Dear Alexey and Lev Burov,
On another thread [Robert Groess'] you made notice of a quote from P. Anderson:
"In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science, much less society."
The statement is not unlike Steven Weinberg's remark, that
"The more comprehensible the universe becomes, the more it also seems pointless."
David Berlinski, a mathematician, remarks
"He had a point. The arena of the elementary particles... is rather a depressing place, and if it resembles anything at all it rather resembles a florescent lit bowling alley seen from the interstate, tiny stick figures in striped bowling shirts jerking up and down in the monstrously hot and humid night. What is its point?"
I suspect the 'stick figures' are Feynman diagrams. [By the way, if you have not read Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion, I think you would enjoy it very much.]
Anyway, you then asked, "If it is so, what do you think is the value of the particle physics for the humanity?", and you discussed the high cost of particle physics research, questioning the payoff.
The Higgs candidate has been found, as was to be expected by anyone who has read Andrew Pickering's Constructing Quarks, and supersymmetry, once felt to be a requirement for the Standard Model, is nowhere to be seen. No other particles are predicted [only resonances]. As you know from my essay, I view physics, particularly quantum physics, as mathematical projections onto physical reality. Due to its appropriateness in many physical situations the statistical nature of quantum mechanics delivers the goods. In particle systems QFT is essentially a bookkeeping system, based on a simplistic 'creation' and 'annihilation' formalism. I believe it is primarily a way to fit theory to data.
In contrast, I've found over several years that the predominant model from which QM is often heuristically derived is Stern-Gerlach, and physicists, after approximately a century, still do not understand the physics of one silver atom in an inhomogeneous magnetic field. In fact, I am, with others, building an experiment that will significantly affect QM if our research results are positive. We're self-funded, and, if successful, will have more impact on "real world" physics than the next few years operation of the LHC is likely to. So I agree with your implied sentiment.
My very best regards,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
