Over the Top

Gordon Kane wrote a very nice elementary textbook on elementary particle theory that I like a lot. Recently, however, reportedly he said of of the LHC:

It is certainly the most important experiment of any kind in the past century, without qualification” and “the most important thing ever in our quest to understand the fundamental laws of nature and the universe.”

Hmmm. That would make it more important, for example, than Rutherford's scattering experiment that discovered the nucleus, the experiments that discovered all the elementary particles, those that revealed the universe of galaxies, the clues to QM and relativity, etc. What sort of discovery would fit that bill?

Well, I guess if the LHC managed to create a phase transition that destroyed the universe, or a black hole that ate the Earth, those might qualify. How about suppersymmetry? No way. Mini black holes (that don't destroy the Earth)? Close, but no banana. Conclusive evidence of extra dimensions? Well, maybe, but I doubt it.

Kane and a few of his stringfellows have set the bar so high that LHC is very unlikely to top it.

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