Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
I know that not all knowledge is immidiately useful, such is obvious, but your example of Physics is a very bad one, as the practical applications are immidiately apparent and, in any case, Newton had a clear purpose, to demonstrate the underlying order of the Universe created by God.
I don't quite see what you're getting at. Knowledge can be an end of itself is what your first bit seems to acknowledge, but you were suggesting it didn't earlier.

It's a glorified experiement to try to find a theoretical "God partical" that has failed to materialise, with a side order of, "may destroy the planet". The fact that they haven't abandoned it means nothing with regard to it's utility, rather it points to a lot of people not wanting to look like fools and be out of work.
They hope to find many things, and they have been slowly ramping up the speed of it, I think they've only gone up to half power so far? It was never going to destroy the planet, I don't get where that whole thing came from.