- #1
C10
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- 0
Wondering if anyone has developed a scaling heuristic for the relationship between size of accelerator and smallest size that can be probed with it. With so many data points, something ought to emerge, perhaps a modified power law. Adding a time axis could make a Moore's "law" projection for performance and cost. Also perhaps define a wall more closely related to what a society might ever hope to achieve in this area of research more realistic than the "ring as big as a galaxy" extreme.
It might be interesting as a teaching tool in a few ways. One is to show connections between complexity and cost of real engineering and construction, and the subtlety of what are (in a sense) the intellectual constructs to which the tools are applied. Another is to show in a richer way why it is difficult - and how difficult it is - to observe just the next level down from wherever we are, let alone the "bottom" (if there is one). It might also provide some nice Fermi problems.
I am especially interested in how pre-exponential or power-law factors change with advancing technology in electron, nucleon and heavy-ion accelerators. Do the major leaps in effectiveness from linac to synchrotron to wake-field and beyond represent a progression that is itself more or less linear, rapidly increasing, or (ugh) asymptotic when viewed through this lens?
Thanks-
C10
It might be interesting as a teaching tool in a few ways. One is to show connections between complexity and cost of real engineering and construction, and the subtlety of what are (in a sense) the intellectual constructs to which the tools are applied. Another is to show in a richer way why it is difficult - and how difficult it is - to observe just the next level down from wherever we are, let alone the "bottom" (if there is one). It might also provide some nice Fermi problems.
I am especially interested in how pre-exponential or power-law factors change with advancing technology in electron, nucleon and heavy-ion accelerators. Do the major leaps in effectiveness from linac to synchrotron to wake-field and beyond represent a progression that is itself more or less linear, rapidly increasing, or (ugh) asymptotic when viewed through this lens?
Thanks-
C10