April 24, 2024

Interview with Steven Weinberg - “The philanthropist hypothesis is not necessary”

Interview with Steven Weinberg – “The philanthropist hypothesis is not necessary”

“There is no need for the hypothesis of a benevolent creator.”

Stephen Weinberg said during a 2009 interview in Bern, where this photo was taken,

Professor Weinberg, the particle accelerator at Cern, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), should finally start in mid-November. Is it justified to spend more than four billion Swiss francs to find some new particles?

The LHC is more than just having a few particles. It is about discovering the laws of nature. The particles we’re looking at are a step in that direction. It fits with what we think of as the laws of the universe.

This is worth billions of francs?

We actually discussed this question in the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In Texas, we’ve been working on a project similar to the Large Hadron Collider, the Superconducting Collider, or SSC for short. Congress suspended the Supreme Security Committee. It was a democratic decision. We couldn’t convince the public that this project was worth the money.

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