[SOUND EFFECT]
[APPLAUSE]
Thanks so much for that
introduction, Helen.
So, someone asked me today
is the LHC clapped out?
Is it finished?
Is that why you're
planning the next one?
I say, no.
Because my job for the next 15
years, at least, depends on it.
The LHC is deafening
not clapped out.
But what we are here to talk
about tonight is what will--
what, hopefully, might come
after this amazing machine.
So, just in case you haven't
met the Large Hadron Collider,
here it is.
This is an aerial shot taken
from this direction the Jura
Mountains, looking
north towards the Alps.
And you can see
Lake Geneva there.
That grey smudge in the
distance is the city of Geneva.
That big, high
mountain is Mont Blanc.
And there, marked in
yellow on the countryside,
is the root of the biggest
scientific instrument that's
ever been built by human beings,
the Large Hadron Collider.
So, this is where I work.
And this machine-- in
a way, particle physics
is the simplest
most brutal thing
you can think about
doing scientifically.
We want to know what things
are made of, so what do we do?
Well, we take projectiles,
and we whizz them around very,
very fast.
We smash them into each other,
and we see what happens.
And that's what
this machine does.
So, at some point
over here, at CERN,
there is a bottle of
ordinary hydrogen gas.
The hydrogen is ionised
to produce protons.
The protons are whizzed around
a series of accelerators, which
were, at one point,
the biggest at CERN
back in the 70s called the
Super Proton Synchrotron.
Which used to be
the biggest particle
accelerator in the world, and
the powerful one in the 1980s.
And then it goes into the LHC.
They go around and
around in a circle.
They're accelerated
to 99.9999991%
of the speed of light.
And then they collide into each
other in four detectors, which
are spaced around the ring.
And when that happens,
this is what you get.
So, particle colliders.
What they really do is,
they probe the structure
of the universe, the
structure of reality,
at the shortest
distance possible.
This is, in a way, acting
like a gigantic microscope.
And, when you have this much
energy loaded onto these
protons, when they collide,
that kinetic energy--
the energy of their motion--
is converted into new particles.
So what you're seeing here are
not the innards of the proton,
necessarily-- although they
are mixed up in this picture--
but, actually, particles
being created out of energy
that didn't exist before.
And then people like me scan
through trillions and trillions
of these sorts of
collisions in search
of signs of new particles
like the Higgs boson.
So that's what the LHC does.
And that's what all
particle accelerators do.
So, and as I said, this machine
has quite a long life still
ahead of it.
And we're hoping
that the LHC will
deliver some exciting
discoveries, still,
in the coming years.
But the reason we're
already thinking
about what comes after
is, the actual first sort
of conversations about building
the Large Hadron Collider
took place in the late 1970s.
The LHC didn't start
colliding until 2009.
So that gives you a
sense of the timescales
involved in these projects.
So, if you want to have
a machine ready for when
the LHC switches off, we need
to start planning it now.
So the big news, as Helen
mentioned in her intro, that's
come out of the LHC so
far, is the discovery
of a particle that
was first predicted
in the mid 1960s, which is
known as the Higgs boson.
And I'll talk about it a bit
more later on in the talk.
But, very briefly,
what this discovery
tells us is that there is
an invisible energy field
everywhere in the universe.
It's in this room right now.
It's called the Higgs field.
And it's this field
that gives mass
to the elementary particles
that make up the universe.
And that's the great
triumph of the LHC so far.
And it's also sort of, in a
way-- this discovery finished
the 20th century model
of particle physics known
as the Standard Model.
So this is our current
best description
of what the universe
is made out of
and the forces that bind the
different elementary particles
together.
So, I'll very quickly
just introduce you
to some of the
particles in this table.
Just so you know when
I use words like quark,
you know I'm talking about.
So, there are-- first of
all, we have the electron,
which is the particle that goes
around the outside of atoms.
It's negatively charged.
And then we have two
quarks, called the up quark
and the down quark.
And these make up
the nuclei of atoms.
So these are the three
basic ingredients
of all the ordinary
matter in the universe.
That's all we are.
We're just made of electrons
and these two quarks arranged
in a variety of different ways.
And then there is a
bunch of other particles.
There's one called neutrino.
And these are sort of
like ghostly things
that are going through us.
There are trillions
of them, actually,
going through your
body right now.
But you're not aware of them
because they very, very rarely
interact with ordinary matter.
And then, for some reason,
which we don't understand,
nature provides us
with additional copies
of these particles.
So these are two extra
columns in this table, which
have more or less the same
properties as the electron
and the quarks, but they're
heavier and they're unstable.
So you can make these
exotic particles in collider
experiments, for
example, but they
don't hang around very long.
They quickly decay
down into what
we call the first
generation in this table.
Then, there are a
bunch of particles
which are associated with the
different forces of nature.
So there are three
forces in the Standard
Model of particle physics.
One-- which is missing--
which is gravity.
But the three
quantum forces, which
are the electromagnetic
force, and there's
a particle called a photon
which transmits that,
and then there's the
strong nuclear force,
which binds the quarks together
inside the nucleus of an atom.
And that has a force
carrier called the gluon.
Because it's glue-y.
It sticks these quarks together.
And then there are
some weird particles
called the Z and the
W boson, which are--
these are the particles
that transmit a force called
the weak nuclear force.
Which is associated
with radioactive decay,
and when one type of particle
transforms into another.
So that's more or less
all of particle physics
in about a minute or so.
And then this was the
picture of our understanding
of the universe on
the 3rd of July 2012.
Then on the 4th of July,
Higgsdependence Day,
CERN announced the discovery of
the final piece of this puzzle,
the Higgs boson.
So, the discovery of
the Higgs was really
the end of the story of the
Standard Model, in some sense.
The last missing
piece of this theory.
Now, that's not to say,
though, that the Standard Model
is the end of the story.
We know that there
are many problems
in fundamental physics.
Some really deep and mysterious
problems that the Standard
Model just cannot address.
And one of them is
to do with a mirror
image of the ordinary
particles-- the ordinary matter
particles.
Something you may have
heard of called antimatter.
So, every particle--
every matter particle--
in the Standard Model--
the quarks, the electrons,
and the neutrinos--
have a mirror image.
Which has exactly
the same properties,
but the opposite
electric charge.
And we call these antiparticles.
And we've known about
antiparticle since the 1930s,
and they are routinely
created and experiments.
And their properties are
understood very well.
But one of the problems with
this, the Standard Model,
is that it tells us that,
whenever we create a particle,
we also create an
antiparticle at the same time.
And if we use this sort
of logic to understand
the beginnings of
the universe, what
happened at a very early
time, a trillionth of a second
after the Big Bang--
you had huge amounts of
energy being converted
into matter and antimatter.
And these two forms
of matter would
have been created and
annihilated repeatedly.
And as the universe
expanded and cooled,
the matter and the
antimatter met up
and annihilated each other.
Now, because the Standard
Model says whenever
you make a particle, you
have to make an antiparticle,
and whenever you
annihilate a particle,
you have to annihilate
an antiparticle, what
should have happened is that
these two equal quantities
of matter and antimatter
should have totally annihilated
each other, and left us with an
empty, dark, lifeless universe.
But that's not the universe
we find ourselves living in,
fortunately.
So, the universe has
got lots of stuff in it.
And so we don't understand
how this happened.
How is it that enough matter got
left over, after the Big Bang,
to create all the stuff
that we see around us.
This is a really big problem
for the standard model.
So we know there must
be some new physics
to explain what happened
very early on in the history
of the universe that allowed
this little imbalance to occur.
Another big problem
is actually-- so,
there's a clue to
it in this image.
This is a shot of a cluster
of galaxies called the Abell
cluster.
It's a big collection of
galaxies hanging about together
in deep space.
And if you look very
closely at this image,
you, hopefully, see that there
is a sort of circular smearing
pattern.
This is the cluster
in the middle.
You see these bright--
all these bright blobs,
which are galaxies.
And then there's this
circular smearing
that you can kind of see,
almost like a kind of a lens
in between us and
those galaxies.
And this is actually an effect
known as gravitational lensing.
Which is where the mass of these
galaxies are bending spacetime
and they cause
light, as it travels
the universe, to be bent.
Just like an ordinary lens.
You literally get a sort of
lens appearing in the sky.
Now, the amount of bending
of the light that you get
depends on how much mass
there is in this image.
So you can do two things.
First of all, you could look at
how much visible material there
is-- how many galaxies,
how much dust--
and you can figure out
how much mass there is.
And then you could
look at the lensing
and figure out how much
mass that says there is.
And these two numbers don't
agree with each other.
And they don't agree with each
other by a very large amount.
The amount of
lensing that we see
requires, more or less, five
times the amount of visible
matter that we can
see in this picture.
In other words, there's
some invisible matter,
which we can't see, which
is creating extra gravity,
extra bending of spacetime.
And this is what we
call dark matter.
You can even use this to
actually map dark matter.
So this is a in purple.
Purple, for some reason, is
the colour of dark matter.
And it's overlaid on this image.
And this shows you that there's
a lot more stuff than we
can see with our telescopes.
Again, the Standard Model has
no explanation for dark matter.
There is no particle
in that table
that I just showed you
which can account for this.
We know some things
about dark matter.
We know that it can't interact
through the electromagnetic
force, because we'd see it.
It would give off light.
And it can't interact
with a strong force.
But it might interact
with a weak force.
But that's, more or less,
what we know about it.
And that the Standard
Model can't explain it.
This is a sort of
picture of what we think
the universe is made from.
So, here, we have
atoms-- so that's us.
So all the stuff that we've
been studying in all of physics
since we started doing
this is only actually
5% of the universe.
We've only really
scratched the surface
in terms of our understanding
of what the universe is made out
of.
27% is dark matter, which is
this mysterious substance.
We think it's a particle,
but we're not too sure.
And then there's something
even more mysterious
called dark energy, which is
some kind of repulsive force
that's causing the
universe to expand
at an ever-accelerating rate.
Basically, what this
picture tells you,
is that whenever you hear
the word dark in physics,
it's a sign that we don't
know what we're talking about.
[LAUGHTER]
So, as I said, the Standard
Model-- and the Standard
Model itself, actually, has
some mysteries about it.
So, this table may
sort of slightly
remind you of the periodic table
of the chemical elements, where
you have these
repeating patterns.
We don't understand why
there are three columns here.
We don't know why they exist.
They just are there.
We just kind of say,
we observe them.
We put them into the theory.
And we don't really
know why we have
the particular forces we do.
Nature could have chosen a
different set of particles
and a different set of forces.
So we'd also like to
be able to understand
where this picture comes from.
And the Higgs, itself, is
also a mystery in some ways.
There's lots we don't understand
about the Higgs boson.
Although the Higgs was
discovered almost seven years
ago now, we've managed to
measure some of its properties
at the Large Hadron Collider.
But only quite imprecisely.
So it looks very much
like the Higgs boson
that Peter Higgs
and his colleagues
predicted in the '60s,
but there's still
a strong possibility that
it's not the standard Higgs
boson-- that it's
something more exotic.
And we have to study
this thing more precisely
to really figure out
if that's true or not.
So, as I said, the LHC has got
a programme that's going to take
it through until 2035.
And we're still
very hopeful that it
may discover new
physics that could help
tackle some of these problems.
But whether it does or
not, it's very unlikely
to be able to solve everything.
We're still going to
have unsolved questions
at the end of this process.
Although, what the LHC
does discover in that time
will, to some extent,
dictate what comes after it.
Because we'll probably
build a machine that helps
us probe the things that we've
got the most evidence for.
So, this is the proposal.
So this is the map
of what could become
the successor to the LHC--
the Future Circular Collider.
So, it's a proposal for 100
km circumference tunnel.
You can see, here's
the LHC up here.
And the LHC would now be
acting as a sort of a feeder--
sort of motorway slipway--
which would inject particles
into this much, much larger
ring.
And the reason we
want to go bigger
is, the bigger the collider,
the more powerful--
the higher the energy you
can get the particles to.
And that means that you can
make more massive particles.
So it could be, for
example, the particle
that accounts for dark matter is
too heavy for the LHC to make.
So, in which case, we
will need a bigger machine
to be able to
produce these things.
This is sort of a
nice visualisation
of what you might see if you
went down into the tunnel.
I assume it's not going
to be covered in chrome,
but it looks--
[LAUGHTER]
It looks really futuristic
and space-age-y.
Anyway, so that's
your accelerator.
That's the tube that
carries the particles.
And then, just like
at the LHC, there
will be caverns around this
ring, where the particles are
brought together and
they will collide
inside gigantic particle
detectors that may or may not
look a bit like this.
And these are sort
of, essentially,
huge three-dimensional digital
cameras that record what
happens in the collisions.
So, very similar to the
LHC, but on a bigger scale.
So, I'm going to briefly
say a bit about the more--
specifically, what these two--
what this machine may
end up being like.
There's actually-- what's
called the Future Circular
Collider is really proposal
for two different machines.
And which one gets
built in which order
will depend, in
some part, on what
happens at the LHC in
the next few years.
But the first sort of
phase of this project
is for an
electron-positron collider.
So, this is an accelerator
that collides electrons
with their antimatter
versions called positrons,
or antielectrons.
Now, these machines are
really great for doing
precision measurements.
Because you have these
two fundamental particles.
You know exactly
what their energy is.
And when they collide,
they annihilate perfectly.
And then convert
into Higgs bosons
or whatever it is that you're
interested in looking for.
And that means you have--
they're very, very good.
For example, if
you want to measure
the properties of the Higgs
boson at high precision-- oh,
dear.
Things falling over over there.
If you measure the Higgs
boson at high precision,
this kind of machine is
great for doing that.
The problem with
electron-positron colliders
is that, when you make
an electron accelerate
in a circle, it gives off x-ray
radiation called synchrotron
radiation.
And the more you
accelerate them,
the faster they radiate
their energy away.
So this is actually
used at facilities,
like Diamond, where they
use the x-rays that come off
accelerating beams
of electrons to study
the structures of materials.
But for a particle
accelerator, where
we want to collide things,
this is a real problem.
Because it becomes very
difficult to get the electrons
to very high energies.
So electron-positron
colliders tend
to have lower
collision energies,
but they're very good for
doing precision measurements.
Then you have
proton-proton colliders,
like the Large Hadron Collider.
Now, the advantage of
proton-proton colliders is that
protons are much
heavier than electrons,
and that means that
they radiate these--
they give off these x-rays--
at a much lower rate than
electron-positron colliders.
And, consequently, you
can get these protons
to much, much higher energies.
They're very good if
you want to reach out
into sort of the
high energy world
and create very heavy particles.
The disadvantage is that
protons are sort of-- they're
not fundamental particles.
They're messy bags
of quarks and gluons.
When you smash them
into each other,
you get a whole lot of mess
just all over the place.
So, this is a typical image
from the ATLAS experiment
at CERN-- at the LHC.
And you can see the
number of tracks
that are being created
in this collision.
It is a total--
trying to find a Higgs
boson in this, for example--
it's sort of like trying to
find a needle in an exploding
haystack.
It's really a nightmare.
So there's much
higher background,
so they're very--
they're good in terms
of getting some high energy.
But there are big challenges
in terms of analysing the data.
You have to use very clever
techniques to sift out
the stuff you're interested in.
Another problem, in a sense--
this is a photo of the LHC.
Because these
protons are massive
and they're going
at very high speeds,
you need incredibly
strong magnets
to bend these particles
around the ring.
And those magnets are
also very expensive,
so these colliders tend
to be slightly more
pricey than
electron-positron colliders.
So there's two
proposals that I said.
I'm going to show--
just take you, very
briefly, through the history
of some accelerators
at CERN, so you
understand the
interplay of these two
different types of machine.
So back in the 1980s, the most
powerful accelerator at CERN
was the Super
Proton Synchrotron.
It was seven kilometres
in circumference.
It got particles up
to an energy of what's
called 400 gigaelectron volts.
So that is the-- that energy
is equivalent to the amount
of energy carried by an
electron if you accelerate it
through 400 billion volts.
That's the kind of typical unit
we use in particle physics.
To give you a sense,
the mass of a proton
is one gigaelectron volts.
So this accelerates,
from principle,
could make something 400
times heavier than a proton.
So, what happened to the
Super Proton Synchrotron
is that this is a
hadron collider.
It's a proton-proton
collider, which
is very good for
discovering new things.
And, indeed, it did make some
really exciting discoveries.
It discovered what was known as
the W and the Z bosons, which
are the force particles
of the weak force.
They'd been predicted
by theory in the 1970s.
This was a really exciting time.
This was in the mid 1980s.
Then after the Super
Proton Synchrotron,
CERN built a machine called
the Large Electron-Positron
Collider, which was a
27-kilometre particle
accelerator.
It's actually-- the
tunnel that the LHC is
in was built for this machine.
And what the Large
Electron-Positron Collider
did-- because it was colliding
these elementary particles
with each other-- is it could
measure the properties of the W
and the Z particles
are very precisely.
So the SPS discovered
them, but then
the Large
Electron-Positron Collider
could really pin down their
properties in a lot of detail
and tell us lots of
interesting things
about the nature
of the weak force
and also about the
Standard Model.
And then, after the Large
Electron-Positron Collider
switched off in the year
2000, work on the Large Hadron
Collider began.
And it was eventually brought
on line, successfully,
in 2009 in the same tunnel.
But you can see the
difference in energy.
So, you go from 400
gigaelectron volts
to 209 for the Large
Electron-Positron Collider.
And that's because
of this problem
with electrons radiating
all their energy away.
And then you get to
much higher energies
with a Large Hadron Collider--
13 teraelectron volts.
So, trillion electron volts.
And then this machine,
as a discovery machine,
discovered a new particle,
which is the Higgs boson.
So this is the
general pattern that's
been established at CERN, at
least in the last few decades.
The plan for the Future
Circular Collider--
I guess the standard
view would be--
the first phase would
be to build a 100 km
tunnel in which you would put
an electron-positron machine.
And the objective
of this machine
would be to study the Higgs
at very high precision.
And then, after
that, you would have
a much more powerful
hadron collider going up
to about 100 teraelectron volts.
And that would be the
machine that could really
give you the best
chance of discovering
brand new particles.
So, right.
In the next five minutes or
so-- six, seven minutes--
I'm going to have
to try and explain
the actual physics
of these things.
So what would we'd want to do?
Well, the electron-positron
collider--
what this machine
would allow us to do
is to study the properties
of the Higgs boson
at really, really
high precision.
And this is interesting,
because the Higgs is actually
a really unique particle
in the Standard Model.
It's the only particle
in the Standard Model
which has no spin.
So all the other
particles behave
as if they're spinning around.
The Higgs is spineless.
And this gives it a
unique set of properties.
And a unique set of theoretical
problems associated with it.
To give you an example of what
these kind of measurements
could do, there is a possibility
that the Higgs boson could
act as a sort of gateway
between the ordinary matter
in the Standard Model
and, what we call,
the dark sector, or
the hidden sector.
So this is the world
of dark matter.
So, if you can imagine, you have
the Standard Model over here,
and then--
separated, because
it doesn't interact
with any of the forces
in the Standard Model--
you have dark matter.
This kind of parallel
universe, effectively, of stuff
that we can't touch or see.
Well, there's a possibility
that the Higgs boson
acts as a kind of gateway.
So it interacts with the
Standard Model particles,
but also with this
hidden sector.
And so, by measuring its
properties very precisely,
you can detect evidence
of it interacting
with these dark
matter particles.
So it would be a way
of indirectly finding
evidence of the
existence of dark matter.
Another possibility--
so, again, at
the electron-positron collider.
The way that Higgs bosons
will be made sort of
goes something like this.
You have your electron.
You accelerate it
to very high energy,
and you bang it into a positron.
They annihilate, and
you produce together
a Z boson and a Higgs boson.
Now, again, if the Higgs
interacts with dark matter
particles, sometimes, when
you make a Higgs boson,
instead of decaying
into ordinary particles
in the Standard
Model, it will decay
into dark matter particles.
So, you end up with the
Higgs decaying into, say,
two dark matter particles.
Now, the problem with
dark matter particles
is, you can't see them.
So they will just fly
out of your detector,
leaving no trace.
But because you have this Z
boson here, which you do see,
you're able to figure out
there is some missing energy.
Because something invisible
has gone shooting off
in this direction, and
we've got something
that we can see over here.
And that would allow us,
again, to indirectly detect
evidence of dark matter.
Another-- so one of the really
exciting prospects-- and this
is something for
the big machine--
this is for the
hadron-hadron collider--
the proton-proton collider--
is to do with something
called the Higgs field, itself.
So, this is-- in
particle physics,
we don't actually
think of particles
as little billiard
balls or LEGO bricks.
The actual building blocks
of the universe are fields.
So, for example, the
electromagnetic field,
which is filling this room.
Now, a photon,
which is a particle
of the electromagnetic
field is thought
of as a little vibration,
a little ripple,
moving about in this field--
in the same way the Higgs
boson is a little ripple
moving about in this Higgs field
that fills the entire universe.
Now, the Higgs field is
unique among all the fields
in the Standard Model in that,
if you take a bit of space,
and you get rid of
all the particles--
so you remove all the
atoms, all the electrons,
all the protons and neutrons--
then the values of all
the other fields-- like
the electromagnetic fields,
the electron field--
they have values that are
very, very close to zero,
except for some little
quantum fluctuations.
But the Higgs field has a fixed
value everywhere in space.
It has a non-zero value.
And it's this
non-zero value that
causes this property, which
we call mass, to exist.
Now, the Higgs
field, effectively,
switched on at a very early
point in the universe.
There was a phase transition
where the Higgs field
went from having no
value to acquiring
the value it now does.
And at that moment,
about a trillionth
of a second after the Big
Bang, all the particles
in the Standard Model
suddenly acquired mass
as the Higgs field switched on.
So, I said it's a
phase transition.
You can think of it a little
bit like water droplets forming.
So, in this very early phase
in the universe's history--
you can almost think of,
pre- this phase transition,
the Higgs field is
a bit like a gas.
And then it condenses
into a liquid,
effectively, in different
places in the universe.
And there are some ideas that
the asymmetry between matter
and antimatter that
we see in the universe
happened when the
Higgs field switched on
in the very early universe.
So, if we can study this phase
transition when the Higgs
field acquired the
value that it now does,
we may be able to explain the
matter-antimatter asymmetry
that we see.
In other words, we'll be
able to answer the question,
why is there stuff
in the universe?
And the thing that's
really exciting about
the proton-proton collider
is, because it will be able
to reach these
incredible energies--
100 trillion electron volts--
it will recreate the
energy conditions
that existed at this very early
time just after the Big Bang.
And if the Higgs field is
implicated in why there is
stuff in the universe, then
we will hopefully be able
to measure its behaviour and
see whether we can explain
the difference between matter
and antimatter that we see
in the universe through
the Higgs field.
One other thing-- sorry--
another possibility
at the proton-proton collider.
So, is, again, to
do with dark matter.
So, the measurements I mentioned
at the electron-positron
collider were mostly indirect.
So they were kind of--
you see sort of
evidence of something
through the properties
of the Higgs boson.
Now, this is a picture
which represents
the distribution of dark
matter in a typical galaxy.
So, galaxies-- like the
Milky Way, for example,
is a spiral galaxy, which is a
relatively thin circular disc.
And from looking at the way that
stars and galaxies move around,
astronomers estimate that
each galaxy is surrounded
by a halo of dark matter.
And the most popular
explanation for what
dark matter is over
the last few years
has been something
called a WIMP.
Which stands for weakly
interacting massive particle.
So what that basically means
is, it's some kind of particle--
which is often given the
symbol chi for some reason--
which has no electric
charge, but interacts
through the weak force.
So these things are floating
about in a diffused cloud
surrounding the
galaxy, and this is
the most popular, the most
studied, form of dark matter.
And the thing that's really
exciting-- another thing that's
very exciting about the
proton-proton collider
is that, because it can
reach such high energy,
it will be able to more or
less explore the entire energy
regime where we think these
kind of WIMPs ought to exist.
In other words, it will be able
either to discover dark matter
particles-- these
WIMP particles,
or rule out their existence.
In which case, we'll
know that dark matter
needs to be something else.
Some other type of particle
that isn't a WIMP, effectively.
Another-- I'll just very
quickly plug something.
So, this is my experiment at
the Large Hadron Collider.
Or, at least the
experiment I'm a part of.
There are about 1,000
people working on it.
It's called LHCb.
And in the last
few years, LHCb has
seen a number of
interesting deviations
from the Standard Model.
None of them yet big enough
to really conclusively
say that we've seen new physics.
But when our results are
finally updated with more data,
hopefully what we'll find--
if these results are
confirmed-- there
will be indirect evidence of
some high-energy particles
coming in and
interfering with the way
that the Standard
Model particles behave.
And it's very likely that, if
these effects are confirmed--
and I don't know whether
they will be or not--
that the particles responsible
for these deviations
will only be accessible
by a machine more powerful
than the Large Hadron Collider.
So this is another
sort of reason
why we would need to go out
and build this bigger machine.
I'll just finish off, finally,
by saying there's also--
possibly the most sort
of tantalising prospect--
is that we discover
something totally unexpected.
Whenever we've built a
new particle accelerator,
we found something new.
And quite often the
biggest breakthroughs
in our understanding
of nature come
when we get a result that
we really didn't see coming.
So there's a very good
chance, because these machines
will explore this unexplored
region of the subatomic world,
that we'll find something
totally unexpected.
And, in which case, that have
a really revolutionary effect
on our understanding of
the structure of reality.
And, just to reemphasize a
point I made at the beginning,
we're only, actually,
with a Standard Model,
have been studying
5% of the universe.
We've only really
scratched the surface.
We're at the beginning,
really, of a journey
towards, hopefully, a fuller
understanding of the universe.
And this-- the Future
Circular Collider
is one of the best
tools that we could
have to continue that
journey of exploration.
Thank you, very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Yes.
Thank you, very much.
So, minds blown slightly.
[LAUGHTER]
I think-- I hope if it was up to
a vote of people in this room,
you would probably
say, yeah, this sounds
like an interesting thing.
Let's figure out how to do it.
Can we just see a
vote of hands as--
good.
Because you've paid money to
come here and hear about it.
You're obviously a
biassed audience.
But not everybody
would agree with you.
Certainly not at the beginning.
And so, we need
to think about how
to make the case for a
very large investment
in scientific research,
like the next big collider.
And we need to do it in a way
that a sceptical audience, not
just an audience of
enthusiastic, smiling faces.
So, there is a sort of
checklist that one can refer to
for big science projects.
And I'll take us through that
as we get ready for takeoff
with a big project like this.
So, your pilot is
in the cockpit.
And in building any big
science mega project,
the pilot's checklist has
to go through a number
of key requirements.
Harry has outlined the
science case-- the reason
why you would do such a thing.
But there's a number
of reasons how,
or things that need to
be in place for the how.
And it's part of the
success of big science--
in particle physics, in
astronomy, in space research,
in the Human Genome Project--
all of these very ambitious
things to be able to marry
a visionary goal driven by
science with the resources,
and the organisation, and
the engineering, and the R&D,
and the technical capability
to actually deliver on it.
Not just an aspiration, like
hoping one day we will cure
cancer-- though, I very
much hope we will--
but a practical goal, like
putting a person on the moon
by the end of the 1960s.
So that's what we're
trying to do here.
Technical case, cost estimates,
project management plan,
funding, governance, stakeholder
engagement, and something
called a business case--
which is, basically,
what you would tell the treasury
if you had 30 seconds of pitch
with the chancellor
of the Exchequer
to say this is a good
investment for the public purse,
for the taxpayer.
So, this is my current project,
which is dramatically smaller.
It's only one kilometre long.
It is, however, a
particle accelerator,
and will be more
powerful than anything
at CERN when it
starts operating.
This is a machine for
material science research.
This is a spin off
from particle physics.
And I'm responsible for
the construction of this.
It's a roughly 2
billion pound project
under construction in Sweden.
Of which, the UK
is a proud member.
A European collaboration to
build a new science facility.
Before being
responsible for this,
I was the chief
executive of the Science
and Technology Facilities
Council, which is the funding
agency-- the Research
Council in the United Kingdom
that's responsible for basic
research in areas like particle
physics, and nuclear
physics, and space.
So I do have some experience
with sceptical audiences
in the treasury and elsewhere.
And I hope that that experience
can be useful to the FCC.
I'm a member of the
International Steering
Committee for this project, and
I would love to see it succeed.
So, Harry's talked
about the science.
But if you have to condense
that to one slide--
people in America talk
about an elevator pitch.
Imagine you're going to
lift with a decision-maker,
and you have 30
seconds between getting
on the floor you've got
on that and getting off
the floor you both get off at.
How would you
condense your story
into a very, very short
number of bullet points?
So, here, I've attempted to
condense Harry's presentation
into one slide.
We found the Higgs boson.
It was the last piece of the
20th century jigsaw puzzle.
But nature has put
more pieces out there.
Dark matter was never predicted
in the Standard Model,
but the observations in big
telescopes and the Hubble Space
Telescope prove that it's there.
We don't know what
underlies that.
There are two approaches
to discovery then.
High precision, which the
electron-positron collider
in the FCC tunnel would
be able to deliver.
Measure what you know
about very precisely.
And the brute force approach
of a very much higher energy
collider to try to directly ask
nature, what are you made of?
Can we make new
things like we were
able to make the
Higgs boson at the LHC
that we didn't
know about so far.
Now, CERN has stewardship of a
strategy for particle physics,
which attempts to organise all
of the European laboratories
that are active in
this area of research
and the scientists in
the various universities
every five years to
update the investment
plan and the research
plan for Europe.
And, clearly,
since the last time
this process was
carried out, we've
learned a lot more
about the Higgs.
We've continued to do
experiments at the LHC.
And it's time they
need to do an update.
So February last year, there
was a call for scientific input.
And the conceptual design of the
FCC, which we're talking about,
is one of the inputs into
this strategy process.
We hope that the
strategy symposium
and then the five-year
sort of master
plan-- which is not a
very dense document.
It's a few pages,
but it lays out
the priorities for investment.
We hope that that will
endorse, continuing
to take the FCC project forward
as one of the priorities,
because, as Harry has said, the
investment timelines are long,
the R&D may take a decade
to do, and if things
don't get started
now, particle physics
could be left in the 2020s
without a clear plan for what
to do next.
There are, however, some
other competing options.
And we can talk about that
in the Q&A, if you like.
So science cases is there.
The technical case,
and the R&D needed,
and the cost estimation--
well, let's just put the
cost numbers up there,
because they are large.
And nobody would deny that
these are expensive investments.
So, for the first phase, the
electron-positron machine.
The estimate, with engineering
consultancy and serious study,
is something like 12
billion Swiss francs.
We costed it in Swiss francs,
because the assumption
is that the bulk of the
money would be spent at CERN.
And the dominant cost is
the cost of the tunnel.
100 kilometres of tunnel--
62 miles of tunnel--
is an expensive thing.
So that drives the cost.
And that tells you
what you are not
likely to be able
to spend less than.
To go-- then to upgrade
to the second phase
will cost you an additional
17 billion Swiss francs,
of which 11 is for
superconducting magnets,
as Harry said.
Keeping the rings of the
protons circulating in
even this very large
tunnel requires a very high
magnetic field.
And the whole programme, which
might be spent over 35 years
or more, is then 29 billion
Swiss francs, or 24 billion,
if you skip the first course
and just go straight to the main
course.
So the two major technologies
that we need to think about
are the tunnel and these
high field magnets.
This is an overlay,
again, of the tunnel
on the Swiss-French
border just to show
the sheer scale of the thing.
100 kilometres, 62
miles in circumference.
That means 20 miles across.
Stretches from here to
roughly Heathrow Airport.
This is a very big engineering
challenge in itself.
The land is not
hugely mountainous.
This is the end of Lake Geneva
where the Rhone River starts.
So it's not a hugely
deep tunnel excavation.
And that means you can
think about 16 shafts
around the circumference
of the tunnel, which makes
it quicker and easier to build.
But tunnels are not simple.
Here's another-- that
picture, that visualisation.
I think this is way too
"Star Trek" for real life.
It will be a concrete tunnel.
A point I just wanted to
make here is, the size of it
is not huge.
But it has to be roughly
twice the width of the magnets
that you want to put in there,
so that you can transport them
in and instal them, and so that
one can access for repairs.
A good example of 100 kilometres
of tunnel in Switzerland
has been excavated in
the last few years.
The Gotthard Base Tunnel,
which is a railway tunnel.
Two 57-kilometre bores under the
Alps linking Zurich with Milan.
That cost 12.2
billion Swiss francs.
Tunnelling is a
mature technology.
It's understood.
It's not simple.
The geology makes
things complicated.
It can be dangerous.
But it's predictable.
And it's unlikely
that there will
be any dramatic breakthroughs
in Tunnelling that
would reduce the cost or
time taken to do that.
So, the cost of digging
a 100-kilometre tunnel,
and the time taken to do
it, is understandable.
And we need to be
sensible about it.
The other technology,
however, needs much more R&D.
And that's one reason why
the second phase of the FCC
may well come as
the second phase.
It requires magnets.
Superconducting
magnets, so that means
they're cool to a few
degrees above absolute zero.
So there's no electrical
resistance in the wires.
You have to use
special materials
to have that property of
being superconducting.
And we want to run this machine
with collision energies that
are something like 7 to 10
times higher than the LHC.
And that means having
a higher magnetic field
to bend the particle
beams and keep
them circulating in the tunnel.
We're looking for
16 Tesla magnets
compared with
roughly one Tesla for
typical everyday applications.
And that means new materials.
We will have to use an alloy
of niobium and tin, which
is a very difficult
material to work with.
It requires a lot
of heat treatment.
And maybe high-temperature
superconductors,
which are even more difficult to
work with-- ceramic materials,
more exotic materials--
not used because of operating
at a higher temperature,
but because they can
withstand high magnetic fields
and still remain
superconducting.
Expensive, costly and an
engineering challenge.
We need to reduce the cost
by a factor of three to five
compared with existing
technology used at the LHC.
Now, a project management plan
for a 20 to 30 billion franc
project is not optional.
It is mandatory.
And there are good examples of
engineering project management
to be found everywhere in
the world of big projects.
For example, the American
department of Energy
has a very well-respected
project management approach
based on that used at NASA.
It's DOE order 413.3B.
And those of us who've
worked in American labs
know exactly the steps needed.
But the key points in
managing any big project
are to have a proper
schedule with tasks.
At the ESS, my project,
we have 24,000 tasks
linked in a project management
tool called Primavera.
So we know when every job
finishes what other jobs are
depending on it to start.
We know how many people
should be working on it,
and we can track the
progress exactly through.
And ESS is now 58% complete
according to that measure.
We need sufficient contingency--
money kept back for things
that you haven't predicted,
because your initial estimates
are never fully accurate.
And you need to deal with them.
And you need an engineering
change control process
to keep track of
what you're doing.
Credible funding
and governance plan.
So, if you go and talk--
if you had that elevator
ride with the chancellor
of the Exchequer,
or the science minister of
Germany, or any of the people
we would need to
invest in this, you
want not just to
reassure them that you
know how to do the project--
you need to tell them
how you're going to pay
for it, and how much they
would have to pay.
And these get to be
tricky negotiations.
And they're very political.
So, let me emphasise at
this point that what I say
is not official CERN policy.
And it's not necessarily
even official FCC policy.
It's my advice, as
a private citizen
on how you might be able to
build something of this size
and complexity by
involving all of the people
that you need to involve.
So, the first thing is to look
at existing examples of what
we're trying to do.
And the closest
thing I could find
is the international
fusion project, ITER,
which is under construction
in the south of France.
This is a-- deserves an RI
presentation of its own--
to build a very, very
large magnetic confinement
system in which you can
replicate the nuclear reactions
that are taking place
that power the sun,
and try to capture that as
an energy source on earth.
This is a 20 to 30-- to
much more-- billion project.
The actual cost is a
little bit obscure.
It is an international
organisation,
but it involves many agencies
from projects from countries
all around the world.
And there are huge challenges
in building something
of this size with this
scale of collaboration,
which have led to some
lessons that ITER, itself, has
learned about what not to do.
So any project, like FCC,
should learn what not to do
and copy what does work.
Sorry-- I keep
pressing that too much.
So, this is the
key question, then,
that you'd have to satisfy the
chancellor of the Exchequer
or the German science minister.
Could you actually afford
28 billion Swiss francs?
A Swiss franc is about 85
pence or something like that.
It's not so different from
the cost of HS2 or something
like that.
It is a big investment.
Well, the best way to do that
is to spread it over many years
and to share it
between many partners.
And that's exactly what we
would propose to do here.
The existing CERN budget, to
which the UK contributes about
130 million pounds per year,
could pay for roughly half
of the cost of this FCC
programme over the 30 years
that it would take to realise.
Without asking for
any more money.
So you'd simply have to convince
the chancellor of the Exchequer
that CERN was continuing to be
a good investment for the UK
taxpayer over that period.
And I hope that's a more
straightforward thing to do.
And I don't want to have
to appeal to this lady
here, the magic money fairy,
to say that we will find money
from a Silicon
Valley billionaire
or something like that.
I think it's fair to ask the
two hosts countries, Switzerland
and France, to
contribute a bit extra,
because a lot of the
money of that Tunnelling
will be spent in their
countries, on their companies,
in their economy.
And then, the third
thing, what we need to do
is get contributions
from outside
of Europe in the same
way that ITER has done--
a substantial investment from
the United States, and Russia,
and China, and Japan,
and wherever else.
And that means most
of that work would
need to be done in those
places, because the Russians,
the Chinese, the
Indians, the Americans,
are unlikely to
just write a check
to CERN, and say, spend
the money in Switzerland
as you wish.
They're going to want
to do the work at home,
because, as has long been
noted, politics is local.
People get elected by
local constituencies.
And they want to be able
to demonstrate a return
on that investment locally.
So that's what we are having
to do in my project at ESS,
as well.
Significant technical
work packages
procured or constructed
in the partner countries,
and then brought to the
project to be integrated.
It's a project
management challenge,
but it's a political necessity.
And I think FCC is going
to need to handle this.
This is an example of an
in-kind deliverable at ESS.
You probably don't know who
either of these gentlemen
on the right are.
Does anybody wish to guess?
No.
They're obscure.
It's the president of
Italy, and I can forgive you
for not knowing who he is.
And the King of Sweden, and I
can forgive you for not knowing
who he is, either.
But they're shaking hands
because the King of Sweden
is ceremonially accepting
this component that has
been built in Italy for ESS.
And this means that
the Italians can
spend money in their own
national laboratories,
promoting their own science
and engineering investments,
but contribute to a European
project, which is taking
place in another country.
Stakeholder engagement.
You are stakeholders
in this project.
The general public
are a key part of it.
But there are many
other stakeholders.
And earlier in my life,
I had the privilege
of working on this project--
the Superconducting Super
Collider, which
was about one-third
finished in a place
called Waxahachie, Texas.
And, yes, that is a real place.
And it is exactly like you
would think it would be.
Pickup trucks and big hair--
well, it was the
1980s-- and 10 gallon
hats, and, you aren't from
round here, boy, are you?
But a, basically,
larger and more powerful
version of the Large Hadron
Collider got about one-third
complete.
And you can see-- big tunnels
dug and real money spent.
And it was then cancelled by
the American Congress in 1993.
And that had to do with
changing political priorities.
But it was evidence
that there wasn't
a strong and deep
base of support
for this big investment.
And it was a political baby
of one political party,
and even very big
projects can get killed.
So I don't want to
repeat this experience.
And I don't think
science should.
We've done some
studies in Europe
on large research
infrastructures in a forum
that I've chaired.
And we found that stakeholder
engagement in the funding plan
are often the reason why
things don't get built.
Not the lack of science
case or the technical R&D.
So stakeholders include
you, the general public,
but they also include
decision-makers--
the people who shape opinion.
They include scientists
in other research fields.
They include university bosses,
civil servants, and economists.
And you might think that the
toughest and most sceptical
audience here would
be the civil service
economists in the Exchequer.
And they're pretty tough.
But, actually, the most
sceptical and hardest
to convince are often scientists
in other research fields
who are worried about whether
this investment may draw money
out of theirs.
And those are people
we need to work on.
And if you've been
following FCC in the media
and on Twitter, you will have
seen that there are people
from other science
areas who say,
this is a very expensive
thing, and we're not
sure what it will do.
So we need to
convince all of these.
And, in fact, if we have
many partner countries,
there needs to be an effort
to convince the people in each
of those partner countries.
Because they have
different media.
They have different
political parties.
They have different
decision making priorities.
And, finally, business case.
Business case is what the
treasury-- down the road
in Whitehall-- talk
about when they
want to make an investment.
It doesn't mean it has to have
anything to do with business.
But it just means
they have to be
able to justify a return on the
investment of taxpayer money.
And continued
investment in CERN,
even if it is still at
the level that we've
been making for 20 years,
requires a business case.
Because every time there's
a big new commitment,
people realise that's sort of
locking in your participation
for many decades to come.
So they will want to see
such a business case,
and we can provide it.
And let me outline.
So don't be frightened
by the word business.
It just means an
investment case.
You're investing tax money.
Any international project is
going to need to tailor it,
because the reasons why the
Indian government might invest
in a project like FCC, as
a developing country trying
to build up a technology base,
would be very different from
the reasons why the Swiss
might invest in it--
it's in their country-- they're
going to get a big return--
or why the UK
might invest in it.
And it needs to be tailored,
and we need to accept that.
We've also seen a
shift in priorities
for science investment since
the end of the Cold War.
And the end of the Cold
War is a great thing,
and I'm not decrying
that at all.
But science used to
be sellable in terms
of cultural value,
international collaboration
in a time of tension, showing
that a democratic system can
make progress.
And all of those things have
been superseded, or certainly
eclipsed in the minds of
those treasury bureaucrats,
much more by, what
does it do for jobs?
What does it do for
national competitiveness
in a globalising economy?
And those may seem a bit banal.
Those may seem a bit
short-term, compared
with understanding the
cultural value of understanding
our place in the universe.
But if those are the
decision making criteria
that the people with the
chequebooks want to use,
we can certainly
explain in language
they will understand what
a project like the FCC
will indeed do.
So, here's a scientist
doing science.
And you will notice
she is a girl.
And I will talk
about that later.
And she is understanding the
universe in the way that Harry
has described-- by building
big machines and colliding
particles together, and using
elaborate computer programmes
to find the new
things that are made.
Unfortunately, that requires
public scale investments.
Universities by themselves don't
have big enough budgets to be
able to build things like CERN.
CERN is a treaty organisation,
which member-state governments
contribute to.
And that means government
investment decisions are made.
Now, much as we may
wish it were otherwise,
our governments are
not philosopher kings
in the platonic ideal.
They don't particularly value
knowledge for its own sake.
They value the technology,
and the innovation,
and the skills that come out--
as, perhaps, a side
effect, or, perhaps,
integral to the realisation
of the projects-- but they're
not looking at the value
of the Higgs boson.
They're looking at the
value of those magnets.
And the training.
And the inspiration.
So let's talk about the
technology, and the innovation,
and the skills that come
out of basic research.
This may be a little bit
like not selling the stake
and selling the sizzle--
that's an old 1950s advertising
slogan.
Sell the experience.
Tailor your message to what
the audience wants to hear.
Scientists don't
always like doing this.
It feels a bit
like salesmanship.
It is salesmanship, after all.
But we are selling
something that is of value.
We're using the language that
the audience understands.
So the biggest economic
challenges of today--
if you were in that
lift with the chancellor
of the Exchequer--
globalisation,
together with automation
leading to fewer good jobs,
leading to very unhappy
people, leading to Donald Trump
in the White House and
Brexit and all manner
of other things-- gilets
jaunes protesters in Paris.
There are big other problems
that we cannot ignore,
like climate change--
and we must not ignore.
But for political
actors thinking
about their next election,
they're focused on this stuff
right now.
And projects like the FCC
may seem a million miles away
from low growth and
stagnant wages in steelworks
in Scunthorpe closing.
But the reality
is that investment
in science and technology--
scientific and technological
innovation, and, specifically,
STEM skills-- scientific,
technology, engineering,
and mathematics skills--
economies that have
an educated workforce
are going to be able to
withstand these kind of shocks
much, much better.
So what can the FCC, or
what can basic research
do to help this
sort of situation?
They can develop
transformative technologies,
and they can attract
young people into science
and train them for
the 21st century.
In fact, the
Institute of Physics
did a study a few years
ago, that something
like 90% of physics
undergraduates in UK
universities had
originally decided
to study physics because of an
interest in particle physics
or astronomy.
The reason your
role here tonight.
To understand the fundamental
structure of the universe.
This kind of science
is an entry drug
into a career, or an
interest, or a motivation
to understand science and
technology and engineering.
And those are skills that
the UK economy needs.
Something like 50,000
more scientific and
technologically-trained
people per year
based on the requirements
of manufacturing industry.
So there is a need
for more people,
and this is a way
to encourage more
into those very productive
and useful careers.
Now, you all know about
the world wide web.
Technology, innovation, and
information sharing that
was invented at CERN as a way to
communicate in the construction
of the Large Hadron Collider.
You may not be so familiar
that Wi-Fi is also
a spin off from basic research.
The algorithms-- the
computer algorithms used
to decode the Wi-Fi signal in
a very radio-noisy environment
were invented for radio
astronomy in Australia,
it so happens, by a
team of scientists
who were trying to test one
of the predictions of Stephen
Hawking about black holes.
So, the proof of this is that
the Wi-Fi chipset in your phone
pays royalties to the
Commonwealth Science
and Industry
Research Organisation
in Australia for the
use of those algorithms.
So it's not just a vague link.
It's a real monetary benefit
to Australian astronomy
that this happened.
So I can't promise that
the FCC will deliver
you a replacement for the world
wide web, or a replacement
for Wi-Fi.
There's a good track record
of these kinds of spin offs.
But what I can
promise is that it
will generate new higher
magnetic field magnets.
And the original superconducting
magnet technology
is, itself, a spin off
of particle physics.
Back in the late
'70s and early '80s,
the Tevatron accelerator at
Fermilab in the United States
was looking to build
the first large scale
installation of superconducting
magnets anywhere.
And they placed
orders with companies
to deliberately stimulate
the creation of an industry.
To take steps to
create companies
able to build these things
that didn't exist up til now.
And that led, then,
to the emergence
of a multi-billion dollar market
for superconducting magnets,
driven by medical
imaging machines.
And so, the commercial value
of the medical imaging industry
is several billion per
year, and the value
to all of us from having MRI
scanners in every hospital
is many times that, in terms of
improved lifestyles and health
care.
So, if we think about
a project like FCC,
we should try and maximise
those sort of impacts.
And that means involving
industry in key R&D packages,
and setting up places where
that innovation can happen.
And a really good example is
just down the road from here,
at the Harwell Campus, the
European Space Agency runs
a business incubation
centre here.
next to the Diamond Light
source, which provides
help to commercialise
technologies
that have been invented and
devised from the European Space
Agency.
To make sure they actually
get out into the market
and make things happen.
Zoopla, for example, uses
a location technology--
a location mapping technology--
that was part of the European
Space Agency's innovation
programme, originally.
So, something like this is a
good example of how to maximise
your economic impact.
Small companies.
We also need to think
about how to attract
young people into science.
Well, you've already been
attracted, because you're here.
And the Higgs discovery
was a really good example
of how one can do that.
It was front page news, even
in the "Financial Times".
And when I was at
STFC, and I, in fact,
worked-- the first time I met
Harry was in putting together
an exhibition at
the science museum,
which celebrated the
Large Hadron Collider
and what had been discovered.
And we made sure
to invite people
like George Osborne, who, at
the time, was influential and--
[LAUGHTER]
--introduced him to Stephen
Hawking and Peter Higgs.
And made sure that this got out
to the general public, but also
key decision-makers, like
the people in the ministry.
So we put a vinyl--
we-- STFC, at that time--
put a vinyl wrapping
on the front entrance
to the ministry
that is responsible for
science funding in the UK.
So all the 2000 civil servants
that were working there
would walk past a big picture of
the LHC on their way into work,
and, I hope, feel a
little bit of pride
at having supported that.
And this was then picked up
as part of the UK knowledge
promotion in embassies overseas.
And has had a real
tangible impact.
So, people have talked
about something that's
called the Brian Cox effect--
an increase in the study of
physics in British universities
after the Higgs, and following
the wonders of the universe,
and all of that.
And it shows that you really
can change the choices
that young people make.
And I don't want to
sound patronising,
but I hope that the youthful
faces smiling in the audience
here are already
interested in science.
We need to reach out
to the people who
aren't in this audience yet.
The public engagement programme
around the Higgs discovery
reached more than half of the
population of the UK in one way
or another-- through TV, through
newspapers, through magazines,
through all of the
materials that we put out.
So, I would like to set
a big goal for something
like the FCC.
If we set aside as little as 1%
of the budget, in the UK alone,
we could spend 12 million
pounds on promoting science.
Which is much more than was
ever spent on the LHC Higgs
discovery outreach programme.
And so, a good goal might be
to double the number of girls
taking A-level physics,
which, as you can see
from these charts, remains
very low in comparison
to the number of boys.
The numbers taking-- both
genders taking the subject have
increased-- which is good--
but this gender imbalance
has not shifted.
Or doubling the number of
engineering apprentices.
And something like
this in every one
of the partner countries of FCC
would, I think, be a good goal.
So, there, we have a checklist.
And I very quickly,
and breathlessly, tried
to go through all of these
reasons why investment in FCC
is a good thing,
and how you might
convince sceptical audiences
that it is a good thing.
Not just because the
science is fascinating,
but because it has tangible
short-term benefits, as well.
And because it's affordable.
And because you could imagine
putting together a credible R&D
plan to deliver it.
So we know what we have to do.
No one said it would be easy.
But we don't do
these hard things
because they're easy, right?
This is a many-decade
project to build,
what will be by many orders of
magnitude, the largest science
experiment that the
world has ever seen.
If it is successfully realised.
And so, we should not expect
it to be straightforward.
But we have to present a
plausible route to success.
And I think that's
what we can do.
And so, finally, I'd
just like to close
with a quote from
Daniel Burnham--
who you may not have
heard of, but he's
a city planner and
architect who is
responsible for a master plan
of Chicago over 100 years ago.
And he, famously, said,
make no little plans.
They have no magic
to stir men's hearts.
So what we're trying
to do with the FCC
is certainly not make
any little plans.
Thanks, very much.
[APPLAUSE]
