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'God particle' may have been seen
BBC News Online ^
| Wednesday, 10 March, 2004
| By Paul Rincon
Posted on 03/11/2004 4:45:23 AM PST by Momaw Nadon
click here to read article
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To: Godfollow
Without mass, there can be no thought.Some people think it's the other way around.
So, what is reality?
Maybe reality is what we think it is in whatever state or on whatever plane in which we exist. And maybe not.
81
posted on
03/11/2004 11:35:08 AM PST
by
Consort
Bump
82
posted on
03/11/2004 11:45:58 AM PST
by
balrog666
(Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.)
To: Momaw Nadon
Fascinating! Presumably somebody is chomping at the bit to verify this by reproducing it?
83
posted on
03/11/2004 11:49:36 AM PST
by
hershey
To: from occupied ga
Do you feel the same way about the Apollo program? Did we spend $25+ billion for a just few rocks and a flag on the moon?
84
posted on
03/11/2004 12:47:11 PM PST
by
Cooter
To: Physicist
No disagreement there, but I believe occupied and I were discussing the method of distributing tax dollars, not just funds dedicated to science. I don't see how peer review would be successful in that respect.
85
posted on
03/11/2004 1:10:31 PM PST
by
Shryke
To: Ophiucus
I'm not terribly familiar with string theory. I was talking about quantum theory.
The more time passes, the weirder and more unintelligible the theories get! ;-)
86
posted on
03/11/2004 1:58:49 PM PST
by
ahayes
To: from occupied ga
You want to know who determines need? First, the guy in charge of the research program writes up a nice long grant proposal. The proposal goes on to a board who reads it and decides, "Is this reasonable? Is it interesting? Is it profitable? It it significant?" They assign it a certain rating depending on how those questions are answered. The grant proposals that score highly are awarded grants, and the ones that fail are not.
I'm currently waiting to find out whether our research group is going to receive a $100,000/year addition to our NIH grant of a couple million. If so, we'll build a cell culture facility so that I can test the efficacy of several drug partial structures against various strains of cancer cells.
Drug companies bring drugs to the market after spending an average of $500 million to $1 billion on research and development. They do most of their research in analogues of lead compounds, and some identification of lead compounds, but many of the lead compounds that end up bringing a drug to the market that might save hundreds of thousands of lives were discovered by a university research group receiving a federal grant of a million or less a year.
It's an entirely different thing from subsidizing women's studies programs.
87
posted on
03/11/2004 2:15:23 PM PST
by
ahayes
To: Cooter
When you cut out the hype the answer is yes. $25 billion transferred to the aerospace industry with the net result of a few rocks and a flag. And before you go down the phoney spinoff trail read Bastiat's
That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen
88
posted on
03/12/2004 3:26:06 AM PST
by
from occupied ga
(Your government is your most dangerous enemy, and Bush is no conservative)
To: sirchtruth
At what point is something massless?When they've been on the Atkin's Diet!
Mark
Sorry, I couldn't resists... Besides, this sort of stuff makes my head hurt.
89
posted on
03/12/2004 3:42:24 AM PST
by
MarkL
(The meek shall inherit the earth... But usually in plots 6' x 3' x 6' deep...)
To: ahayes
You want to know who determines need?...The grant proposals that score highly are awarded grants, and the ones that fail are not This answer isn't to the question I asked. I asked who determines need, not how the plunder is allocated. Like I said earlier, this peer review process is like a committee of foxes determining which fox gets what part of the hen house. The hens aren't given any say in the matter.
For example, you may come up with a proposal that sounds fabulous to the grant committee. Like "under what conditions rats, monkeys, and humans bite and clench their jaws*" You may think that this is worth $500,000 of taxpayer money to support yourself while studying. I think it is an absolute waste of money.
You might think studying "the sexual behavior of Japanese quail under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.**" is absolutely essential to the survival of civilization as we know it and allocate $120,000 NSF taxpayer funded greenbacks to it. I think it's an absolute waste of resources.
Your questions "is it reasonable, etc." aren't being asked to the right people. To mix metaphors the peer review process is simply a bunch of hogs with both front trotters in the taxpayer trough deciding which hog gets the most slop. The people who provide the money ie. the taxpayers, aren't given a say in the process.
Drug companies bring drugs to the market after spending an average of $500 million to $1 billion on research and development. ... research group receiving a federal grant of a million or less a year
You get the Big Fat Non-sequitor award for this statement. Most of the expenses to drug companies are compliance costs in jumping through the FDA hoops to get a compound to market. Their actual research costs are equivalent or less than the university research costs. A centrifuge costs x dollars. A scintillation spectrometer costs y dollars. A building costs z dollars. These costs are approximately the same for all players in the research field. Labor costs are about the same, but academics have to spend time teaching, working on committees and asskissing the administration*** so are less productive than their commercial counterparts.
It's an entirely different thing from subsidizing women's studies programs.
Only from your viewpoint, not from the viewpoint of the taxpayer. To the taxpayer the money is looted and spent on something he doesn't want. The parasites in the taxpayer supported "womens studies" programs feel just as strongly about their pelf and feel that their "contribution" (to use the word advisedly)is just as "needed" by society as you think yours is.
The answer is to let the market determine where to spend the money. Let each individual make contributions to universities, research foundations, buy stocks in corporations etc. I would suspect that the dreary job of testing chemical compounds against cancer cell lines would continue (HeLa?). I wonder how many womens studies types would be out looking for a job more in keeping with their talents (making coffee washing floors)
*1975 golden fleece award for $500,000 taxpayer dollars squandered by NASA and NIH
**1988 NSF and NIH
***I believe it was Geroge Bernard Shaw who once said the reason academic politics are so vicious is that there is so very little at stake.
90
posted on
03/12/2004 4:09:54 AM PST
by
from occupied ga
(Your government is your most dangerous enemy, and Bush is no conservative)
To: from occupied ga
I publicly apologize for that comment. It was over the top. :-( Was a terribly difficult day and was not feeling well on top of it. I know that is not an excuse to be rude, so I hope you accept.
To: from occupied ga; Cooter
$25 billion transferred to the aerospace industry with the net result of a few rocks and a flagThere was a much bigger return that what you are implying here. Not only did it give us more information on out solar system (especially the origin of the moon), it employed thousands of scientists, engineers, machinists, draftsmen, carpenters, welders, (my list could go on for days), etc. Not only did this support an entire infrastructure (which paid taxes back into the Gov) in produced spin-off technologies and businesses that are still employing people to this day. On a purely financial basis, the space program was a success. Don't forget the technological leaps that were the result of our endeavors as well. NASA did help win the cold war.
To: RadioAstronomer
so I hope you accept.Of course. If you're gracious enough to offer, then I can be gracious enough to accept.
93
posted on
03/12/2004 5:38:39 AM PST
by
from occupied ga
(Your government is your most dangerous enemy, and Bush is no conservative)
To: from occupied ga
Thank you. :-)
To: Alamo-Girl
The Super Conducting Super Collider, had it been built, would've easily worked through this stuff a long time ago.
But then, they cut the funding for it. grrrr
95
posted on
03/12/2004 5:44:26 AM PST
by
Monty22
To: RadioAstronomer
There was a much bigger return that what you are implying here. Seriously, read Bastiat, that which is seen and that which is not seen if you haven't done so already. He addresses this a lot more succinctly than I can (but still kind of long). You are looking at that which is seen. However, the lost opportunity costs are not seen and you don't address those.
96
posted on
03/12/2004 5:45:46 AM PST
by
from occupied ga
(Your government is your most dangerous enemy, and Bush is no conservative)
To: Monty22
But then, they cut the funding for it. grrrrYou're perfectly free to donate as much as you want to support this project. If you want it badly enough - pay for it.
97
posted on
03/12/2004 5:50:49 AM PST
by
from occupied ga
(Your government is your most dangerous enemy, and Bush is no conservative)
To: from occupied ga
Jeez, stop the yacking and complaining already. Nobody wants you here to piss in the punch, ok?
98
posted on
03/12/2004 6:05:37 AM PST
by
Monty22
To: Monty22
Jeez, stop the yacking and complaining already. Nobody wants you here to piss in the punch, ok?Why don't you follow your own advice? I don't recall reading on the FR home page that FR was to promote taxation and government largesse, but rather it was to help end decades of government largesse. If you want to be a cheerleader for tax and spend I suggest that you go to DU. They all think just like you do there.
99
posted on
03/12/2004 6:09:23 AM PST
by
from occupied ga
(Your government is your most dangerous enemy, and Bush is no conservative)
To: from occupied ga
So because I enjoy science threads, and this isn't even an AMERICAN article, I'm a DU'er now?
Get a life, leave me alone.
100
posted on
03/12/2004 6:20:07 AM PST
by
Monty22
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