13 ms·

Isn't it significant in some sense that this was discovered in China first, and not the US? In the sense of: we didn't know splitting the atom would change war

Isn't it significant in some sense that this was discovered in China first, and not the US? In the sense of: we didn't know splitting the atom would change warfare forever, back when Einstein and others published on it. We don't know if there are discoveries of similar impact lying in wait somewhere. If China gets to such a discovery first, we are in Sputnik territory, to say the least.

wiml 1mo ago
But nuclear fission was discovered by scientists working in Nazi Germany (except Meitner who had fled to Sweden by then).
SoftTalker 1mo ago
We knew. That's why Roosevelt started the Manhattan project after scientists wrote to him warning about it, to be sure that the Germans or the Soviets didn't develop it first.
colechristensen 1mo ago
Plenty of things get discovered all over the world and this isn't a particularly earth shattering result. Discovering evidence of a particle predicted for 50 years is interesting but still pretty mundane. The LHC which is doing much of the particle physics discovery is in Switzerland and France, if you need to be reminded, not the US. The first strong force theory was published by Hideki Yukawa in Japan in 1935 (which won him the nobel prize) ... so uh, not exactly a sputnik problem. Sputnik problems (and the nuclear race) are engineering and industrial races, not fundamental physics ones.
- lukeify 1mo ago
  > The LHC which is doing much of the particle physics discovery is in Switzerland and France, if you need to be reminded, not the US. Which is ironically an example of particle collider science happening overseas primarily because the US relinquished its lead on scientific discovery, despite having a similar-scale particle collider practically finished and ready to go [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
  - voidUpdate 1mo ago
    "practically finished and ready to go" is a bit of an overstatement. They made some holes in the ground, and did preliminary research and manufacturing, but it was heavily mismanaged and fantastically over budget, so congress killed it
  - kakacik 1mo ago
    That would be classical 80:20 or more like 90:10 rule, few kms of tunnels ain't close to delivery in any feasible way, just the first baby steps. The amount of continuous effort (and budget) that goes into just keeping CERN up and delivering is non-trivial. I live nearby and sometimes chat with folks working there (its >15,000 folks although not all do science).
    - amelius 1mo ago
      Well they have plenty of spare time to do things like, for example, invent the web browser.
      - defrost 1mo ago
        That was a time saving part and parcel of the job of exchanging text and images between researchers. If you're reaching for examples of spare time activities, this was squeezed into 20 minutes of downtime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e1eLe1ihT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e1eLe1ihT0
EA-3167 1mo ago
HEP is undeniably an international effort, and it's silly to try and spin this into something akin to the space race. While this is a useful and frankly brilliant potential confirmation of existing theory, that's what it is: confirmation (sort of). Without CERN, without universities across the world including all across Asia none of this would be possible. Very few endeavors are as truly international as this because the problems are so hard to even explore, and the machines required to do so are the most complex and highly engineered on Earth. Lets not lose that international spirit in science because the blowhard narcissists who run our countries would find that temporarily useful to them.
aaron695 1mo ago
[dead]
prometheus1992 1mo ago
you are trying to see something that's not quite there in this case. there is shit ton of very good research that happens all over the world. but i also sympathize with what you are trying insinuate and that's also probably happening.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
jhoechtl 1mo ago
It's foundational science. The US scuence system calls for utility and time to merket. In such a system there is little space for gluons.
- IAmBroom 29d ago
  That is untrue. US science is also funded by NSF grants - or were, before the Orange Idiot and his crew of apes began defunding science they didn't understand. Much science is done by international (i.e., borderless) cooperation between teams of scientists, as well. Science is becoming, and ultimately should be, nationless.
peterashford 1mo ago
Einstein? Rutherford, I think
- ddddddrop 1mo ago
  Why not let the man himself tell you (as a surrogate for Roosevelt) the story https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/beginnings/einstein.html https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/beginnings...
  - peterashford 24d ago
    Ahh... I took "published" on splitting the atom to mean the scientific write up of having split the atom - which was Rutherford - rather than the looser meaning - having just written about the idea in general. My bad.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

wiml 1mo ago

But nuclear fission was discovered by scientists working in Nazi Germany (except Meitner who had fled to Sweden by then).

SoftTalker 1mo ago

We knew. That's why Roosevelt started the Manhattan project after scientists wrote to him warning about it, to be sure that the Germans or the Soviets didn't develop it first.

colechristensen 1mo ago

Plenty of things get discovered all over the world and this isn't a particularly earth shattering result. Discovering evidence of a particle predicted for 50 years is interesting but still pretty mundane. The LHC which is doing much of the particle physics discovery is in Switzerland and France, if you need to be reminded, not the US. The first strong force theory was published by Hideki Yukawa in Japan in 1935 (which won him the nobel prize) ... so uh, not exactly a sputnik problem. Sputnik problems (and the nuclear race) are engineering and industrial races, not fundamental physics ones.

lukeify 1mo ago
> The LHC which is doing much of the particle physics discovery is in Switzerland and France, if you need to be reminded, not the US. Which is ironically an example of particle collider science happening overseas primarily because the US relinquished its lead on scientific discovery, despite having a similar-scale particle collider practically finished and ready to go [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
- voidUpdate 1mo ago
  "practically finished and ready to go" is a bit of an overstatement. They made some holes in the ground, and did preliminary research and manufacturing, but it was heavily mismanaged and fantastically over budget, so congress killed it
- kakacik 1mo ago
  That would be classical 80:20 or more like 90:10 rule, few kms of tunnels ain't close to delivery in any feasible way, just the first baby steps. The amount of continuous effort (and budget) that goes into just keeping CERN up and delivering is non-trivial. I live nearby and sometimes chat with folks working there (its >15,000 folks although not all do science).
  - amelius 1mo ago
    Well they have plenty of spare time to do things like, for example, invent the web browser.
    - defrost 1mo ago
      That was a time saving part and parcel of the job of exchanging text and images between researchers. If you're reaching for examples of spare time activities, this was squeezed into 20 minutes of downtime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e1eLe1ihT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e1eLe1ihT0

EA-3167 1mo ago

HEP is undeniably an international effort, and it's silly to try and spin this into something akin to the space race. While this is a useful and frankly brilliant potential confirmation of existing theory, that's what it is: confirmation (sort of). Without CERN, without universities across the world including all across Asia none of this would be possible. Very few endeavors are as truly international as this because the problems are so hard to even explore, and the machines required to do so are the most complex and highly engineered on Earth. Lets not lose that international spirit in science because the blowhard narcissists who run our countries would find that temporarily useful to them.

aaron695 1mo ago

[dead]

prometheus1992 1mo ago

you are trying to see something that's not quite there in this case. there is shit ton of very good research that happens all over the world. but i also sympathize with what you are trying insinuate and that's also probably happening.

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

jhoechtl 1mo ago

It's foundational science. The US scuence system calls for utility and time to merket. In such a system there is little space for gluons.

IAmBroom 29d ago
That is untrue. US science is also funded by NSF grants - or were, before the Orange Idiot and his crew of apes began defunding science they didn't understand. Much science is done by international (i.e., borderless) cooperation between teams of scientists, as well. Science is becoming, and ultimately should be, nationless.

peterashford 1mo ago

Einstein? Rutherford, I think

ddddddrop 1mo ago
Why not let the man himself tell you (as a surrogate for Roosevelt) the story https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/beginnings/einstein.html https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/beginnings...
- peterashford 24d ago
  Ahh... I took "published" on splitting the atom to mean the scientific write up of having split the atom - which was Rutherford - rather than the looser meaning - having just written about the idea in general. My bad.

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]