Why is CERN better known than ITER?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the public recognition of CERN compared to ITER, exploring reasons for the disparity in awareness and perceived impact on society. Participants examine factors such as media coverage, public interest in different areas of physics, and the historical context of both institutions.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Meta-discussion

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants suggest that CERN's prominence in media and its historical significance contribute to its greater public recognition compared to ITER.
  • Others argue that the LHC's imminent operation generates more interest than ITER's long-term goals.
  • A participant questions the assumption that ITER will have a greater impact on daily life than CERN's discoveries, citing CERN's contributions to technology like the internet.
  • There is a discussion about the general public's preference for theoretical physics over experimental physics, with some noting that popular science often focuses on more sensational topics.
  • Some participants express skepticism about the effectiveness of public relations in influencing funding decisions for scientific research.
  • Concerns are raised about the relevance of funding sources and the implications of corporate influence on government science funding.
  • A participant mentions the National Ignition Facility as a potential competitor to ITER in achieving controlled fusion, introducing an alternative perspective on fusion research.
  • Another participant emphasizes that CERN's funding comes from public taxes, challenging claims about corporate influence on its financial support.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a variety of views on the reasons for CERN's recognition versus ITER, with no clear consensus on the underlying factors. Disagreements arise regarding the implications of public interest in different physics fields and the influence of funding sources.

Contextual Notes

Some claims about public interest and funding mechanisms are based on personal opinions and anecdotal evidence, with no definitive data provided to support them. The discussion includes various assumptions about the impact of different areas of physics on society.

  • #31
humanino said:
Well at least without their contribution it's not clear when it would have happen. How it happened is quite an interesting story.

Sure, but we're not talking about *the internet* (which is TCP/IP and the entire non-central networking idea behind it). They invented ONE (successful, true) protocol on top of it, which was a networked hypercard system, and they USED the internet to do so. usenet already existed (on the internet), email already existed, FTP already existed. They just added one more protocol, for the hypercard thing, which was HTTP (and the markup language HTML). BTW, the HTTP from CERN was HTTP 0.9, which was nothing else but a cooked-down version of FTP.
I'm pretty sure that if CERN wouldn't have invented it, somebody else would have done so quite quickly. I don't want to do away with CERN's merit in inventing the WWW, but claiming that they invented *the internet* is to me, quite shocking, as it already existed for about 20 years when they claimed to do so.
 
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  • #32
vanesch said:
I'm pretty sure that if CERN wouldn't have invented it, somebody else would have done so quite quickly.
This is a belief. Was the invention of optical fiber as important ?

Besides, if one really wants to go into this, one must still recognize the importance of public research (this time not CERN) on ARPANET.
 
  • #33
humanino said:
This is a belief.

Of course, given that it is about a counterfactual situation, it can not be anything else but a belief. However, the reason why I think it was an inevitable invention was that it was beginning of the 90-ies, when graphical user interfaces started to become wide-spread (first macintoshes, first versions of windows,...). As such, all the pure ascii-based internet protocols would have gotten sooner or later something that gets a bit more "clickable", and hypercard was already a locally existing graphical user interface document access system. You only needed to do it over a network.

first mac: 1984
first windows: 1985
Notecards: 1984 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoteCards
Hypercard: 1987 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercard)
Tim Berners Lee (at CERN) invents HTTP and HTML in 1989-1990.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners_Lee

but IMO everything was "ready and set" for this move.
 
  • #34
vanesch said:
first mac: 1984
first windows: 1985
Notecards: 1984 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoteCards
Hypercard: 1987 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercard)
Tim Berners Lee (at CERN) invents HTTP and HTML in 1989-1990.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners_Lee

but IMO everything was "ready and set" for this move.
Digging even further back in time,
Memex: 1945, Vannevar Bush http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush
Project Xanadu: 1980s, Ted Nelson http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #35
WarPhalange said:
Every year we get a stream of freshmen who want to major in physics and when I ask why, they always say they are interested in "quantum" and "string theory" and "relativity". The catch? They have no idea what those things are even about.

Its kind of why women look better at closing time, you're just too drunk to really notice them properly by then.
 

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