[lurkmurk]

The question of spending money is the question of politics, and there is a finite budget. I would argue the reason for all of these inventions is the increasing number of educated people (not only physicists) in the world. So maybe investing this money into education is better. Also, of course the physics will birth all of these inventions, it would be useless otherwise.

[noch]

> I would argue the reason for all of these inventions is the increasing number of educated people (not only physicists) in the world. So maybe investing this money into education is better.

This is an alarming statement. I'm not sure on what basis you make it. Education seems to very much be a "you-get-what-you-pay-for" type deal. I'll assume that you know the comparative histories of educational policies in China, Russia, U.S.A, East Africa, so instead of rehashing those, let me give you a comparable sentence to yours:

"I would argue that the reason for all these life-saving surgeries is the increasing number of educated people (not only surgeons) in the world. So maybe investing this money into education is better."

fwiw. Having read Dr. Hossenfleder's book and others, I believe she is correct that we don't need another accelerator because the benefit for the cost just isn't there. Fundamental physics has stagnated. Other avenues of fundamental physics should be funded instead of being crowded out, urgently.

[lurkmurk]

I made an argument to challenge the parent comment's argument. It is obvious that nor physics nor population size led to advancements alone. There are many confounders.

What I wanted to point out is: there is a trade-off in allocating budgets which are finite to different parts of society. If science gets a certain budget, I argue (like the original author) that new collider takes away a part of the cake from others. However you frame the sources of the money, the budget is obviously limited and can be directed in other experiments and ideas as well.

What prompted my response is defending physics through listing inventions. Ironically, the proposed experiment might never give any practical application, and it shouldn't in my opinion. The search for knowledge, especially as fundamental as this is enough. But this part of physics already appeals to wide audience and has great PR. There might be other parts that could use billions but are not as sexy to general public.

[imtringued]

CERN has it's own budget. Stop projecting authority on unrelated organizations.

[lurkmurk]

Where does it come from?