They want to dig a hundred kilometers long, circular tunnel near Geneva. That will take ten years, estimate the scientists from the international nuclear research center Cern. In their eyes, the step is logical and consistent. At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest accelerator at Cern, the still missing Higgs particle was detected for the first time 2012 , but the energy of the LHC is insufficient to discover “new physics”. The next generation of the accelerator, the “Future Circular Collider” (FCC), is supposed to collapse elementary particles with ten times more energy – and that needs more distance and stronger magnets. 2060 the final stage of the FCC should be ready. Cost: around 20 Billion euros, at least.

Too much money for an experiment with an uncertain outcome, say critics like the theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder from the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. “The standard model of particle physics would not work without the Higgs particle. That’s why you knew you had to find something, and that’s why it was a good idea to build the LHC. There is no similar motivation for the FCC, ”says Hossenfelder. Instead, physics should focus on questions that are “scientifically promising” – that is, those that “solve actual problems in theory”.

“Problems in theory”? That’s a friendly way of saying it. The two fundamental physical theories of the 19. Century – general relativity and quantum theory – made technical advances such as microelectronics, laser and GPS possible. But there are “a lot of observations that cannot be explained with the general theory of relativity and the standard model of particle physics,” says Hossenfelder. Worse still, both theories don’t go together – they’re inconsistent. If you think quantum theory to the end, there should be no universe.

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