For 30+ years, particle physicists' predictions for where breakthrough discoveries are waiting have been wrong. False promises based on such flawed predictions erode trust in physics - and science in general. Particle physicists should fix this problem.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/opinion/particle-physics-large-hadron-collider.html …
1) I recently visited a "big" high energy accelerator (don't want to reveal since I actually admire people working there). I was taken aback at shoddy data preservation practices. It is astonishing that data from experiments that cost billions of dollars are never logged
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I terms of data archiving, I am not aware of a single lumiblock lost so far. Where we struggle, is to move the SW to process it 20yrs along with technology changes. We can always process past data with past SW, but maintaining every branch of tens of millions lines of code costs.
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Though, all experiments move or have moved towards open SW stacks AND provide more and more data on
@cernopendata in a digestible format.
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2) Instead of preserving raw data for future analysis, only functions of data are stored. These functions are computed using decades-old Fortran code and no one truly understands what is going on. And how were these functions designed? more sociological phenomenon than scientific
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3) Computation and infrastructure is treated as a stepchild in physics to a big detriment. While so much effort is spent ensuring every part of accelerator is calibrated, on data side, it feels like the wild west.
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