From Paul G. Ellis
Andrzej Krauze illustrated Gavin Hesketh's thoughts on a possible “nightmare scenario” for particle physics with a researcher as a girdle round the Earth (20 August, p 18). This took me back to seeing an early particle accelerator in the 1960s – and then thinking of possible advantages of building particle accelerators in space.
A ring of magnets in stationary orbit could be maintained comparatively easily, enabling much higher collision energies than at present. The vacuum required for collision-free beam acceleration is naturally present.
Such magnets might have to orbit a planet further out from our sun than Earth. If a future humanity ever reached the level of technology described in 1960 by physicist Freeman Dyson, at which it captured most of the energy of its star, might a collider in an orbit well beyond the Kuiper belt allow even string theory to come within range of testability?
Chichester, West Sussex, UK
