[mjfl]

YES. There is no limit to the cost of modern science, but resources are still scarce in the real world and we cannot afford to spend unlimited funds on projects that will not pay off in human flourishing in the near future. To answer your first question that is the profit to be made and it absolutely is necessary to consider when directing tax dollars which could otherwise be spent feeding starving people or curing dying people. I would have paid $80 for the Higgs.

[ben_w]

While you are correct to say that scarce resources means we can’t do everything, pure/fundamental research like the LHC tends to have extremely high payoffs several decades after it is completed. Nobody knows what exactly, if we did we could focus on that stuff in particular, but its one of the best things we can do to grow the economy.

(Also, if everyone in the EU paid $80 for the Higgs, that’s about three LHCs depending on where in its history you take the exchange rate).

[mjfl]

Actually, good basic research has a much quicker payoff scale, like 10-20 years. Transistors, fiber optics, lasers, paid off almost immediately- and were invented ON PURPOSE by the way, in order to facilitate better communication for AT&T. And I would pay $80 because I'm personally interested, but I'm the 1%, and I don't think you should force people to pay for it, therefore you should revise your estimate to .03 LHCs.

[ben_w]

You’re taking a bunch of things deliberately invented to solve an existing problem as an example of fundamental research paying off quickly?

Counterexamples: one of the early prime number researchers was proud that his work had no use at all, and now it’s the foundation of a major class of encryption. That was a century or two.

Or, Maxwell published “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” in 1873, and it took another 30 years to become voice radio.

Of course, as the LHC only discovered the Higgs in 2012, even your 10 year lowball would be four years in the future.

[mpfundstein]

I think you have no idea how (fundamental) research works...

[FridgeSeal]

"Groundbreaking science is too expensive, we are only capable of investing in one thing at a time!!!"

Like it on not, science and research is what powers humanity flourishing, if you want to get your pitchfork out about misused resources, go complain about corporate tax cuts or money invested in pointless ad-tech, not science.

[mjfl]

> Like it on not, science and research is what powers humanity flourishing

Not all science and research though. That's the whole point of my argument - we should direct funds towards projects that actually have tangible benefit to humanity in the future. I will eat my shoe if any application of neutrinos comes about in the next 50 years. Transistors? Great - those weren't invented by accident, and John Bardeen certainly deserves his two Nobel Prizes.

[ben_w]

Remote monitoring nuclear reactors for signs of weapons development: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/593/1/01...

Communication through any obstacles, including (in principle) the entire diameter of the planet: https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2847

[mjfl]

Considering we have already have cheap things to detect nuclear proliferation, such as seismic detectors that have proven effective w/ North Korea and how expensive a neutrino detection system would be to build, I don't see any marginal benefit to humanity there. Considering the fact that you would need to build a beamline for any transmission of a neutrino message and a 5 ton detector to receive it (unlikely to be reduced since it's so hard to stop neutrinos) I'll stick with my > 50 year timeline for neutrino message passing being used in any practical sense. Maybe they could put it in a nuclear sub, but the design process would take 50 years, thanks to similar incentives built into the military industrial complex.

[ben_w]

Seismic can only detect an explosion. Neutrino can detect the construction. If the threat comes from someone who has reactors and already knows how to make bombs, seismic is too late.

A 5 ton detector isn’t particularly implausible in a whole range of scenarios.

Eat up. :)

[mjfl]

Still waiting...

[GlennS]

Isn't there already an application of neutrinos: to detect nuclear material (so weapons inspection and so on)?

[FridgeSeal]

And how will we know what science is going to be useful and "profitable" until we do it?

I'm not even going to dive into the huge discussion that is "why profit driven science is an objectively terrible idea".