magnets. So these things are cooled down to super

519
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: cool temperatures to be super conducting for super strong magnets.

520
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 1: All right, So they planned it. They actually drew up

521
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: the plants and they actually started building it. Like they

522
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,199
Speaker 1: dug up the tunnel. Yeah, there's twenty three kilometers of

523
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 1: tunnel that they dug and are still there. They spent

524
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: two billion dollars building buildings and digging this tunnel. But

525
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: then they started to lose support in Congress. So now

526
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:43,640
Speaker 1: it's like or so enthusiasm is weighing a little bit,

527
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: because not only does it seem like the Cold War

528
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: is sort of over, there was a huge amount of

529
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: money being spent on the International Space Station, and people

530
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 1: didn't have the appetite for like two of these massive projects.

531
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: And also I think we started going into a recession

532
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 1: or something, didn't we Yeah, exactly, and so we weren't

533
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: just like spending money out the wazoo anymore. And so

534
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: it was the U. S. House of Representatives actually voted

535
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,919
Speaker 1: to kill this project. You know, it needed authorization every

536
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,159
Speaker 1: single year. It's not like you know, some centrally planned

537
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: government where you can say, here's twenty years where the

538
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: funding the government is not going to change. The House

539
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 1: changes every two years, and you know, they had to

540
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:25,120
Speaker 1: reauthorize funding because they get the bill every year. Every

541
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: year they look at the budget and the build they're like,

542
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: what is now six billion dollars? Yeah, and so if

543
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 1: you're a project that's going to take twenty years to fund,

544
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 1: you need to be approved twenty times basically in order

545
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: to be completed. So in ninety two the House killed it,

546
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: but then the Senate saved it. The Senate was like, no,

547
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: this is a big deal. It is still important. You know,

548
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 1: the Senate sort of slower moving than the House. Those

549
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: guys a six year terms, etcetera. So he was saved.

550
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: And you know, Carlo Rubia, the guy who has ended

551
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: up being the director of CERN, he came over and

552
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: testified to Congress and he said, you guys are wasting

553
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: your money because we're building a collider at CERN and

554
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: it's going to be just as good and it's gonna

555
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: be turned on before yours, and you're wasting your time

556
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 1: and your money. But it was three times smaller. It

557
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 1: was smaller, and his collider was ten years behind schedule.

558
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 1: But you know, it was in competition. He wanted the

559
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: Europeans to discover the Higgs boson or what lay beyond it,

560
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 1: and so he didn't want the American competition. We totally

561
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 1: got bamboozl we did, we got ruby, we got faked out,

562
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: we did get packed out. And you know, at that point,

563
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: it was well over its budget. It looked like it

564
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 1: was going to cost like twelve billion dollars. And now

565
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: Clinton was president and Clinton was not terribly excited to

566
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money on a project that seemed

567
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: like Ronald Reagan's pet project. I said, he didn't want

568
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 1: to spend the money on the kipper Tron kimber Tron exactly.

569
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: If we had named it the Clintron, you know, then

570
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: maybe it would have succeeded. He yeah, there you go. Yeah,

571
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: you guys should have played that game a little better.

572
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: And you know, it hadicism not just from politicians but

573
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: also from other scientists. Scientists and other field felt like, hey,

574
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 1: this is too much money. Particle physicists been hogging the

575
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: budget for years. This is unfair. Even other particle physicists.

576
00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: We're thinking, look, this one massive project is just sort

577
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 1: of like pulling all the oxygen out of the room.

578
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 1: You can't get funding from any other kind of particle

579
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: physics experiment. Some people thought, instead of having one megaproject,

580
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: we should have like a healthy ecosystem of smaller ones, right,

581
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: because if this project is taking the twelve billion dollars,

582
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: that's twelve billion dollars that it's not going to other

583
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: science projects. Yeah, and it's not necessarily a zero sum game, right, Like,

584
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: there is a lot more money than twelve billion dollars

585
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: in the US government, if they decided to spend this much,

586
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: they might not necessarily cut it from other projects. Right,

587
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: And when people talk about is ten billion dollars worth

588
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 1: it to build another collider, you know, you don't necessarily

589
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: have to assume that ten billion is coming from other

590
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 1: science projects. Maybe it's coming from the defense budget, or

591
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: maybe it's just an investment. You borrow the money from

592
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: their future, you know, by bonds, and then invest in

593
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: basic research and in education. In my view, it's always

594
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: good to spend money on basic research, particle physics or

595
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 1: otherwise because it pays for itself. You get that money

596
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: back in terms of educating your population or understanding the

597
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: universe or whatever. Me So it's a complicated political question,

598
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 1: but preferably particle physics. You the top of particle physics,

599
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: then cartoonists, then podcasts. All right, let's get into what

600
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: we could have learned from this project and what happened

601
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: when it was canceled. But first let's take another quick break.

602
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: All right, Daniels, So the super conducting super collider, biggest

603
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: collider ever to be built in Texas, just got killed

604
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: by the House. And what was the reaction. Well, and

605
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: it was finally killed, and you know, in particle physics,

606
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,719
Speaker 1: people felt like the world it ended, you know, they

607
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. They thought, look, we built this big thing,

608
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 1: We've already gotten funding, we started building a tunnel. We're

609
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: the most important kind of physics there is. There's a

610
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: lot of arrogance and particle of physics, I will admit.

611
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 1: And so they were just totally shocked. They were totally shocked,

612
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: and a lot of people lost their jobs and left

613
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: the field, you know, because suddenly the field shrank all

614
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: of a sudden, there aren't these two thousand positions at

615
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: the Superconnecting super Collider Laboratory to support people. People had

616
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 1: left their jobs at universities to move down there and

617
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: work full time at this lab, which was now you know,

618
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: become a ghost town. So the whole field just contracted,

619
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: like the number of particle physicists shrink, not just the

620
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: number of colliders and the amount of money spent on stuff,

621
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: but the number of people involved. And a lot of

622
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: those people went into finance to make money, to make money,

623
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: and you know what's partially to cause for the financial

624
00:32:57,080 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 1: collapse in the two thousand seven and two thousand and

625
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: eight was a lot of physicists not really want, not

626
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: really understanding what they're doing. What you're drawing in line

627
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: directly from physicists leaving to field the nineties three to

628
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: the economic collapse of two eight. I'm not drawing the line.

629
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: I'm just saying one thing and then I'm saying the

630
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 1: other thing. There's a correlation, you're saying I didn't even

631
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: say there's a correlation. I just said the one thing

632
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: and then the other thing happened. But I will not

633
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: pretty sure you said that was to cause Daniel. We

634
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: can let's rewind the tape. But I will note that

635
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: I think it's always a mistake to not invest in

636
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: keep keep physicists away from the actual money, and just

637
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: give them the money. I do think that's smart. I

638
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: do not think it's a good idea to have physicist anyway. Um,

639
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: there was sort of a celebration in other fields, condensed

640
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: matter physics that always felt like particle physics got too

641
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: much of the pie. You know, they thought this come

642
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: up in for high energy physics was long overwhelmed. They

643
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: were dancing in your grave. They're in the streets celebrating. Yeah,

644
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: they sort of were. The sort of were and of course,

645
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 1: it left an opening for the Europeans to build their

646
00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: collider and discovered the Higgs boson, and they did, and

647
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: they did, I mean a few twenty years later, twenty

648
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 1: years later exactly, but it's you know, it was sent

649
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 1: shock waves into particle physics that I still felt a

650
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 1: few years later. I didn't join the field until like

651
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 1: nine when I graduated from college and started grad school,

652
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: and people were still reeling from this. You know. It

653
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: was like the thing that happened that nobody wanted to

654
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: talk about, but it left a huge mark on the field.

655
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: The project that shall not be named, that shall not

656
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: be finished, that should have been named the Bilotron, the Clintron,

657
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 1: but now we don't talk about it about it anymore. Yeah,

658
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: all right, Well that's a shame and sort of I

659
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: guess a tragedy and a victim of politics and changing,

660
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: you know, political landscapes. So maybe it step us through.

661
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:58,720
Speaker 1: Let's rubbit in, Daniel, what could we have learned from

662
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:02,400
Speaker 1: this from the different on what that's potentially what? What

663
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:04,840
Speaker 1: what amazing discoveries do we miss out on? Well, we

664
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 1: don't know. But maybe that's the most painful part for

665
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 1: me personally, because I feel like we could have purchased knowledge,

666
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: We could have pulled back the curtain and seeing what

667
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 1: nature has and we still don't know the answer to

668
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:19,879
Speaker 1: those questions, but we could have those today, you know.

669
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: So Number one, we would have found the Higgs boson,

670
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:25,760
Speaker 1: and we would have found it ten or fifteen years earlier.

671
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: You know, if the super conducting super collider had been

672
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: built and turned on like expected, you know, around the

673
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: year two thousand, then it would have been so powerful

674
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 1: it would have found the Higgs boson very quickly. You

675
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,720
Speaker 1: know that's a ten year Yeah. Absolutely, it was definitely equipped.

676
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:42,799
Speaker 1: You don't think there would have been delays or like

677
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: you would have looked in the wrong place by accident. No,

678
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,120
Speaker 1: it's powerful enough to definitely discover it. Of course, there

679
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 1: could always be delays. That certainly happens in a lot

680
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: of these big experiments. But you know, they started building

681
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: this thing in the eighties, they started digging the tunnel

682
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 1: in the eighties. It seemed pretty likely it was going

683
00:35:57,320 --> 00:35:59,399
Speaker 1: to turn on two thousand, two thousand one, that kind

684
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 1: of time scale. And so the sooner you build these things,

685
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: the earlier you learn this stuff, and the further down

686
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: the road you are to answering some mysteries of the universe. Right,

687
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: I don't really care if Americans or Europeans discover the

688
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 1: Higgs boson, but we would have found it sooner, would

689
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: I had the answer to these questions. And there's a

690
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: whole decade there where we didn't know the Higgs Boson existed,

691
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: if it was real or not, and we could have

692
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 1: been in the know. And so to me that's sort

693
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 1: of tension, like that we could have known this sooner.

694
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: That's really worth the luck, right, because we ain't getting younger,

695
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: so the sooner we get answers to the better. Right. Yeah,

696
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: you don't wanted to discover the secrets of the universe

697
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 1: after you're dead, that's right. But the really painful part

698
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: is just the missed opportunity for future exploration. I mean,

699
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 1: we're really limited by the energy of these machines. The

700
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: more energy is in the machine, the easier it is

701
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: to create these new, really heavy particles. And the thing

702
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: that we don't know is where are the new particles

703
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: after the Higgs boson? What else is there to discover?

704
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 1: People have ideas, but they're just really ideas, and we

705
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: can talk about some of those in the moment. But

706
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:03,399
Speaker 1: the point is that this is untapped territory. We don't

707
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 1: know what to expect. You just have to go look.

708
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: It's sort of like landing on a new alien planet,

709
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,959
Speaker 1: right opening up the hatch and walking around. You don't

710
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: know if it's going to be dust and rubble and nothingness,

711
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: or if it's going to be like filled with crazy

712
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: things that blow your mind. And so we could have

713
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,440
Speaker 1: turned this thing on, We could have pulled back the curtain.

714
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 1: There could be things waiting for us to discover that

715
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: we might have found. Now the late c it found

716
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,760
Speaker 1: the Higgs boson, but so far it's found nothing else,

717
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 1: and that tells us that maybe it needed more energy.

718
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: Maybe we needed a bigger collider in order to find

719
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: those secrets or to unravel some of the mysteries that

720
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 1: we're struggling with today. Right, it could be like like

721
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: the mysteries of the universe, the pink unicorns are just

722
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: above what the l can do. It could be, right,

723
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: it could also be that there's nothing there and we'd

724
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: build a forty TV collider and found nothing, but you

725
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: can't tell, or just like found the Higgs boson and

726
00:37:57,760 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, but you can't tell them if you

727
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: don't look. And the amount of money we're talking about,

728
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: you know, a few billion dollars, it just it pales

729
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 1: in comparison to like the amount of just money wasted

730
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: on toilets by the military. So it pains me to

731
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,239
Speaker 1: think that we almost pulled back the curtain and could

732
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: have seen these things if they are there, but didn't

733
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 1: you know. It's like if somebody told you, oh, you

734
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 1: could have landed a spaceship on this exo planet and

735
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:24,439
Speaker 1: we could have had pictures of it right now, Like, wow,

736
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: that would be exciting. How much would you pay for

737
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: pictures of the surface of exo planets? I would pay

738
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 1: billions of dollars of government money. Personally, I would write

739
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,240
Speaker 1: the check from the U. S. Treasury for billions of dollars,

740
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: like I would spend billions of dollars of other people's money.

741
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: It's our money. It's our money, man, we are we

742
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: earned that money, we gave it to the government. We

743
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: want them to do good stuff with it. Right Well,

744
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,360
Speaker 1: is the door closed? Like just because this collider didn't

745
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: take off or was built, isn't the l a C

746
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: upgrading itself? And are their plans for a bigger collider. Now, yeah,

747
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 1: there are plans conversations about building a one hundred TV collider,

748
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 1: which would dwarf even the super conducting super collider super

749
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,800
Speaker 1: duper but you know, super super duper collider conducting super

750
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,360
Speaker 1: duper collider. What we gotta do is figure out who's

751
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: going to be president in fifteen years and name it

752
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: after that or just keep changing the name. Why not? No,

753
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 1: but the SEC still overshadows these conversations. Every time somebody's like,

754
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: let's build a really big one. People like, yeah, but

755
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: remember that time we asked for too much money. Traumatized,

756
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 1: we crashed and burned. Yeah, we're traumatized. We've got PTSD

757
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 1: particle traumatic stress science syndrome. Yeah, nobody really knows, like

758
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 1: how much money will the political system tolerate? Like, hundred

759
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 1: billion dollars is a lot of money to spend on

760
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: a collider, Fifty billion is a lot of money, twenty

761
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: billion is a lot of money. How much can we

762
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: afford to spend on these things? So we're talking about

763
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:02,280
Speaker 1: new colliders to maybe discover what dark matter is, maybe

764
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 1: figure out what the graviton is. Is there a particle

765
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: that media is gravity? Is there a whole spectrum of

766
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: crazy particles out there we haven't even anticipated. We're talking

767
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 1: about spending that kind of money, maybe building one in China,

768
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 1: maybe building one in Europe. The v LHC, they call

769
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:21,359
Speaker 1: it the Very Large Hadron Collider. But overshadowing all these

770
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: conversations is a memory of the SSC, why it fail,

771
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: and how to avoid that kind of scenario in the future. Well,

772
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 1: I think I have the solution, Daniel. I think it's

773
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 1: pretty clear to me what needs to happen with that.

774
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: You need to run for president. Man is never gonna happen.

775
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: I want to build a hundred billion dollar white c atron.

776
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: Do we get about two votes? Yeah, I'm a one

777
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 1: issue candidate. I'm gonna slash the US spending except for

778
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: particle physics. You know. Frankly, I'm I'm frustrated. I don't

779
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:55,720
Speaker 1: understand why spending money on basic research isn't the bipartisan issue.

780
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: You know, if your goal is to understand the universe,

781
00:40:58,120 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 1: it's definitely worth the money. If your goal is to

782
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 1: prove education, it's definitely worth the money. If your goal

783
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:06,440
Speaker 1: is to improve technology or economics or anything, even you know,

784
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: potential military applications spend money on basic research. Republicans, Democrats, centrists, liberals, conservatives,

785
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: everybody should agree that money for basic research improve society.

786
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: It's a good investment in ourselves. So I don't understand

787
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,120
Speaker 1: why we don't have a trillion dollar science. But because

788
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 1: you're not running for office, Daniel, I think you need

789
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: to do it. That was my pitch right there. All right,

790
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: let's go viral then. But you know, people also tend

791
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 1: to view science is a zero sum game. So if

792
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: you're asking for money for your big collider, then probably

793
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: it's going to squeeze the budget of other projects. And

794
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: then you get into this question like what's more important,

795
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: you know, researching potential vaccines for future viral pandemics or

796
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: studying some crazy particles and nobody's ever seen before. And

797
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: those are really hard conversations to happen. Well at the moment,

798
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 1: At the moment, it's not that hard, Daniel, I think.

799
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: I think right now, are you saying you're not voting

800
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: for me? For presidents? What I'm here, I'm saying that

801
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: sixty years to think about it, that's right, you know,

802
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 1: let's see how that your platform involves. So it's a

803
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: it's a delicate balance. You know, you've got to have

804
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: good project management skills to your project doesn't go four

805
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 1: or eight billion dollars over budget. But you also have

806
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:19,880
Speaker 1: to understand the political landscape and how it's changing, and

807
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: how the various national governments are involved, want to be

808
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: involved or don't want to be involved. It's really complex

809
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: to manage such a big international project. You're saying the

810
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:33,319
Speaker 1: problem is people getting people to agree. Yeah, that's right.

811
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,319
Speaker 1: But science is by people and for people, and so

812
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: it's important that people are invested. And hey, that's one

813
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: reason why we do this podcast is that people understand

814
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: why these projects are so fascinating, why they're important, the

815
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 1: secrets we could learn about the universe, and why they're

816
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,239
Speaker 1: important not just for a few thousand people in lab

817
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,439
Speaker 1: coats around the world, but for everybody, because everybody wants

818
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 1: to know the answer to the questions what's the universe

819
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: made out of it? How did it start? And those

820
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: answers could lie at the heart of the next big

821
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 1: particle collector. All right, well, we hope you enjoyed that,

822
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: and and it makes you think of what could have

823
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,359
Speaker 1: been or what we could know but currently don't know.

824
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: If only we explored. That's right. There is some element

825
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,720
Speaker 1: of the multiverse out there in which they did build

826
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 1: the super connecting super collider, and they have the secrets

827
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: of the universe, and they are laughing at us because

828
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 1: we are so clueless. Oh man, Now I have FuMO

829
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: mode exactly fear of missing out to a multiverse observer geez.

830
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,360
Speaker 1: And it's infinite too, so it's infinite fomo. That's exactly

831
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 1: what I have. Yeah. All right, well, thanks for joining us,

832
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: see you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that

833
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is a production of

834
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,959
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcast For my heart Radio,

835
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

836
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. No