Can the potential of Utopian advance cutting-edge science?
Particle physics is currently living an exciting time. The discovery of a Higgs boson 5-6 years ago corresponds to one of the long-waited physics objectives of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, as explained for instance here.
Today, a few years later, the Run 2 of the LHC will be ongoing for a few extra months, and after a long shutdown, operations will (normally) restart in 2021 for a third run of data taking. The results to be collected in the next years hence promise a greater understanding not only of the Standard Model of particle physics, but also of what lies beyond it. I recall that it is pretty clear that something must lie beyond the Standard Model.
[image credits: Pixabay (CC0)]
Today, no compelling evidence for any phenomenon beyond the Standard Model has been seen, even if the LHC collaborations have tried to dig a signal out of hundreds (and most probably thousands) different search strategies.
As a result, more and more severe constraints are imposed on many classes of theories extending the Standard Model. However, those constraints are often imposed in well-defined (and often popular) contexts, which introduces strong biases.
There are however a plethora of theories that deserve to be tested and there is not enough experimental resources to try out all possible theoretical options. This is where theorists can play a role through the analysis of LHC collision simulations in new particle physics theories and the assessment of the impact of the existing analyses on these theories.
AN OPEN SOURCE PLATFORM FOR LHC RESULT PRESERVATION
A few years ago, I have decided to tackle this problem that is strongly connected to the preservation of the results of the LHC experiments. My vision (that is actually shared by others as well) is that one wants to be able to confront, even in 5 or 10 years from now, any theory to LHC data.
With a handful of collaborators, we have developed a generic framework in which many LHC analyses can be reimplemented, so that their results can be quickly compared to predictions of any model. Even at that time, we already pushed for a totally open source choice where anyone can contribute in a very simple way by adding new LHC analyses to our database.
However, for some reasons, physicists are very happy in using existing codes, but the majority of them often prefers to avoid to implement anything. People are therefore needed to make this plan working!
This is where both Utopian and SteemSTEM (and thus Steem) could potentially come into the game.
PARTICLE PHYSICS ON UTOPIAN?
Yes, you read it right. I assume that there are people here who would be interested in contributing to state-of-the-art science and in helping us to advance our understanding on how the universe works.
Maybe ambitious, but doable!
[image credits: homemade]
Why am I assuming this? Because the tasks that must be addressed are not incredibly complicated (the framework is there). They consist in:
- reading (and understanding; I will help for this) an LHC experimental paper;
- implementing the corresponding analysis in an existing C++-based framework;
- validating the implementation.
This last point is actually the toughest, as things rarely work from the first try.
This requires some basic knowledge in particle physics (this part I can help) as well as some knowledge in C++ (I assume some C++ developers lie around here ^^).
Would anyone be interested in giving it a try? This could be a funny (okay physics is actually always funny!) and novel way to contribute to particle physics research from the outside.
Note that I have already some vague ideas about how to implement this project in practice, but the first step is to probe whether there are interested people.
I can only say I would be super excited to see such projects gaining traction on Utopian. You have my full support!
Thanks a lot for the support! This project would make my 2018. Just creating a precedent could yield so many future options... Let's dream! :D
I have my eyes on it. Both of the physical and the mental eye :D
The idea is great and I do have someone who knows both physics and programming at an expert level.
Just let me see if he would be interested in joining Steemit. In the meantime, you are stuck with me and the others that might help you in a way or the other.
Have a good and relaxed weekend!
By stuck with you, does it mean you are in? Great, I am adding you to the list then! And your friend will be allowed to join anytime later. No worries!
He is a new father, he will not be joining anytime soon :(
If i can help you, than yes. Add me, and even if i can't help you, I will find you someone who can.
Let's see! More from me on this by the end of this week :)
In the meantime, you are on my list!
Interesting.. this could be potentially a PhD project!
That is a bit too small for a PhD project, but this could be part of it in the aim of using the codes to do some actual physics analysis out of it (which is something one could possibly imagine as a follow up project, but we are very far from there ;) ).
Let your ideas be fruitful. Many steemians like me are ready to be part in this endeavour in possible ways if needed. All the best!
So you are in? Does it mean I have two candidates? :D
But I don't know in what way I can be of any help. I don't even know the basics of c++. But if there is anything that I can do, I will.
Okidooki. I am adding your name to my list :)
I have couple of years of C++ commercial experience - how can I help? Is there some Github project out there I can contribute to?
Things are not yet at the Github stage, but this will come at some point. With you I have now 5 interested people and there will be a follow-up (at some point next week). Please stay tuned :)
PS: I am adding your name to my list of potential contributors ^^
Okk!! I have actually been learning C++ for the last two months. Maybe I'll need some more training but I'll give my best!
Hopefully I could get to understand those LHC papers. But it would be an honor to, in a way, contribute to particle physics.
Excellent! This is really great. Thanks for wanting to give it a try. As I said, I am here to help for the physics part.
We have thus three participants so far!!
Great, I can't wait to get started!
I see it as an opportunity to learn a lot about one of my many passions in life: physics!
Let's try to work hard so that you could contribute to current research in physics then! More from me very soon :)
Yes, I'll do it.
I'll be waiting for any good news!
you might be over-estimating the ability of most people to get into the framework needed but i'm always excited to see the basics of reality explained to those who simply live them
i think basic galileo, plato and the concept of uncertainty should be translated to kindergarten concepts in a way , alas im not too good at that
im not particularly comfortable with human spawn
i DO believe all science is basically particle physics
because that is the quantum at which we are stuck
no one has dug deeper so far and some (as usual) consider the latest discovery the last discovery and proceed with the perception to build an image of reality
but basically, all is particles, psychology is particle physics ... economy is particle physics, its simply beyond the point of understanding (or omega) to process that amount of data
give it a read if you think im being mystic because i'm not
you're doing some great work here, but you might consider an extra layer because what you consider to be self-evident is not to a lot
Maybe, but at least it is worthy to give it a try. The fact that I worked hard in the past to make a developer-friendly framework may help. At the end of the day, it is just a matter of understanding what to code (which may be tricky, but as I said, if we don't try we will never know :p )
This is possible. I explained the very very basic of general relativity, classical mechanics and quantum mechanics to my son when he was 6. Okay, this was not very deep, but at least he got some grasps about it (and re-explain things to his friends at a science exhibition we were visiting!).
I don't think so. Particle physics works within its domain of application and one does not need to rely on it to explain things for which other formulations are easier and work. It is moreover often impossible to follow billions of elementary particles at the macroscopic level (which is why classical physics for instance, is still very very valid).
I am dealing with the general public for more than 10 years... I am well aware of this. Maybe I am dreaming here, but we won't know if we won't try :)
If you build your application on #BOINC then the huge power of team #Gridcoin can potentially process the data for you. We already do work for CERN on the ATLAS project.
Thanks for the suggestion. I am however not so sure about how #BOINC cool help here, at least for now. We so not need any CPU power at the moment. Assuming we undergo a full physics project in the future, although this will be a theory project and not an ATLAS/CMS one, this could be considered. But I cannot see this before a few months from now. Anyways, I am keeping the idea in a corner of my head. Thanks for proposing it ;)
OK I wasn't sure from your post if it was feasible, you would need to design the application to take advantage of parallel processing if it's to be suitable for BOINCing.
Good luck
This is fine. I need to find some motivation (and time) to parallelize my framework ;)
Hi @lemouth. I would love to participate on this. It sounds very exciting and interesting. I usually use python but I know C++. I am an physics undergraduate about to graduate and this could even be my thesis project. Hope to contribute and see more details about it. What are the next steps?
Thanks for your nice offer to participate! For the moment, I am adding you to my list. I will write more about what to do in practice within the next few days.
To know whether this is possible, I guess this may depend on your university. But of course, this could definitely be part of an undergraduate thesis! This was the thesis of one student of mine, from Paris, one year ago.
I know C++, I was going to do my website in C++ but there are no APIs for interacting with the steem blockchain or RPC nodes. So, Python because the language to use. I love operator overloading and templates.
Here, the idea is to develop a code that is independent from the steem blockchain, but where the blockchain is used, through utopian, to open the door of science to external c++ developers. i guess this is a slightly different problem.
Do you want to give it a try? :D
Do you have a paper to share that an undergrad in Mathematics can understand? Are there scientists with lots of Steem power?
This will come later. Not a paper itself, but enough material in posts for anyone to understand what is going on. Bu I first need to design them ;)
Please check the @steemstem project :)
wow amazing stuff @lemouth!
it's been almost 11 years since i've written anything in C++, but if i can help somewhere i'll be more than happy to :)
Hi @mcfarhat! A long time we haven't chatted ^^
Coding is like biking. One never forgets (and one is always kind of ashamed of what has been developed in the past). I am adding your name to my list! More from me soonish!