Europe leads the way in large particle colliders. What will my country’s future development look like?

In addition, whether the new large collider can discover the "supersymmetric particles" hypothesized in high-energy physics is not the only goal of this project. CEPC can improve the measurement accuracy of the Higgs particle to about 1%, which can confirm the properties of the Higgs particle and determine whether it is completely consistent with the predictions of the Standard Model. CEPC is also expected to measure the self-coupling of the Higgs particle for the first time and determine the form of vacuum phase transition involving the Higgs field, which is of great significance to the early evolution of the universe.

As for whether the Chinese can lead the subsequent experiments and analysis of the collider, we need to take the initiative to cultivate more talents starting from the construction of a large collider, so that we can have a greater voice. As for whether to build such a large accelerator, Professor Wang believes that theoretical physics research is important, but experimental physics means are even more indispensable.

So, should we build this "hugely expensive, potentially unsuccessful, or potentially glorious" project? Different people have different opinions. Now CERN has given a clear answer, betting all its efforts on the construction of the Large Hadron Collider. So, as latecomers, should we follow suit?

To build or not to build, a choice that may determine the fate of the country

Not long ago, it was reported online that Dushan County, a poor county in southwest Guizhou, had a local debt of 40 billion yuan, and what was left behind were a series of unfinished image projects. The official report stated that the vast majority of the funds raised by the government were used for the construction of infrastructure, poverty alleviation, and livelihood projects, and played a good role.

We don't know what role these have played. But the debt of 40 billion still surprised people. But 40 billion is exactly the investment amount for the construction of the first phase of the CEPC project.

Although there is no particularly direct comparability, instead of spending huge amounts of money on large-scale infrastructure, it is indeed better to increase the scale and proportion of basic scientific research expenses and invest in the Large Hadron Collider CEPC project.

Moreover, we have successful experience. In the 1980s, when China's economic situation was far worse than it is now, we successfully built the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider, trained a generation of high-energy physics talents, and achieved good scientific results in the field of τ-charm physics. However, there is a clear gap between us and the cutting-edge fields.

(European Large Hadron Collider)

Now, facing this new window of upgrading in the field of high-energy physics, my country has the first opportunity to compete with Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries. If we miss this opportunity, there may be no chance for China at the high-energy physics table in the future.

If China and the United States' research in basic science is also affected by more political disputes in the future, my country's basic scientific research will be in a more passive situation.

From a realistic perspective, my country already has the financial strength and technical foundation to build such a large-scale scientific project. Moreover, the huge investment will in turn promote the upgrading of my country's domestically produced high-precision instruments, basic materials, processing equipment and other technologies. Large projects will promote the localization rate of these technologies. At the same time, it can also make my country a research center for high-energy physics, attract the world's top intellectual resources to settle in China and visit for a long time, build a leading scientific research center in China, and cultivate a larger scale of basic scientific research talents.

Of course, among so many major scientific research projects in the country, which one to support and which not to support involves the game among numerous research institutions and the allocation of scientific research resources. The country needs to make careful considerations and provide different stages and levels of support for the development of different scientific research projects according to their importance.

The Large Collider also needs to be given a chance to be approved for construction in a fair competition with other scientific research projects. This is the important reason for us to start this huge scientific project immediately.

From a long-term perspective, the development of a large collider is still the only way for my country to achieve breakthroughs in the field of high-energy physics. The investment in basic scientific research is not only a question of input-output ratio and whether it will benefit at present, but also a question of the future development of a country.

Persistent investment in basic scientific research may not produce actual results in improving people's livelihood and promoting economic development in the short term, but it will bring new technologies and methods that can enable sustainable development and even breakthroughs to a country and even the world in the future.

In 1970, Sister Mary Jucunda from Zambia wrote a letter to Ernst Stuhlinger, deputy director of science at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, asking: How can you afford to spend billions of dollars on the Mars project when there are so many children on Earth who don't have enough food to eat?

Stuhlinger replied in a letter titled "Why Explore the Universe?" He said: The voyage to Mars cannot directly provide food to solve the problem of famine. However, it brings a lot of new technologies and methods that can be used outside the Mars project, which will generate benefits several times the original cost. And this is indeed the case. Every breakthrough in basic science brings many unexpected practical technologies and major inventions to real life.

Whether it is the FCC project newly supported by CERN or the CEPC project that Chinese scientists are striving for, although they will encounter various difficulties and doubts during the implementation process, we should not deny scientists' curiosity and enthusiasm for exploration in the science of elementary particles in the universe, nor should we discredit these scientific research investments from the perspective of "conspiracy theory" or "selfishness theory."

In human history, if there is an innovative undertaking, if we choose not to do it, we may not know what we have missed, but if we bravely choose to do it, even though there is a possibility of failure in the future, we will know what we may have missed, and we will also know what we have gained.

What deserves our serious attention is that in the field of high-energy physics, if we lose the priority in discovering new theories, we may never miss the entire future of physics, and China will no longer have any say.

Compared with those image projects that cost huge amounts of money to build, shouldn’t we think of ways to build a major scientific project of the future that will make our countrymen proud and attract foreign countries to come?