Bigger machine, bigger thinking

The operators of the world’s largest particle accelerator have a plan to at last unlock the most stubborn mysteries of physics. They’re going even bigger.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, wants to build the largest machine on Earth. The Future Circular Collider would have a circumference of 56 miles, cost $30 billion, and finish construction in 2070. It would be three times larger than what CERN has now, better able to observe the motion of atoms or their parts.

But aside from the logistical hurdles, there’s a bigger, nagging question: Is it even a good idea?

The fact is, physics is in a funk. Quantum mechanics and general relativity theory began to reshape scientists’ view of the physical world more than a century ago. A “theory of everything” seemed near, knitting together the last inconsistencies of science into a single, unified theory.

It has not turned out that way. Intervening years have brought exquisite calibration and confirmation, but few groundbreaking advances.

CERN’s idea is to double down: The answer is out there; we just need to keep pushing. But others are less certain. Maybe blunt-force experimentation has its limits. “It’s a vicious cycle,” wrote physicist Sabine Hossenfelder on her blog. “Costly experiments result in lack of progress. Lack of progress increases the costs of further experiment.”

The real question is how physics reinvigorates itself. CERN will have its proposal for a solution by December. Yet a deeper change appears to be percolating within physics – a growing humility.

It is seen in Dr. Hossenfelder’s call for scientists to step back from their favored theories and think better and more collaboratively. It’s also seen in thinkers such as Brian Greene, who said on a recent Templeton Foundation podcast, “It’s very difficult to answer these questions, of course, and what you find is as a working physicist, you don’t really have to.” Meaning, he added, doesn’t come from science but from the excitement and inspiration we invest in our different experiences.

Emerging from this openness is a recognition that machines matter, but the frontiers of mind perhaps promise more. “The origin of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of mind, are sort of the big three moments” in existence, Dr. Greene noted. “I suspect, and I think many scientists agree, that ... there is a real continuum at work here, and I think that’s pretty important.”

Certainly, a larger particle accelerator might help usher in a new physics renaissance. Larger thinking could do even more.