 Well welcome everybody, this is a session on new frontiers in physics. It's been six years since that glorious day when people walked out at CERN and announced that they had discovered the Higgs boson, or the evidence for the Higgs boson. And I think the Higgs boson decay particle has now been seen, or evidence for that, or the decay process, but it's uncertain really where we go from here. At least the public, I think, is maybe a little confused about what's next. And so this is a chance for us to hear from people who are prepared to give us the straight poop, as it were. We have an hour session. There will be time for questions from the audience. So please, if you have them, we'd be happy to hear them when the time comes. I think we'll probably have a microphone to pass around. And when you have a question, if you wouldn't mind identifying yourself just so we know who we're talking to. So without any other announcements to make, I'll simply introduce our speakers. To my immediate left is Fabiola Genotti. She's the Director General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which is better known, I think, as CERN. And as I learned, just become a member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. So congratulations on that. And to her left is Wang Yifeng, the Professor at the Institute of High Energy Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences here in the People's Republic of China. So Fabiola Genotti, can I start with you? The frontiers of high energy physics, where are we now? I mean, there's a temptation for science writers to say we've discovered everything there is to discover so you can all pack up and go home now. But I don't think that's the case. So it's very interesting questions. First of all, good morning, everyone. So it's a very exciting time for fundamental physics, for particle physics, because as you said correctly, on the one hand, we have the impression that we well, we know that we have learned a lot. So we essentially we have a theory called the Standard Model of Particle Physics that described the elementary particle that we have observed so far. In a very precise and correct way, in the sense that all the particles that have been predicted by the Standard Model have been discovered. These are the particles that make up the ordinary matter of which we are made, electrons and quarks. These are also the particles that transfer the interaction, the fundamental interaction at the microscopic level, like the photon that is responsible for transferring the electromagnetic force. And we have now the X boson, which was the only missing piece of the Standard Model and is very special particle because it plays a very important role in the evolution of the universe and also in our own existence because it's a very specific role in the mechanism that gives mass to the elementary particles which is fundamental for the evolution of the universe. This theory has been verified with very high precision by experiments and facilities across the world at CERN, but also many other laboratories in the US, in Asia, and so it works very well. Now the problem is that this theory, although it is correct, is not complete. Not being complete means that there are many open questions out there. To which the Standard Model is not able to answer. So the typical, the template of the question is what we call the dark universe. So to give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem today with the Standard Model and the theories we know, we understand only 5% of the universe. The rest is unknown, this means it's made of forms of energy and matter that cannot be explained with the theories that we have today with the Standard Model. So, for instance, if you consider dark matter, which is about 25% of the universe, it's called dark because of our ignorance about its composition, but also dark because it doesn't interact with our instruments or we deduce its presence from indirect evidence like gravitational motion of galaxies. Well, there is no single particle in the Standard Model, no single particle of those that we have discovered so far that can explain the properties of dark matter. So it's an exciting time because, of course, we scientists, we like very much to understand things, but we are even more happy when we don't understand things because it means that there is still a lot to find. So dark matter, dark energy, matter, antimatter, symmetry in the universe and many, many other open questions today cannot be simply explained with what we know. So there is a full territory to explore and also the very exciting things is that there is no single instrument today among those that humanity has developed from accelerator to telescopes, underground, detector, et cetera, that can give us the guarantee to address and answer successfully all the questions. So the only way we have to understand the mysteries is to deploy in parallel all the experimental approaches and all the instruments that we have developed thanks also to strong advances in technology for accelerators, detectors and other instruments. And that's why also particle physics is becoming more and more global because we cannot afford building 10 times the same instruments. We need to coordinate across the globe so that we maximize the chances to address the questions and being able to answer them. OK, Wang Yifan, do you want to add something to that? Because I think it also asks the question, well, what do we need that doesn't exist right now in terms of facilities? I agree very much what just Fabiola said, what we understood from the standard model and also the existing experimental facts could not coherently and completely describe our universe. And we have a number of issues which cannot be described by the standard model. For example, there is no dark matter particles in the framework of standard model. We are not able to understand the dark energy. We have a lot of issues like even the mass of heat itself. We don't understand it very well. So there are a number of issues we have to address using the new instruments. So I think the globe is now the time for us to think globally and also to coordinate globally that we go different approaches and try different roads and try in the end to find the final solutions. So no one can tell which one is the only right one. So we have to try all the different approaches. So I should say I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Joe Palca. I'm a reporter for NPR and National Public Radio. It's a radio network in the United States. And the question from what you just said is when you have to talk to people because I have to talk to people who don't know anything about the high energy physics world. And the question they always ask me is why is this important? Why do we have to spend so much money to answer these questions? What is this the best thing we should be spending our money on? So how do you must be faced those questions as well? How do you answer them? It's the first time. Oh, OK. Well, I was clever of me then, really. That's really good. I mean, I'm not sure my answer is the idea is perfect. It's correct, but I try my best. Very often we have to face, as you said, government officials, funding agencies, general public journalists and so on. So we have to explain why we want to go this way and why we need to spend this money on the pure science projects. So I think, first of all, I think a science dream is really take us to a new stage. I think the human beings, if you don't have the science dreams, if you don't have the kind of driving force to force you to look for something new as a human being, we're not going to move forward. I think in the last thousands of years, we managed to end up here is because we have our dreams. So I think we should not lose this kind of dreams. Secondly, of course, when you understand something, you may try to use it. But this is not our first goal. But as a byproduct, in the end, you were benefit from this kind of discoveries, new technology tools and so on. And thirdly, I think this kind of large science project which could unite the effort by all the countries, all different people is actually a good way for peace, for global benefit and also for training of the young scientists because the innovation for the society very much should come from the young talent with great, complete new ideas, not just progressively. And this kind of great young talent should be trained in some way, or at least a fraction of them come from the basic science. They are looking for something which is not for immediate use. Otherwise, we're not going to have really great jumps for our society. So I think a good training of the people with dreams is also one of the main goals for such a science project. I can always stress what is working. Yes, what if I'm just said, I think there are many aspects. One is the fact that as knowledge is one of the highest aspiration for a human being as clever beings. So we have a brain and of course the thirst for knowing more, for exploring and for understanding has been with us since since human beings are on earth. It's like the arts is the same thing. Are we going to say we don't fund the arts, music, concerts, museums because it's useless in terms of practical life? So that's interesting. We have the right and the duty of learning more and more. The second thing is that looking at the impact on society. Fundamental research is usually the one that brings us, as history shows, the most important breakthroughs. Of course, it takes time. Sometimes it takes decades. It's not does not have an impact, immediate impact like applied science because applied research targets a given product. So it's usually as a faster cycle. Fundamental science sometimes takes decades, but the disruption of the breakthroughs are enormous. So the example that everybody takes is an example of quantum mechanics and general activity. When they were developed, they were considered to be useless knowledge because they were very far away from even from our normal world because they have to do with a very small world, microscopic world. And so quantum mechanics has some of the phenomena really odd for our day by day life. Or the scale of the universe. And yet we know very well that without quantum mechanics, modern electronics will not exist. But I think I would like to stress is that the fathers of these great discoveries, theoretical discoveries of last century. So if take Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck, Bohr, et cetera, we're not trying to develop new electronics. We're not trying to develop GPS. They were trying to understand how the universe works. And so it's very, very important that while we support applied research and which is of course very fine, we also don't miss tomorrow's Einstein and tomorrow's Heisenberg because we don't fund fundamental research. No, it's interesting. And but they also it's those are interesting examples because Einstein didn't need any real equipment very little because he was a theorist. Yes. Right. Exactly. You are right. You are right. But but but then, you know, what what he developed quantum mechanics at the end and tailed them some, you know, it triggered some studies. Then then over time required equipment that required people and quite the resources. So it's no, it's theorists. They can throw out anything. It's up to the experimentalists to say whether they're right or not. But I didn't, but but I actually I have an announcement to make. This is this is very exciting. I've been putting my pennies away for the last twenty or five years as a journalist and I've now am asked six hundred billion dollars, which I am prepared to give to you. No, I'll give you a six hundred six six hundred billion dollars for you to use to make the next instrument or hire the next general billion billion. No, billion. I'm giving you this is I've been really frugal. So so I so but I'm giving it all away because I I I'm so impressed with what you guys have said so far and I want to know how you're going to spend the money. What would you do with that kind of windfall? Well, six billion is a lot. It's six hundred six hundred billion. Yeah, it's it's a lot. Even more it's well, I mean, it's it's more than what we have dreamed ever. Well, well, I mean, certainly with a fraction of it, we would like to build an instrument to understand the newest and the particles. This is extremely small and they and the infinite large part of the of the world around us. So so we think that we should build, say, telescopes, satellites, large accelerators and so on and try to understand the the inner structure of the matter and try to understand the universe and try to look for dark matters and try to understand the dark energy and so on. I think six hundred billion is really a lot. And if you if you really can give us give me a fraction of it, I'll be extremely happy. But but but I I'm what I'm trying I'm doing being silly, of course, but I'm asking, is there a thing that you would like to build? Is there a educational system you would like to inaugurate? Is there is there something that that money would allow you to do that you can't do now? Because all those things are happening that that you just described. They're just not happening perhaps as fast as they would if I could give you six hundred billion dollars. Well, I mean, this moment with one proposal we are actually working on is a large accelerator with a circumference of 100 kilometers. And these accelerators going to produce millions of hicks and try to understand its properties in a great detail and try to look for hints for evidence, which is not being able to describe by the current standard model. And this machine only need a percent of your six billion. So it'd be great if you can give me well. Well, OK, so would you also build a bigger machine or I think it's very important to to put the money in in developing the technologies, because if you give me all the money now and I cannot build, you know, the dream accelerator now we need the time to develop the technologies and we need the people. So money means being able to have more people to grow a new generation of scientists and engineers, physicists, et cetera, and also being able to move fast with the technology, which, by the way, also have an impact on society. As we said before, I think that we need to build a set of complementary instruments to attack the big question in fundamental physics in a complementary way. So it could be telescopes, it could be interferometer for gravitational wave studies, could be accelerator. Of course, I am a particle physicist and I believe that accelerators will continue to play a leading role also in the future, will not be the only instrument, it will not be the leading role, but it will be a leading role. So I would invest the money in that direction. But technology is the key word in all respects for for accelerator, for detectors, for computing. What about computational questions? Because there's a lot of data that is maybe overwhelming to current technologies in terms of computer science. Yeah, so that's why I mentioned computing, not only in terms of hardware sourcing and developing, but also new computational methods. And there again, we need the people. It's also educating new computer scientists and of course people talk today about artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc. But behind that, there are human brains. But behind that, there are people who have to push the technology. So I think that we will find a way to use your 600 billion dollars. All right, good. Well, okay, now that we've agreed that there's things you could do with the money, and since I'm afraid I just got a notification that my stock portfolio has crashed, and so I don't have the 600 billion any more, how do you do that? As you said, no one country, it seems, can do that anymore. So how do you build these international relationships that allow countries to get together? Well, first of all, you need to have a great goal and your science program should be attractive. And once it's understood by all the scientists in the world that this is a great science project and they will come. And of course then they have to convince their government to take their money to a particular country to use all together. So I think then of course there are politics involved, and in this sense I think CERN is a great example that was very successful in the last 60 years to bring the international money into one place, to a one project. So I think this is a model and we should all try to use a similar way, not the exact same CERN way of doing things, but a very similar kind of approach so that we could work together. I think a particle physics community have this kind of tradition, have the kind of understanding how to do this. So we... You said not exactly the CERN way. What do you think has to change or is there some specific thing? CERN is an organization and there are certain things which are probably only suitable for say European countries. This is a lot of European, what I'm called the smaller countries. And in the future if we are going to build something new for a big project, say if we would like to bring Japan, United States and all the European countries together, I think the model probably will be slightly different. And people may only interest in the project, not the institution, but CERN is really an institution. So I think in the future, there may be different interests, different ways. But I think the key is that we have the same science goals. We want to work together. And I think we particle physics are clever enough to invent a mechanism to reach our goals. Well, yeah, but we are already made a good step forward toward this model. For instance, at CERN, as you know, we run the Large Hadron Collider, which is the most powerful accelerator. And of course, most of the budget, most of the funding for this project came from the CERN budget, from CERN Member States or mainly European. But there have been important contributions to the project coming from the US and from Japan, for instance. So clearly, I think that we, there is a lot of discussion already in the community and we are aware of the challenges ahead and say in the particle physics community, worldwide, globally. And so, for instance, at CERN, now we are running what we call the High Energy Frontier Instruments, the Large Hadron Collider, but Japan and the US are concentrating on other topics, like the study of the neutrinos, which are very intriguing and interesting particles. So at CERN, we don't do any neutrino physics, but we collaborate with those countries on their project and vice versa, they collaborate with us on the energy frontier. And so, likewise, with China for future projects. So I think that we clearly understand that the next step is to be really global. Yeah, I just, as you were talking, though, I was thinking that it's very hard to tell a politician you have to share and play nice with others, because every politician that I know wants to take credit for anything that he or she is able to generate in terms of funding. So is it doable? I mean, you've had a lot of experience with that. What do you tell them? How do you tell them it's a joint effort? Yeah, it is because studying the neutrinos is not less exciting than studying the energy frontier. So if every big region, say Europe, Asia, and the Americas have their big instrument, or their important instrument, then it's easier to share. See what I mean? Yeah, no, I understand. So I'm still, I mean, okay, so we need a workforce. We need some new tools. What do we do in the meantime? I mean, prepare for that? Or there's a lot of research going on now, as you say. So what can we expect to hear in the next five years from that researcher? Is this one of those things where if we knew it, to expect we wouldn't be doing it? Well, I think we just have to develop proposals and develop technologies and train young people and try to be ready for the next big project. I think it is right now a turning point. We completed the discovery of all the particles in the standard model, and now we need to look for a way to go to the next step. So it is probably a little bit bigger pause, and then we go ahead with a big jump. Well, at the moment, of course, in particular at CERN, but there are many other facilities in the world looking at complementary aspects. At CERN we are running the LHC, and we are doing essentially along two different lines. First of all, understanding the expose on better and better. It was only discovered six years old, so it's a small child. It's not as well-known as the other particles. It's also very special particles, as I mentioned before. It's not a matter particle. It's not a particle responsible for transmitting the interaction at the fundamental level. It's a particle that is related to the way elementary particle acquire mass. So we believe that this particle can be a door into new physics. The new physics that makes playing dark matter, dark energy and all the nice things that we mentioned before. So we need to understand it in great detail, and we made a lot of progress over the past six years. We know it much better, but we need to improve this precision. And at the same time, we are searching in parallel, we are searching for manifestation of this new physics that may help us to answer the open question. In the meantime, we are already thinking about the future facilities because the lead time is very long, for this aspect. So to give you an idea, the first discussion about the opportunity and the physics opportunities and the challenges of the Large Hadron Collider took place in the early 80s, 84 or so, in a famous workshop in Lausanne, people started to brainstorm. And operational DLHC started in earnest in 2010, and physics exploitation will end in 2037. So it's really a 50-year-long project. So it's not too early to think about the next facility, which means developing the physics goals, the physics opportunities, the physics motivation, and in parallel, the technologies. I want to ask one historical question and then one stupid question about the science because I love asking stupid questions. And then I'd like to open it up to everybody who's in the room to ask questions. But the historical question was, is what was the effect on the field when the United States canceled the superconducting supercollider? What did that do to high-energy physics? I think it's a disaster. It sends a very wrong message to the community. Somebody misunderstood that science, or that particular science is not great. And secondly, this kind of large science facility is very difficult, very risky, and can easily fail. So I think these will discourage people to go ahead to come up with new projects, to come up with great ideas. So I think that was a big mistake. We should learn from it. I think a lot of the US particle physics and also the whole world learn from that. So once you have great ideas, no matter how difficult it is, you just have to go ahead. I should just add, does everybody in the room know what the superconducting supercollider is? It was a giant project that is partially built. 87 kilometer of 40 TV. 87 kilometer ring. I can't answer for everybody watching around the world on the internet. So if you don't know what that is, you'll, at least you're on a computer, you can go look it up. But it was dramatic, but also as we have to take a look at the positive side of it, the US physicists were active and building the SSC, then came and joined the Large Hadron Collider. So it was really, then it was a very important step forward toward international collaboration. It's thanks also to that, that we have now this very fruitful collaboration with the US and with this reciprocity. They are working with us. We are working with them on their project. So at the end, it boosted international collaboration. If you're talking about money, and I don't want to give a few numbers because the people will say SSC was too expensive, but it's blah, blah, blah. So SSC was proposed roughly at about four billion dollar price tag. It ended up something like eight billion dollars and the people believed that they need a total of roughly 10 billion at that time. So they spent two billion and they closed down. If they insist, they probably had to put down the eight billion dollars at that time. And if they managed to finish, the US now would have SSC collider. They probably have to start covered a bit long before they see the Higgs particles. Probably in 90s, they already have the Higgs particles. And then now it is time for them to do the upgrade of the machine. They go to the from a 40 TV, they may go to a 100 TV now with the existing tunnel. So the whole field is going to be very different if at that time the US could spend a few billion dollars extra. If you think it now, it's a bargain. There's a, you're reminding me that the same equation, the same discussion is going on in the United States about the James Webb Space Telescope which has exceeded its cost and delayed its actually implementation. But I imagine, I mean, there's a lot of expectations about what that will show to answer some of these fundamental questions. And yet it seems like it's, I don't know why I used the expression too big to fail, but it's built. So it would sort of be a shame not to do something with it, but it's going to take a while to get it ready to do something. But this also essentially is a very good lesson for the fact that these big projects really need sustained funding over decades. And certainly European model of CERN is successful because the member states, 64 years ago, the member states committed to this organization and since then they have given us a constant budget with which we are building the Large Adron Collider, et cetera. So sustained funding is fundamental for big instruments and for big science. Well, political wins don't always, aren't always comfortable with accepting whatever previous commitments were made by other administrations. So that's a whole session which I'm not gonna host, thank you very much. Here's the dumb question. You said that the material that you're studying represents approximately 5% of what is out there. How do we know what that fraction is? Oh, we know it pretty well. Nowadays, thanks to a lot of experimental work made in particular by satellites or instruments looking at the universe and in particular, looking to what is called cosmic microwave background. Well, there are several demonstrations of dark energy and dark matter coming from the supernova, coming from gravitational motion of galaxies, but the precise numbers come in particular from mapping the residual, say, radiation from the big bang. And we are able to do so in looking at this tiny temperature variation which I have to do with the fluctuation in the original distribution of matter at the time of the few years after the big bang. By using these instruments, and this gives us the knowledge of dark matter and dark energy with quite precise numbers, I mean, at the level of a few percent. So, I mean, but is there any possibility that the calculation is based on the notion that the big bang is what big bang if maybe it's something else? Well, yeah, it's possible there are theories, for instance, so-called theory, and I don't want to go into technical details of emerging gravity theories, for instance, that argue that dark matter and dark energy are only the results of our poor understanding of gravity, large distances, okay? So these theories now are subject to the scrutiny of the community and they're not able, apparently, to reproduce this cosmic microwave background data. So it's a very interesting time and it's a very interesting debate in the scientific work. It's a frustrating thing, I think, for high-energy physics because you get a few centimeters below the surface in a discussion and, automatically, you're very complicated. So it's hard to bring the discussion into any depth because to go deep, you have to have a much deeper knowledge than most people have. So I appreciate you guys are trying and helping doing a great job, but it's always a little frustrating that in the end, we have to take your word for it because we don't really have any way to know we, the public. Well, I did say I would entertain questions from the audience and we have one here in the front and if you wait for the microphone, this gentleman here, and if you don't mind saying who you are, it'd be nice to know that. Okay, so hi. My name is Pedro Ochoa, I'm from Chile and I work in particle physics and I'm an optimist. I think that new physics is right beyond the corner, but I still think it's perhaps good to ask a somewhat tough question. What will be the impact on the field of particle physics? What will be the impact on CERN if the LHC finds nothing new beyond the standard model Higgs? Will it be possible, feasible, to convince funding agencies to give us money to build a next generation machine that will cover new energies? What's your outlook on that? Well, I am even more optimist than new and I think that even if we don't discover this world, yes, new physics, I think that we will manage to convince the politician. If you manage to convince everyone that science is not always discovery. Already discovering the expose has been a very important step forward for humanity. We understand when the Higgs mechanism started to be active in the universe, in the history of the universe, what are the consequences also for us being here. So this is a monumental discovery. Now, the LHC, even if it doesn't discover new physics, it will make a huge number of precise measurement and it will contribute in a very fundamental way to improve our understanding of particle physics and the fundamental interaction and will also give us indication of where to go because not discovering new physics allow us to discard some theories that have been very popular and very supported for decades and they are off. So it's really important to give the message that science is not just discovery. Discoveries, of course, are glamorous and they make the front page of the newspapers but science go ahead by little steps with a lot of patience, with a lot of day-by-day work which is as important as discoveries even if less glamorous. So I think this is the message and the next discovery is prepared by the very deep work of measurement that the previous machines have been doing. So I think even if we don't find anything at the HC but we still gain the knowledge because we know where is the place, the standard model, the current model still works in this energy range and we know that where the new physics is going to start. So we know where the boundary is between the existing standard model and the new physics approximately, of course. I think there was a question here. Thank you for that. Thank you. I'm curious, kind of, building on your last question, Jo. Could you maybe highlight one area or group or kind of area of research, maybe outside of your own institutions that kind of most excites you right now? Research outside. Well, it depends on what you mean outside your field. Outside of CERN, for instance. Ah, so yes, for instance, well, clearly neutrino physics is very exciting for me. It's very intriguing, this particle that interact very weakly, they can cross the earth without interacting. We know, you know, we discovered 20 years ago now that neutrino have masses, they transform into different species and this was a great breakthrough which also brought to Nobel Prize and this particles are really intriguing. We don't understand them well and again, as they expose them, they are adoring for new physics. So this is an example. Gravitational waves is another example, understanding, you know, the macro structure of the universe. So this is another on the large side of the spectrum. So I personally think that the cosmic microwave background is a great field. Although there are already two Nobel Prize awarded to this kind of experiments, I think still there are rooms for the future and it will help us to understand the origin of the universe when the big event just started and how this inflation really happened, really how it worked. Yes, there's some questions over here. My name is Chukang, I graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China from the Modern Physics Department. Historians, some historians say that scientific revolution really started when Tycho Brahe built his instruments and watched the sky and led to Kepler's three-year-old plant motion and later on, everything else. And obviously, you know, his equipment is no longer there, right? But you know, if you, you know, the audience, you go to Beijing airport, if you drive on the second ring road, when you arrive at Jian Guo Men, when you pay attention, you will see a lot of equipment. Actually you can see on the road from the Chinese imperial observer and those equipment are actually commissioned by Qing emperors and they were built by Jesuits because they brought the book and showed the emperor, you know, these are the equipment. So the equipment are copies of what Tycho Brahe has done. So if you're interested, you can actually see. So there was a tradition of Chinese building expensive scientific instruments. So my first question to Professor Wang is, you know, how's the Beijing Cyclotron project? How did it go? So, so, Tongbu Fushu, Tongbu Fushu, Jia Su Xi. You know, the second question is, the Chinese society is now very excited about quantum entanglement, right? So there's a lot of discussions among the people. And also China also launched the quantum satellite. And so I think it's easier to think that these, you know, quantum entanglement is done in a laboratory type of framework, but it's kind of hard to imagine these things can be done on a satellite and those kind of things. So how much is it science? How much is it really some other stuff? This is also Professor Wang. And can I, just so we can, maybe some people, Abe don't know about the accelerator that he's asking about. So maybe you can just talk a little bit about that and be, I'm gonna make you talk about what quantum entanglement is and why it's interesting and why you would wanna study it. So, we are going to build a Beijing Syncotron Relation Facility in the north of Beijing. It's a 1.3 kilometers circumference electron accelerator. The project is going to start probably by the end of this year. For the quantum entanglement, I'm not really expert of it, but I think it's a very important field. And of course, the science itself is a quantum mechanic, this is already known. The technology and the way how to use the quantum entanglement, I think there's a lot of things to be studied. Let me go on to this side of the chair. My name is Pranayanaarang, I'm on the faculty at Harvard and I find this conversation very interesting. I think the previous question about quantum entanglement really kind of set me up for this. So I'm a theorist who thinks about where we can take quantum technologies. And I find it interesting that in the conversation we've been drawing a very sharp line between fundamental work and applied technologies. And I was wondering if you could comment on everything in between, which is really the work of most people who identify as applied scientists where we think about some things that are really high risk and pine the sky, and some things that are maybe more three to five years. How should we be talking with, say, funding agencies? It should be promising them that, hey, everything I do will bear fruit in five years. It's gonna be great. Or should we actually give them the reality that some things will pan out and some things won't. And really with your experience working with these big projects, how do you address those questions? Okay, that was more questions than I intended to ask. Yeah, so if I understand well your questions, I think first of all, as I said at the beginning, of course, there are, it is both applied science, giving benefits in the short term and most fundamental research that may give fruits in decades. They are both important. They should be both pursued. Of course, industry usually is more prone to finance applied science in their fields. So, fundamental research is usually not funded by the private sector but by governments because it's longer term. Now, we should not give them, I hope I didn't give the impression, we didn't give the impression that what we do has nothing to do with applied science and technologies because the instruments that we build are really monster of technology. They are extremely complex. The Large Hadron Collider is a 27 kilometer ring filled with a state of the heart superconducting magnets which require developing cryogenics, superconducting material and vacuum technology, et cetera. So, I didn't mention the benefits, what we call the secondary benefits of fundamental research. One is of course the primary benefits. You discover something, you discover quantum mechanics, you have an impact in 20, 30 years from now on society but in order to discover the expose and to discover the goal of your fundamental research, you need very, very complicated instruments nowadays. Nowadays, fundamental research at all levels, big science, small science, tabletop, big accelerator, telescopes require very, very complex instruments and those instruments then in turn require the development of new technologies in many, many fields. So, in some sense, we also do applied science. Okay, so there is a very, very close, there are very, very close links. Although the goal is not an application, the goal is a fundamental research discovering the expose and discovering that matter, discovering that energy but at the same time we do a lot of applied science. Computing is another field. You wanna add anything to that? Okay. Yes, sir, in the back. Hello, thank you. I was really struck by three things that you've said so far. First, you talked about how science is a great motivator for inspiration, for creativity. Two, you talked about collaboration, how science can bring different countries together. And then you also talked a little bit about the scientific method where I basically heard you say, when there's a problem you don't have a solution to, you get excited and you're talking about how science invites skepticism, it invites facts in even if they don't conform to what you think might be true. My question for you is I know that both scientists also like spending time in the lab and usually enjoy interacting with their problems maybe more than getting out on the stage. But what role, if any, do you think scientists might play that they're not playing today to get this kind of thinking outside of the lab? And this scientific process of being more collaborative, being more curious, being more open to having your assumptions challenged. Since we're at the World Economic Forum, it seems an appropriate question. Yes, I think this is really a very good question. And most people think that scientists just working in the lab. And this is actually a large fraction of scientists working this way. But nowadays really more and more we have scientists working in a different way globally, working together. And these also had more impact in society and also give scientists opportunity to talk to different people and talk to the society, government and so on to tell them a different way of doing things. And also by doing this, you're actually not only spread out the knowledge of science and also tell people the method of scientific research and also the spirit of the science. So yes, I think we see more and more scientists doing this way but we probably have to do more and also go to public more towards, say, media and so on and the schools and try to do more towards this direction. If I can just... I agree fully with what Ifang said just to comment a bit. I think it's very important. I think I'm really supporting and promoting and arguing that a minimal educational, scientific education is fundamental for everyone. No matter what you choose to do in life afterwards in terms of critical thinking, problem solving, et cetera. So as Ifang said, it's very important that we scientists are more open to talk and really the dialogue with society is really enhanced not only because what we do belongs to everyone, not only because we are funded from public money but also because science nowadays has also aspect related to, as you mentioned, international collaboration and solving problem, et cetera and creativity that are very important values for society. I would like to bring one example. At CERNA, as I mentioned perhaps at the beginning, we attract something like 17,000 physicists mainly from all over the world and about 50% of them are young people. Young people mean PhD students and young postdoc. Typically only 10% of them remain in research in particle physics. 90% go elsewhere and about 50% go to the private sector. So we also have first of all the mission of educating the young people not only for research, we feel the responsibility of educating them for any work of life and society. And recently we made a poll, a sondage with these young people who left the field and we asked them if their experience at CERNA was useful to find the current job and more than 90% of them said that it was, they learned at CERNA was useful or very useful to find a job at the level of their expectation and talent. But at the same time, they rank the skills that they learn at CERNA as A, okay, what they learn first, computing of course. This is very important for everyone. And then international collaboration, collaborating with people from all over the world, creativity, problem solving capabilities and then working under pressure because we are specialists in working under pressure. So you see creativity collaboration and thinking, critical thinking, being able for instance, nowadays we talk a lot about fake news, okay. Do we have the method, do we have the tools to understand the difference? The scientific method, these are really the primary thing they learn. I would add that they learn how to deal with bureaucracy because that's an important question too in the back standing up. Hi, I'm Po Shan Lo. I'm on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. I'm also actually the national coach of the US Math Olympiad team. And about this, I have a question about your talent pipeline because I've observed that the most talented, quantitative high school students in the United States now predominantly are choosing, if they choose these fields, to do for example, computer science instead of mathematics. For example, when I, sorry, instead of physics, sorry, when I was at Caltech about 20 years ago, I wanted to study computer science and it wasn't a major, so I studied math and physics. Today at Caltech, 50% of the undergraduates are studying computer science. So it looks, this phenomenon started about five years ago. So it looks like there will be a significant decrease in the talent of a number of people who are interested in pursuing physics at the high level. First of all, is this a phenomenon that you noticed as it hit you guys? And second of all, what can you do to try to convince more of these young people that physics might be something to focus on? Go ahead. Thank you. So I agree with you, yes and no, so say. First of all, we have to be a little bit careful because sometimes there are waves among the young generation. There are periods where everybody studies medicine, periods where everybody goes, is attracted by computing science, et cetera. So there have been phases like that. For instance, we saw an impact on the fraction of physics students in Europe following the discovery of the expose. It went up, now I don't know, perhaps it goes down and then gravitational waves and then it goes up again. But it's true that we have to attract more people. So how do we attract them? Well, you know, one of the ways of attracting them, and this is something that we always discuss with governments, is to make sure that people who want to do, for instance, research in physics, do have the possibility of having a career, that there are enough jobs. Because of course, computing science, you, a young person, think, okay, even if I cannot continue any research, I will find a job in industry. Physics, usually people want to do research because it's more on looking for the big question, et cetera. So the most important thing is to really find, funding the jobs for the young people in all countries. I see that there are, of course, more virtuous countries that have more employment for researchers in physics, other countries that are not so well advanced in that respect. But really we have to push for having jobs in research for the young generation. I think this is fundamental. At just at one point, I think very often the media plays a very important role in these kinds of aspects. One thing I find sometimes a little bit worrisome and troublesome is that very often the media, scientists, particularly physicists, are described as the one who works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and so on, very often, I mean, kind of. So they don't enjoy their lives. So it frightens the young people to join us. So indeed, I think we should tell our young people how enjoyable the life of a physicist. Indeed, we do enjoy our life as a physicist. Yes, you're happy. Follow up on that. My name is Ken Fan. I was trained in mathematics from Columbia University many years ago on doing other silly things. Anyhow, my question is, historically, a lot of breakthroughs in physics are based on mathematical theories like Romanian geometry ahead of Einstein's relativity. So my question is, what are the existing mathematical theories or any branches are catching the imagination of leading physicists these days, not just particle physics, but in general? Thank you. That's a tough question. So first of all, I would like to make a little bit of comment on your... It's true that, of course, many breakthroughs come from theory, but then you need the instruments first to verify that theory is correct, but then look at gravitational waves. Now, the instruments are important to study the gravitational waves as messenger to understand the cosmos and to improve our understanding of the universe. So there has always been a hand-to-hand path between theory and experiments. And so now by studying the X boson with great precision, we can discover new phenomena. So breakthroughs come from both theory and experiments. Concerning theory, what theory excites people, it's a matter of taste. For me, for instance, any theory that attempts to unify gravity with the fundamental microscope or standard model interaction like string theories are clearly interesting and appealing. For me, theoretically, the big question is now how to unify the forces, the fundamental forces. Is there a particular field? No. Okay. Going back and forth, yes, sir. I am Michael Niemach. I'm a professor of physics at Cornell University and I study the cosmic inquiry background. One comment, I guess, is we're actually seeing it both in lots of growth in computer science but also in our physics major undergraduate program substantially, simultaneously. So it's not there at least pulling away from the physics undergraduates. My question is related to the comment earlier about fundamental research not being done in the private sector, which I agree with. Although historically, I think more has been done, for example, the cosmic inquiry background was discovered at Bell Laboratories. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about how we might encourage more fundamental research or cooperation with the private sector in the future. I think we didn't do a good job, at least in China. I think the US is actually much better. There are a lot of foundations which support the basic science. Simon's Foundation and the Calvary and all of this. But we don't have anyone in China. I mean, the entrepreneurs, they are more interested in applied kind of science or donations for schools, education and so on, but not for pure science. So I think we need to do more and try to convince people that science is really the future and we need more, say, private sector to be part of it. They are part of it in the sense that, of course, when we build these big instruments at the end built by industry, and we have a very strong partnership because usually what we do, we develop prototypes in us together with the industry and we learn together. And then once the prototype is mature enough, then the construction goes to industry. So there is a strong partnership but more on the instruments, on the applied part than on the X-Bows, for instance. I don't think we have actually time for another question. So I'm gonna add just my observations of what we've learned which is that even though there are not the kind of flashy discoveries that are waiting to be plucked off the tree and presented to the world that's waiting, there are still a lot of important basic research that's gonna go on, that's gonna improve our understanding of the universe. And I was very struck by something you said early on about people not asking, well, what's the value of a piece of art or a piece of music? There is a human need, desire to understand our world in this exploration. And I think this world that you're part of is a little bit opaque, but still so fundamental. It's sort of like saying, why are we here? And I think that kind of... When are we going? Where are we going? Why are we here? Why do we exist? Why didn't we blink out of antimatter and matter when things started? So I think the more the public as a communicator, the more the public understand that the results don't flow out like some sort of timetable where you can, like a train arriving in a platform, but they do come and they are so essential to understanding who we are that they're worth waiting for. And that's the sales pitch, but... Very good, very good, very good. I think that's what I take away from this. So with that, I'd like to thank the audience and I'd like you to join me in thanking our speakers today.