That’s just the nature of the machines. You spend so much effort to get to the nuggets, but you still get the nuggets.
Does China have experience making particle colliders? I’ve seen their magnetic confinement fusion research devices. Even in the design stage, there are lessons yet to be learned that are well documented in other machines. That doesn’t mean the people working on them are dumb, or that all fields of large-magnetic-confinement-machine-building physicists are in the same position, but I think we should be pretty sure whoever builds the next big particle collider is actually up to the task.
These don’t get built by countries. They get built in countries. The home country matters and they’ll need to put up funding, but it’s an international workforce.
> The home country matters...but it’s an international workforce.
Given the current state of the world and the trajectory of the West's relationship with the Chinese government, it may have to be built by China if it's going to be built in China.
There's a difference between theoretical and practical expertise.
I don't know much about particle accelerators, but I do know a bit about advanced manufacturing and I think you might be surprised at the degree to which Chinese industry is still functionally dependent on foreign machinery and expertise.
This is a country that, until about two years ago, couldn't successfully produce an entire ballpoint pen using fully domestic processes.
If you believe that there is a country that could, seems to me you would be taking it on faith, and in my opinion, ignoring uncountable foreign inputs. Unless you wanted to argue North Korea?
There probably is a country that could go from rocks to finished pen entirely domestically (Germany?) but that wasn't really my point.
I was trying to illustrate the broad chasm between theoretical and practical expertise. Just because someone "knows a lot of STEM" doesn't mean they can actually produce a useful thing. China already had perhaps the most highly concentrated amount of manufacturing engineering expertise anywhere in the world, yet still they needed help with what most people would consider a basic item.
This is fine! Most countries, as you noted, are in the same position. It's a desirable outcome of globalization.
It becomes problematic, though, when your goal is to build an incredibly complex machine that requires expertise beyond your own (like a particle accelerator, perhaps) and the people and countries whose help you require are unwilling to work with you.
I feel like any possible item that you claim is domestically produced only implies you're selectively ignoring the non-domestic inputs. If you pick up a stick off the ground and whittle it, where did you get the knife? How did you earn the money to buy the knife? Where did your food come from? What about the education that allowed you to get the job, was it contaminated by foreign influence...
Actual design and building of physics experiments is a lot more complicated than “just doing it”. There are thousands of places that one small oversight will cause the entire project to fail. You will never successfully make a city size particle accelerator if you cannot demonstrate the ability to design and build a tabletop version, let alone a room scale, let alone a building scale, let alone a city block scale. It is cheap to demonstrate at a small scale. It is expensive to fail at a large scale.
With respect, I have no idea what your link has to do with anything. Making a giant dish is absolutely trivial compared to a particle accelerator.
My point is that Chinese medium-scale magnetic confinement fusion research devices have not learned from 60 years of painful lessons that the fusion research community have learned and published. Magnetic confinement fusion research machines share a lot of similarities to particle accelerators. Is there any indication that China would succeed in making a particle accelerator other than “they are good at STEM” and have made a giant parabola? It’s not very convincing.
Is it supposed there are enterprises located in China exempt from oversight or control by the CCP? To what extent would decisions made within the enterprise be subject to President Xi's vision of complete control?
My understanding is, when it benefits them they will make a loophole to give some degree of autonomy. But they can revoke it as easily as they offer it.
Does China have experience making particle colliders? I’ve seen their magnetic confinement fusion research devices. Even in the design stage, there are lessons yet to be learned that are well documented in other machines. That doesn’t mean the people working on them are dumb, or that all fields of large-magnetic-confinement-machine-building physicists are in the same position, but I think we should be pretty sure whoever builds the next big particle collider is actually up to the task.