What is the proposed cost of this exploration? Is this more big dollar physics? Will the device see anything if the conjecture is wrong?

I have gotten skeptical of these “could be amazing” researches - I suspect success in academia is PR and funding as much as actual good ideas and it’s hard for an outsider to know the difference (or care?).

> I suspect success in academia is PR and funding as much as actual good ideas...

That is kind of just how the job works unfortunately.

Unless the way research funding changes (I don't know how) you need money to do research and to get that money you need to be good at selling an idea.