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RE: A posthumous memo by Stephen Hawking: towards a super collider in China (or at CERN?)
SOmeone said you have been kidnapped by the french community and I was preparing to put forward a rescue army. You rightly belong to steemstem and yea, glad to have you back.
Hawking is a visionaire which is one of the attributes of great men. About the location of the new collider, can you briefly summarise the pros and cons of China/CERN? (sorry, I'm probably too lazy to read one of the links which could have it).
Ahaha, you may want to ask @howo. He is dreaming about cornering me to get some drinks! More seriously, I was traveling back to Europe on Thursday-Friday, and I was then quite busy with work, having 3 visitors to take care of. But don't worry, I am never away for more than 2-3 days.
For the moment, particle physicists are assessing the potential of a collider to be placed in a 100km-long tunnel. Whilst this was initially a post-LHC project for CERN, the Chinese community has proposed to build it there. The main difference between both is that at CERN, a facility already exists and will be used in the project. In China, everything will have to be built form scratch. In terms of funding, the situation is not clear for any of the two options, at the moment. Whilst the CERN option will be cheaper, China has recently demonstrated its capacity in handling big scientific project. So...
We will probably know more by the end of this year.
My optimal vision would be to have a electron-positron collider in China (for which the technology exists) and keep the proton-proton option for CERN (for which the technology does not exist yet but whose existing installation may be used). The electron-positron machine is sometimes seen as an intermediate step to the big proton-proton machine, but I think these must now be seen more decoupled.
However, note that the chances to see both colliders are tiny (but non zero), as Politics also enters. I don't personally care as long as we have a new collider somewhere.
This being said, I didn't answer your question. But there is no well defined answer, as you can guess :D
"Ahaha, you may want to ask @howo. He is dreaming about cornering me to get some drinks! " And I half succeed once !
Why "half" though?
Met him but we did not have drinks :p we just ate.
I cannot drink during working hours :)