I hope you are more right about this than I am

Elliot

I agree with you, I quite seriously believe the guy is the worst president this country has ever seen.

But, still, no matter how cynical the politics of this are, I suspect that it will lead to a slightly better budget situation for basic physics research, at least for FY2007. We’ll see soon. Much of the supposed added funds for research will undoubtedly be tax breaks for people who don’t need them, but some may be real money going to worthwhile projects.

http://www.energy.gov/news/3148.htm

The real fun begins when the B-Factories see a deviation and discover new physics. It turns out that precise data from the B-Factories is invaluable in determining the properties of the new physics discovered at the LHC. The LHC measures the mass scale of the new physics, but determines nothing about its flavor structure. Whereas, once you input the new physics mass scale into predictions for B meson decay and CP rates, then the B-Factory data can determine the flavor properties of the new physics. For example, take Supersymmetry. The LHC measures the sparticle masses and SUSY scale, but doesn’t get much information on what SUSY model it is (i.e., how SUSY is broken). The SUSY breaking information is contained in the off-diagonal elements of the squark mass matrices and the B-Factories can measure that! Provided there is enough luminosity and the SUSY is not too high, of course.

Sorry for getting a bit technical here (I’m sure Anon can handle it), but there is more to it than just measuring CKM angles.

That’s question.

Thank god, that such ideas as lagrange points, are only one of a couple of ideas that were initiated. What would we do with such experimental progressions sought to support such documenation, as ID related?

If this openness was not shared, how would we had ever known?

Anon — I think the answer is really more basic than what Mark gave. In HEP, there are two important types of research. 1. you can measure numbers to better accuracy and chase down systematic errors. or 2, you can search for new things. Accelerator research is seen as engineering and does not fit into one of these neat categories. So measuring the CKM angles by definition has more appeal than accelerator research. And if the B factories did manage to find something new, it would give us the strongest case to date for why we should fund the ILC or your favorite new project. The field could finally stand up and say, “There’s something new and specific we don’t understand, that doesn’t fit in the Standard Model. We need a new project to figure this out.” The tyranny of the Standard Model would finally be lifted. But Mark is right, measuring these parameters is important in its own right. Even if they don’t find anything unexpected, there are still angles which are very poorly measured and need better measurements. And these will shed light on subjects such as baryogenesis. It’s one of the few areas where we’re still somewhat in the dark.

I should say, that given all my ranting about how we need more accelerator research, you’d think that’s what I do. But it’s not. I don’t want to give the impression that I think I’m better than everybody else in the field ’cause I think my work is more important or misunderstood or overlooked. I do think that the very small number of people I know who have left HEP proper to go work on accelerator physics have the right idea…

This guy gets no slack. The “No Child Left Behind Act” purportedly was to improve education. As a former school board member, I can tell you it was about eviscerating the teachers union.

Everything he does is designed to line the pockets of his supporters in the energy industry, anti-labor business leaders, and insurance companies. He can’t be held accountable because he is above accountabilty. This is the man who just killed over 2000 Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis, and so far has spent over 100 billion dollars on an illegal war designed to benefit his supporters.

He said what he thought would get GOP votes in the mid-term elections. Thats it.

Elliot

I agree with everything you wrote, and was not trying to say that insufficient sucking up to the current administration has anything to do with HEP’s current problems. It just struck me that the day the worst president in our history decides to make funding basic physics research and education one of his most prominent public initiatives is a good day to let up a bit on bashing him about his science funding policies, try to be at least cautiously optimistic, and start thinking about how to hold him and his administration to the promise it has just made. Maybe such optimisim is completely misplaced, but we’ll find out soon when the proposed budget comes out in a few days.

The answer to this one is simple. In no what whatsoever does this count as “basic science”. It does qualify as “random bullshit to generate vast profits for the aerospace industry” meaning it may actually happen, but let’s not pretend it’s science, just like the ISS is not science.

Peter, thanks for your thoughtful comments as well. As you know, I presently serve on (too) many panels and committees of this sort. We try our best. Today, I was representing myself, and no one else, in posing my question to Marburger. I wrote what I felt (and indeed had to restrain myself) and think he needs to hear hard punching questions from individuals (committess are a different thing). He needs to know that individuals are seriously engaged and concerned.

All, I’m afraid that I cannot comment on Marburger’s replies – it’s so depressing that there is really nothing one can say.

Why does measuring the CKM angles to better and better accuracy have so much appeal? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see the point…. If B factories find evidence for new physics effects, they’re probably due to things we’ll be seeing directly at the LHC anyway. If not, then we don’t really learn all that much. CKM elements, like neutrino oscillations, might hint at interesting high-scale flavor physics, but they don’t seem likely to give us enough information to actually conclude anything. Maybe I’m just too pessimistic….