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Comment by mseebach | Hacker News Reader

I think you're splitting hairs now. Once you have a hypothesis, you can come up with a promise. IF there are (or are not) more supersymmetric particles at higher energies, THEN we can leverage X plus this to move towards possibly curing cancer [or whatever, I have no idea].

The word "promise" doesn't just mean that something will definitely happen, it has a secondary meaning of something being promising, having "the quality of potential excellence".

It's about articulating where this experiment slots into the context, articulating why it's interesting to look at this thing, and not the fifteen other things that won't be funded if your thing does.

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I think you maybe can make that sort of conditional promise sometimes, but in context, that's not the kind of promise described in the article. It's specifically saying, "a promise of breakthrough discoveries" (this is the quote from the article). A scientist can't promise breakthrough discoveries. A lot of discoveries are just, "this thing we thought might happen didn't happen, I guess that's a dead end".

That's simply not true. Once you have a hypothesis, you do not come up with a promise. You come up with a test.

Promise and Promising do not have the same meaning.

promise = statement that something will happen

promising = showing signs of future success

You do both. You come up with a test, yes, and you come up with an idea of what it will mean if the test either confirms or rejects the hypothesis.

And no, promise can mean exactly what I said it can mean. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/promise

From the article:

> To justify substantial investments, I am told, an experiment needs a clear goal and at least a promise of breakthrough discoveries

That sentence is meaningless if "promise" means "A declaration or assurance that one will do something or that a particular thing will happen" -- the "at least" is totally redundant in that interpretation. If it means "the quality of potential excellence", then "at least" makes perfect sense.

If it was "promise" in the sense of "showing promise", then it's a mass noun and they wouldn't have said "a promise". That's like saying "a money" or "a knowledge".

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