Comment by CRUDite

Well, why not? As many point out it has interesting engineering challenges, and gives particle physicists something to do.. However, maybe there is nothing to do after all. One wonders if this is a last hail mary for those clinging to super symmetric particle theories or maybe for multiple higgs ideas. Or just for a job. There doesnt seem any sound reason to me to think the particle desert isnt real and wont stretch all the way to GUT energy. Though i suppose 13.4 - 100 may yield extra discoveries of some nature. I used to read this blog http://resonaances.blogspot.com, though im not a particle physicist, it was interesting. The posts dried up and it was hard not to detect pessimism after a null result via supersymmetry. Indeed i seem to remember hearing no one would want to go into particles as a career now and many will pivot into condensed matter physics etc. So what are they gonna do for 25 years? I guess the youngsters 25 years hence will have to dust off the particle books. Meta materials, gravity waves and plasma physics are so much more intetesting now.. I seem to remember reading about plasma wave accelerators the size of a table top many years ago with giant theoretical energies. Interesting to note the ssc had 40 Tev energy which would have fairly concretely answered the ss question without the need of another machine