Big landscapesInspire big thinkingTHERE’S NOTHING LIKE AUSTRALIA FOR YOUR NEXT BUSINESS EVENT.This year we chose Australia for our global congress. It was an easy choice, as Australia’s proximity to Asia gave us theopportunity to attract many new delegates. The program was one of the best in years. <strong>New</strong> Australian developments inour field attracted a lot of interest and strong international research partnerships were established.Australia is on everyone’s list to visit, and it lured our highest number of delegates yet. There’s no doubt they’ll be talkingabout this convention for years to come.Dr Louise Wong,International Board MemberVISITAUSTRALIA.COM/BUSINESSEVENTS/ASSOCIATIONSFOR EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO PLAN YOUR AUSTRALIAN EVENT.
LEADERLOCATIONSUSA225 Wyman Street,Waltham, MA 02451Please direct telephone enquiries toour UK office +44 (0) 20 7611 1200UK110 High Holborn,London, WC1V 6EUTel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250AustraliaTower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue,Chatswood, NSW 2067Tel +61 2 9422 8559Fax +61 2 9422 8552ENRICO SACCHETTISUBSCRIPTION SERVICEFor our latest subscription offers, visitnewscientist.com/subscribeCustomer and subscription services arealso available by:Telephone 1-888-822-3242Email subscribe@newscientist.comWeb newscientist.com/subscribeMail <strong>New</strong> <strong>Scientist</strong>, PO Box 3806,Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953 USAOne year subscription (51 issues) $154CONTACTSContact usnewscientist.com/contactWho’s whonewscientist.com/peopleGeneral & media enquiriesenquiries@newscientist.comEditorialTel 781 734 8770news@newscientist.comfeatures@newscientist.comopinion@newscientist.comPicture deskTel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268Display advertisingTel 781 734 8770displaysales@newscientist.comRecruitment advertisingTel 781 734 8770nssales@newscientist.com<strong>New</strong>sstandTel 212 237 7987Distributed by Time/Warner RetailSales and Marketing, 260 Cherry HillRoad, Parsippany, NJ 07054SyndicationTribune Content AgencyTel 800 637 4082© 2015 Reed BusinessInformation Ltd, England.<strong>New</strong> <strong>Scientist</strong> ISSN 0262 4079 ispublished weekly except for the lastweek in December by Reed BusinessInformation Ltd, England.<strong>New</strong> <strong>Scientist</strong> at Reed BusinessInformation, c/o Schnell Publishing Co.Inc., 225 Wyman Street, Waltham,MA 02451.Periodicals postage paid atBoston, MA and other mailing offices.Postmaster: Send address changesto <strong>New</strong> <strong>Scientist</strong>, PO Box 3806,Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953, USA.Registered at the Post Office as anewspaper and printed in USA by FryCommunications Inc, Mechanicsburg,PA 17055Double or nothingWill the revamped LHC make or break physics?NATURE has proven remarkablyaccommodating to particlephysicists over the past century.Take the photon, devised byEinstein in 1905 as a theoreticalconvenience to help explainelectromagnetism and light.Nature obliged, and the photonturned out to be real. A quartercenturylater, Paul Dirac conjuredup antimatter. It soon turned upin cosmic rays.And so to 2012, when jubilantphysicists at CERN’s LargeHadron Collider, near Geneva inSwitzerland, announced that theyhad found the Higgs boson prettymuch where they expected it.The discovery of the Higgsput the finishing touch to thestandard model of particlephysics. Barring a few smallwrinkles, everything this theorypredicted has now been confirmedexperimentally. But completionof the model still leaves a lot forphysics to explain, with no clearindication of where to go next.With the LHC powering upagain after a two-year refit, for thefirst time there is no consensus onwhat it should find (see page 30).If the theoreticians keep theirrun of success going, it shouldturn up the first decent evidencefor supersymmetry, the nextgenerationtheory that couldexplain dark matter, gravity andother phenomena not covered bythe standard model. But then, ifyou believe the theories, the LHCshould already have seen manysuch indications. It hasn’t.That leaves theorists andexperimentalists alike in a state ofexcitement and trepidation. Therebooted LHC could demonstratethat supersymmetry is on theright track, albeit not quite as weexpected. It could find a clutchof new particles that point in asurprising direction. Or it couldfind nothing. Either of the first“ It would be a real sadness ifthe LHC discovers nothing,because then the subject Ilove would come to an end”two scenarios would be exciting.The last looms ominously.“It would be a real sadnessif the LHC discovers nothing,because then the subject I lovewould come to an end. But ifthat’s the way the universe is,that’s the way it is,” David Tong,professor of theoretical physicsat the University of Cambridge,told the audience last month ata <strong>New</strong> <strong>Scientist</strong> event in London.If the upgraded LHC isn’tpowerful enough to makeprogress, the days of smashingprotons together to reveal thefundamental nature of realityare probably over. We could notbe confident of finding anythingnew until we reached vastlygreater energies – too great forany collider conceivable today.But there are alternatives.Some argue that messy collisionsbetween protons are not the idealway to find physics beyond thestandard model. Plans alreadyexist for more precise electroncolliders – from the InternationalLinear Collider, which might bebuilt in Japan, to a circular colliderat CERN up to 100 kilometreslong – far bigger than the LHC.Our quest to understand thenature of reality thus stands ata crossroads. Past success hasbred confidence in the BigPhysics approach. Governmentagencies, emboldened by theexcitement of discovery and theemergence of spin-offs like theWorld Wide Web, have been happyto spend billions of dollars onparticle experiments. But if theLHC comes up with nothing,will the confidence still be thereto fund the next generation ofmachines?Many physicists would claimthat their success over the yearsowes more to judgement thanluck. <strong>No</strong>w, without the steadyhand of agreed theory to guidethe way, they may need all theluck they can get. ■7 March 2015 | <strong>New</strong><strong>Scientist</strong> | 5
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