NYT: Physics in America at Crossroads and in Crisis, Panel Says

[DeepModem Mom]

Physics in America at Crossroads and in Crisis, Panel Says
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: April 27, 2006

Physics in America is at a crossroads and in crisis, just as humanity stands on the verge of great discoveries about the nature of matter and the universe, a panel from the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday.

The United States should be prepared to spend up to half a billion dollars in the next five years to ensure that a giant particle accelerator now being designed by a worldwide consortium of scientists can be built on American soil, the panel said. If that does not happen, particle physics, the quest for the fundamental forces and constituents of nature, will wither in this country, it said....

***

Failure to locate the machine, known as the International Linear Collider, in the United States, the panel said, would force American particle physicists to do their research in Europe, where a major machine is to come online next year, and other places, perhaps Japan.

The blow to American physics would erode the base of science and technology that has fueled innovation, provided intellectual and cultural inspiration and bolstered national security over the last century.

The collider recommendation, along with others, was in a new report, "Revealing the Hidden Nature of Space and Time, Charting the Course for Elementary Particle Physics." Among its other recommendations, the group said the United States should energetically pursue international collaborations in high-energy physics, expand programs in related fields of research like cosmology and underground experiments and take steps to make a long-term plan for particle physics research and then carry it out....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/science/27physics.html

[magellan]

1. I read about this in Scientific American last month

The anti-science culture in this country is not only shameful and demoralizing, but will have a costly impact on us in the future. We cannot lead if we don't provide incentive to keep our scientists in the US.

Remember the gains we made by taking in German physicists before WWII. Part of me believes our physicists would be better off overseas at this point. They'll certainly be more appreciated.

[KittyWampus]

9. What's also shameful is the Materialist/Reductionist bias in Science today

at this point Industry should just finally take TOTAL control for funding Science.

The Scientific Establishment has, for the most part, abaondoned Humanism and whored itself out to Industry.

Perfect example, copyrighting genetic material.

[Lisa]

20. I know a lot of good scientists who have to spend so much time ...

... scrabbling around (plus doing the accounting) for relatively-small research grants. Meanwhile the big corporations seem to have little or no oversight -- so much for "running science like a business". Industry partnerships can definitely be a mixed blessing -- they can end up requiring more effort and stress than they're worth. One guy, who used to organize polar expeditions, barely gets out of his office now -- he's always on the phone, juggling his accounts, or pitching proposals.

People who just keep their heads down and do research can easily be squeezed out by self-promoters who can roll in the big contracts. I know academia has always had a bit of this, but I'm concerned for the shy, bookish types who aren't "worldly" but build up a terrific base of expertise. All those stories about the math nerds who could barely boil an egg, or cash a paycheck -- but laid the groundwork for the computing industry?

I'm starting to rethink my job prospects -- teaching and research, I can handle, but I don't think I'd get very far if I had to schmooze funding from Big Oil or Big Lumber, and ended up getting sued by them because I didn't find what they wanted me to.

[teknomanzer]

54. This problem of funding...

is also one of the driving forces behind research fraud. Scientists are only human and some have cut corners to completely falsifying data to get that grant money.

[Tesha]

26. This was evident as far back as the demise of the Superconducting Super...

This was evident as far back as the demise of the Superconducting
SuperCollider (SSC). As you recall, it was to be the most powerful
"atom smasher" in the world but its siting was an intensly political
decision with the obvious, science-centered places like Fermilab
in Illinois and Brookhaven in New York getting ruled out in favor
of Middle-of-nowhere, Texas.

At the time, one of the science magazines (SciAm?) pointed out the
irony that the SSC, a device to be used to investigate the very dawn
of the universe, was going to be located in a place where, by far,
most of the populace believed that Dog created the heavens and the
earth in just six days.

The SSC died, of course, leaving CERN (in Europe) to do most of the
truly exciting high-energy physics work.

Tesha


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category%3AParticle_physics_facilities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

[niceypoo]

53. Republicans think physics competes with christianity

Republicans vs science. I was listening to a religious right broadcast the other day and the guy was going on and on about how there were dinosaurs in europe in the middle ages, hense the "dragons" of lore. Dinosaur bones are "dragons"? god help us!

[wtmusic]

2. I'm afraid if they keep making these scientific discoveries

we'll find out that earth actually IS older than 6,000 years...WHAT THEN? :shrug:

[Mister K]

3. If memory serves...

George W. Bush dismantled the largest one to be built in Texas when he was Governor.

[Dudley_DUright]

13. It pains me to defend W on anything, but the Superconducting Supercollider

(SSC) was nickeled and dimed during the Reagan and Bush I administrations and finally killed off in 1993. W just turned out the lights at the very end.

[Democrats_win]

18. In truth, didn't cronyism kill it?--so much contractor corruption.

As a physicist, I actually agreed with it being killed because of how badly it was being managed. Of course that was pre-Iraq where corruption became an art form to rival the masters.

[Dudley_DUright]

19. The DOE Secretary at the time, Hazel O'Leary had this to say about

why the SSC was killed (and good advice on how to do the ILC)

The SSC suffered for having failed from the outset to incorporate international funding and participation. The Reagan and Bush administrations made critical early decisions about the technical design and site location as if the SSC were purely a national project. Only later did they proclaim it to be an international collaboration--with a goal of nearly $2 billion in foreign funding. Is it any wonder that substantial foreign funding never materialized? This shortfall eroded congressional support, which made foreign involvement even less likely, accelerating the project's downward spiral.

The obvious lesson to be learned is that foreign participation must be incorporated into large-scale science and technology projects from the very beginning, when prospective partners still have a say in why, where, when and how such projects will be pursued. Not so obvious is how we as a nation will make and keep such international agreements in the future. Although the United States has determined that it cannot fund projects of this scale alone, neither have we demonstrated that we can undertake such endeavors with others. The abrupt termination of the super collider adds to a long list of large international projects that the United States has suddenly and unilaterally killed or drastically altered, including the Ulysses solar satellite program, the solvent-refined coal project and the space station. This embarrassing legacy raises serious questions about the reliability of the United States in international research projects.

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/ssc-and-future.html

[girl gone mad]

22. I don't know if it was corruption..

but I do know there was a change in public attitude because of Bush I's mishandling of the economy. We were in a recession and people didn't want to pay big bucks for a science project they didn't understand.

I benefitted indirectly from the SSC project, even though it was cancelled. I studied Physics at a small college in the region. Several of my professors had relocated there because they were planning on being involved in research and development at the Collider. Lucky me, I got to study under some of the smartest Physicists in the country at a tiny, cheap University. Unlucky them, they got screwed out of a promise, though they made the best of it. I know some of them worked on a joint collider project with Beijing while I was there.

[dave123williams]

25. Nonsense.

That giant hunk of flying pork, our international space station, is where the money went.

Expensive and scientifically useless. It meets the requirements for how government *likes* to spend money.

SSC was doomed from the outset.

[Ratty]

31. They really had no choice

I loved the idea of the SSC too but the whole thing was so absurdly overbudget it had to be killed. Consider it an object lesson. I support the international consortium idea but hope it isn't trashed if the US can't have it on its own soil.

[Frank Cannon]

49. Why on Earth do we need the world's biggest collider?

When we need look no further than Bush's brain for the smallest physical particle in existence? :shrug:

[OldCurmudgeon]

52. SSC had its budget falsly inflated

SSC didn't go over budget, because to do that, it would have had to been much closer to
completion. Instead, the *projected* budgets kept ratcheting up, giving the ignorant freshman
repugs in the House (post-1992 Gingrich takeover) an easy target for budget cutting.

First, all foreign contributions (and there wasn't as much as there *should* have been) were treated as if they weren't there. "Can't trust those foreigners, so we have to budget as if they won't keep their promises, and we have to pay for the whole thing". So add a few billion.

Next, wave after wave of pointy-headed accountants descended from DC, and deciding to slap another layer or two of "contingency" costs on the budget. For those who've been lucky enough to be unaware of contingency costs, these are extra amounts in the budget to account for uncertainties in design, in part availability, prices, etc. There are formulas to work them out, and they *were* calculated in great detail. Then the bean-counters arrived, didn't want to see the details, and just slapped an extra contingency on the whole thing, including the detailed contingencies. That added another billion or two.

Next thing you know, the budget is up to the point where it's starting to be a threat to the International Space Station, and to make a big fat target for the Gingrichoids. Bang, and it was dead.

But realize this: the sudden inflation of "cost" was not actual money spent; it was bean-counters gone wild.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Can you imagine the powers of the Universe in the hands of George Bush,

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, and assorted Neo-Cons? Better that they remain stupid.

Sorry, guys! I'm a great science buff and all. But the survival of Planet Earth and the human race takes precedence over your funding needs. Show us a plan to get rid of Bushite-controlled electronic voting machines, and to slash the military budget down to true "defense" levels to prevent presidential wars of choice, then maybe I'll listen.

:think: :think: :think: :patriot: :patriot: :patriot: :think: :think: :think:

[one_true_leroy]

5. it's chilling...

I'm hoping to be accepted to graduate school for physics, but I'm not too sure how much I'd care to contribute to the Military-Industry Complex that runs physics in this country. I'm particularly interested in particle and quantum physics, and it was this avenue that eventually led to the A-bomb. Could you imagine the next generation of technology in energy states being in the hands of a gov't that considers pre-emptive nuclear strikes a viable policy? Rather than the push to solve the world's greatest problems (all tied to energy), I think the technology would be used in a very dangerous way.

I've decided to wait before entering full time physics, and am instead going into math education until I see where this country is headed. Otherwise, I may apply my mind in another country. Considering the great legacy of the research in this country... Los Alamos, Livermore, JPL with people like Feymann, Oppenheimer, and Einstein... and then comparing that to the current hostility to research....... heartbreaking!

[Dudley_DUright]

14. There is plenty of physics research to be done that does

not involve military applications. My own field of solid state physics has lots of commercial electronics spin-offs. On the other-hand, almost any technology can be abused as well as used to our benefit.

[kineneb]

50. you might want to look overseas

Max Planck Institute, etc. I am afraid that real science has been offshored by the paleolithic attitudes of the current administration. I doubt that there will be the resources here for any science after they are done with us.

Not only has BushCo damaged science, they have almost killed the arts. If I were younger and Hubby was healthier, I would look for work in Europe. My area of expertise is medieval and Renaissance music. That field is almost dead here. Back to teaching beginning piano to the few that can still afford it.

[fshrink]

6. What is physics to a nation

who consistently gives priority to magical thinking over critical thinking? A source of profit. Problem is the physics in question is fundamental and theoretical. Just like education: no short-term return there...

[Pithy Cherub]

7. The twentieth century saw the greatest physicists of the era

immigrate to the US. The US has relied heavily on past stellar achievement. This is a direct result of people not understanding that we need to fully fund science and its tools in order to retain the best scientists and open up the heavens for everyone to see the wonders they contain.

This project sounds like it could go the way of the International Space Station.

[Dudley_DUright]

15. But unlike the ISS, the International Linear Collider will actually

provide useful and important scientific results. The ISS is a engineering "make work" project with no scientific justification that I can see.

[RedEarth]

8. Half a billion....that's how much we spend in three days in Iraq...

...but keep in mind, these will be scientists using the money...republicans don't like that.

[dabluz]

10. Damn right it's a crisis

I've been working in physics for the past 10yrs. at the University of Houston
and research is disappearing on almost every project.We've gone from a group of 5 building instumentation to 1 since 2001.It looks like I'm next.

[seasat]

11. Amen to that!

I'm finishing up a PhD in optical oceanography and am probably looking at employment teaching junior college or high school. At 43, I was hoping I could land a decent research position where I finish out my career. We had great funding under Clinton. The Navy funded us to do basic research and NASA funded us to work with their satellites. Now, thanks to the Iraq War and the unfunded Mission to Mars, both those sources have almost completely dried up. The only R&D they are really funding are weapons systems.

They are killing off basic research by stealth. They've gutted EPA, NOAA, DOE, NASA, and other funding sources so the only source left is NSF. NSF has been flat funded along with stealth cuts. They recently cut the Coast Guard operation of ice breakers under NSF and put the funding and maintenance for the ships under NSF's budget. I heard that last year, only 5% of the proposals submitted to NSF were funded.

Heck, I like the idea of a single government agency for all the funding. It would save on duplication of efforts and cut bureaucratic costs. However, if NSF is to be the main funding agency, they need to pass on the money from those other programs they cut and substantially increase their budget. Unfortunately that won't happen until we get rid of the Neoluddites in charge now.

[area51]

34. Welcome to DU, dabluz. (n/t)

[3waygeek]

12. Deja vu all over again...

I was an undergrad physics/math major back in the 80s. Of the 75 or so physics students I knew back in the day, there are only two I know of that are still active in physics; the rest have moved on, mostly to software development.

Back then, it was the SSC (a big collider that was to bave been built in Texas) -- I knew quite a few grad students in the late 80s who were planning their entire careers around it. When the project was cancelled, their academic careers met the same fate

[girl gone mad]

23. Read my post above.

Were you in Texas at the time?

I think it's partly the nature of the field that people don't stay active. Many of the Physics majors I studied with weren't planning on being physicists, they were just pre-med or wanted to move into engineering or comp. sci.

I actually wanted to teach physics or do research, but when I became aware of the amount of busywork my Profs were having to do to get funding, I decided it wasn't worth it for me. Sometimees I regret that decision, though I try to stay current.

[VegasWolf]

16. Stopping gays from marrying is more important I guess. nt

[Tesha]

27. A lot of it actually *DOES* come down to religion.

Let's face it, as much as we like to sweep this ugly fact under
the rug, science and rationalism is clearly the mortal enemy of
superstition and religious fantasies. And the people running
our government:

1. Know this and

2. Don't want religion, one of their major means of holding power, to be diminished.

Ergo, science must go.

Tesha

[Rex]

17. 1/2 a billion dollars...arf arf arf...

Chump change; to bad it would go towards knowledge and progress...can't have that...

[Jose Diablo]

21. Mr. Chairman,

'We face a Gluon Particle Gap with the Europeans'. If we do not build this proposed International Linear Accelerator in our own country, the commie Europeans will far surpass us in this race against death with the, uh...uh...who are we at war with again?

You know $500M will buy a lot of trips home to visit for the American scientists, buy a lot of beer down at the pub too. I imagine the Europeans will publish also, so why not instead of seeing the movie let's just buy the book?

A billion here, a billion there pretty soon we're talking some serious money.

On top of that, if they create a singularity, it will consume them first and we will have a couple minutes or so more life before it sinks to the core and eats the earth. Let's wait a little while for humanity to grow-up some more before trying to get the keys to unlimited power.

Sure call me a Ludite, but sometimes it's just not worth it to have infinite power. If it were me, I wouldn't go there. Thar be dragons. How much better this world would have been if Columbus had stayed home, in Spain.

Edit to add: You know there is this old reactor down at Georgia tech. We could let these particle physics scientist stay in a dorm, free of charge and they could spend their time taking it apart and putting it together and taking it apart and putting it together and on and on. We could even toss in a couple mill so they can party in Atlanta at the 'Gold Diggers' club. Even supply the cabs for trasportation if they get too wasted to drive it. They could swing by the rib shack and feast like kings. Then the next day, well there would be wet T-shirt contests at Stone Mountain. There would be enough idle diversions for them to forget all about this business of trying to be more than we are. And if they persist? Why can't they just get some paper and a pencil and do like Einstein did, in the math. Wouldn't this be better?

[Tesha]

28. It's too easy to slip into creating a self-consistent but imaginary...

> Why can't they just get some paper and a pencil and do
> like Einstein did, in the math. Wouldn't this be better?

It's too easy to slip into creating a self-consistent but
completely imaginary universe; once in a while you just have
to run some experiments to see if your imagination is still
in touch with reality.

Really!

That's one of the problems with modern string theory; it
casts a wonderful, elegant explanation of how everything
works and it's relatively self-consistent, but it may not
have anything much to do with reality. A lot of the high-
energy physics experiments are now focused on deciding this
one question (of "do they have the real explanation or just
the best weed?").

Tesha

[Sgent]

29. Einstein's theories

had applicable tests that were performed within 10 years of his publications.

Theoretical physics cannot exist in a vacuum without real world testing.

[Dudley_DUright]

30. and are still being performed today

General Relativity researchers are anxiously awaiting the results from Stanford's Gravity Probe B experiment.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/october12/gpbempty-092805.html

[knitter4democracy]

33. Visit one of those places before condemning them.

Good science happens there. I practically grew up at the MSU cyclotron lab, and I've always been amazed at the good things we've learned from that facility and others like it.

[Jose Diablo]

41. At what cost?

Let's be clear about what we are talking about here. Take $500M and divide it by $50,000, or shall we say the cost of 4 years of college for one person. The result works out to be 10,000 people with a college education.

Now what do you want, to sink $500M down a rat-hole that at best, confirms an esoteric set of theorems about the nature of reality that may or may not produce anything but another set of esoteric set of theorems OR 10,000 people prepared to meet what society needs in the way of education.

I for one, am weary of a scientific community that seems to be more concerned with making big science, big as in making huge money-gobbling toys similar to the Manhattan Project and taking money for their own power and prestige away from educational opportunities for the youth.

I might add that seeing how you yourself "grew-up" at MSU learning on an cyclotron, could your own vision of truth be shaded by you own experiences of playing with the toys. As many less fortunate ended-up 'shoving axles' at a Ford plant someplace because they didn't have what it took (money) to obtain a higher education, in part because MSU's cyclotron removed the money that could have been used to provide them an education.

Let's not make assumtions about what I have or have not done and what I have or have not seen. You don't know squat about me, other than what you can imagine from what I write.

[knitter4democracy]

42. You're right that I don't know you, but I'm still not convinced.

Am I biased? Probably. I don't see it as a zero-sum game, though. You make it sound like funding a good research facility, which trains our next generation of scientists and engineers while they're in college, has to get its funding from programs that putt kids through college or feed the hungry or whatever.

I think the money should come from the defense budget. They get too much for those big toys that never quite work and never really get used as it is (*cough* SDI *cough*). By far and away, the Defense Dept. gets the most research funding of anyone in the federal budget, and it makes sense to me to take some of that money and use it for better, pure research instead of some new toy for the generals to play with. Frankly, I'd trust the physicists I know with big toys a whole lot faster and better than I would any of the top generals or Rumsfeld.

My dad helped kids get through college. He found kids who had a real penchant for science but no money and then gave them jobs at the cyclotron lab, teaching them how to be machinists and how to follow plans and build things while fighting with financial aid to get them more money and even paying some of their bills out of his own pocket, once even to the point that he couldn't pay some of my college bills. Wow. That sounds like a waste of research funding to me. :eyes:

Seriously, it's not like he was the only one who did that there, either. He helped one of my good friends from high school get through college that way when her parents couldn't pay a dime for college and wouldn't even fill out the financial aid forms. He then went on to help her sister and two of her younger siblings, getting them campus jobs and financial aid. That's just one family he helped.

My brother found the same kind of thing going on in the engineering dept. in the areas he worked in. If someone really wanted to get into engineering, there was plenty of help if they just asked. There were jobs (not always fun jobs, but research isn't always fun) for them, tutors, and profs ready and willing to help out. Not all of them were great, but there always were scientists around looking to help the next generation.

That's what I mean by checking out a facility first before passing judgement. If that makes me biased, so be it.

[Jose Diablo]

43. Ok, we agree that some projects, maybe even the project being discussed

is a boondoggle.

The MSU cyclotron, based on what you related, did not remove opportunities from others to attend college. I will take your word based on what you wrote of your father and withdraw what I said about implying the MSU cyclotron was just a toy and messed over those less fortunate.

Back to the main topic though, this International Linear Accelerator. I just don't see how the benefits it can bring, off-set the costs to do it. $500M is some serious money. True compared to the War in Iraq, it's pocket change, but that is another topic. Each project stands on it's own merit, this is foundation principle of engineering economics.

Spending decisions are difficult. We do not have infinite resources and sometimes, the heavyweights in science receive, IMO, far more money than they deserve. Decisions are based on their prestige, rather than sound allocation of money based on what society needs. We have real needs to provide college education for any that want it, from public money. But if the coffers of public money are being raided to sink the money in projects that have lower pay-off, in social terms, then that money has not been best utilized. It is after all, money collected from all of society and should be best used to benefit society. It's not a slush-fund to pay for whatever the heavyweights in science want. Thus it's a political decision and cost/benefits should be weighed, in a political forum, not just the science forum. It's not about churches or any of the other straw-men arguments presented. It's about the cost versus the benefit.

This is the point I have been trying to say. We have urgent needs to provide more educational opportunities. And making decisions without considering the pressing needs, is wrong. IMO, the money could be better spent.

[knitter4democracy]

46. That makes sense.

The reason I was always told that we needed huge colliders is mainly speed. The cyclotrons at MSU can only get the particles up to a certain speed (which they ramped up in the early nineties by tying two together, essentially). The other colliders we have are in the same boat. Speed is an important factor in getting the right results in the experiments.

From what I've seen, once these things are built, they're running all day every day for years, as scientists line their projects up to test their theories in real life. The project will definitely get used, there will be many scientists involved with it for many years, and it will provide good jobs to many people.

I think college should be free in this country, but the only way to afford that is to seriously axe major parts of the defense budget, the largest part of the federal budget other than Medicare and Social Security. I don't know how that would happen, though, since we're having trouble getting good funding for our soldiers and the VA out of that same huge budget. What we really need is a seriously awesome team of CPAs to go through and hack up the budget, looking for anything to cut. I don't see it happening, though, so that's why we all end up fighting over what's left in the federal budget.

[Jose Diablo]

47. The multiplying effects of money flow

Let's examine how this project could be handled if built here and probably how it would be handled.

IF the $500M was dedicated/allocated to be spent for this project with the objective than when it is completed it would supply a test bed to test reality against theory. It could be very profitable for those that built the accelerator. Not only the assembly itself but also every component within.

For example, take the special alloy tubing, the super magnets, large coils (specially wound, maybe even using superconductor wires surrounded by liquid helium), and on and on.

If we look at these sub assemblies, they would not be made here, to benefit our technicians, they would be built in places like Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Germany. The bulk of the money we had spent would be exported to benefit others.

Recently here on DU there was a story about a company in Indiana that owned the patents on making special very strong magnets used in servo motors. This company was purchased by a Chinese company, and our state department allowed this transaction. The company was dismantled and moved to China. True China has the only mines where the raw material can be mined, but the technique on how to convert the rare earth elements into magnets was created here. But Americans will not enjoy the fruits of our creativity in this technology. The Chinese will, because they will now sell the products made with this technology back to us. And our government allowed this, no they encouraged it.

Each of parts of this accelerator will benefit everyone except Americans.

You spoke of how your father trained young machinists to fabricate the metal parts of MSU's cyclotron. How will this be done now, with this so called "global economy". It won't.

Therefore whatever benefit that would have been created through the flow of money (the multiplying effect within our communities) will go to someone else.

It would be nice to have the gadget here, but why should we pay someone else to build it? There's a problem with this "globalism". I don't give on twit about giving the benefit of my tax money to any another country's communities.

If we examine what has happened these last 40 years, we see industry after industry taken over by monopolies based in other countries, and our own government just standing by and letting it happen, even encouraging this export of our talent, using our tax money to subsidize exporting our jobs. Our government even turning a blind eye to industrial espionage conducted by foreign governments and students, all because they are our 'allies'. What BS.

And colleges going along with an "international" test to grant master's training programs, yet these 'tests' have no quarantee that those taking the tests are not cheating while taking the test in their own country just to gain the benefit of our tax subsidized colleges here. And here, we have foreign born, and probably coached profesors, that act as guides to their own friends and countrymen that they encourage to jump on our bandwagon, paid by Uncle Sam to finish their own education. And at the same time, our people cannot get on the programs.

Yes, the game is rigged, by our own government, and the embedded so called professors.

This last State of the Union address by that idiot in the WH cautioned that we should not go isolationist. Well, maybe we should slam the door on the borders, and restructure our society to benefit our own. Rebuild the economic system for the next generation technology and also make sure the thiefs cannot steal it this next time.

[dave123williams]

24. HERE'S THE REASON THEY KILLED THE SSC

It's called the International Space Station; the biggest hunk of scientifically useless aerospace corporate welfare ever passed by Congress. A flying hunk of pork.

It was that, or build the collider.

[knitter4democracy]

32. This would make my dad just sick.

He worked as the head engineer in charge of building the MSU cyclotron and keeping it going. It's an amazing facility, and it pulls scientists from all over the world. Dad hosted the pig roasts every summer at our house, and those were pretty cool.

If we don't fund pure research, there's all kinds of stuff we don't get from it, then. We wouldn't have cell phones without the space race, and we wouldn't have computers without pure science and scientists tinkering with what they knew.

Cyclotrons, colliders, and all those particle smashers are important. We learn a lot from them. Dr. Blosser even came up with a medical cyclotron that burns off surface cancers--which wouldn't have come about if he'd never gotten funding to try his cyclotron ideas.

[lovuian]

35. American Business doesn't believe in research just

spitting out BS...

It will haunt America.......

[knitter4democracy]

37. I don't get it, though.

They used to. Ford still does a lot of research and development--or at least they did before my brother left them to start his own motorcycle business. We can't compete if we're not doing the research and training the next generation of scientists.

[northzax]

51. American Companies still do a huge amount of research

and more is funded all the time. It's just not done in the US. The days of Bell Labs making fairly easy pickings are over, it takes decades now, in many cases, for some of the research to come to fruit in the marketplace. the big tech firms are still doing research, it's just taking place in India and China, as well as in Palo Alto and Redmond. So no one from Microsoft Research has won a Nobel yet, or Google Labs, bet they will, in 20 years. Or GenTech, or any of 250 other firms doing cutting edge research in esoteric fields. The money is in math, biotech, nanotech and pharmas now, that's where corporations can focus their money.

As for Physics, the days of singular research are way over there as well, the amount of money needed rules out companies from doing it. Only large international facilities can handle it at this point.

[Dudley_DUright]

48. Cool

I have toured the MSU heavy ion cyclotron. It is indeed a world class facility and has resulted in some great physics discoveries.

[kestrel91316]

36. We Murikans don't need no physics. We got the bible.

[0007]

38. That's becoming the attitude of many Americans. When the

president calls globel warming junk science, you gotta know we're in trouble.

[kestrel91316]

40. Americans are getting dumber, that's for sure.

In my veterinary practice, it never ceases to amaze me how many people simply CANNOT comprehend the principle of preventive medicine. They often think that the solution to a cat with a respiratory infection, for instance, is to go to the vet and get the vaccination for respiratory infections. When I explain that vaccinations are for PREVENTING the infection in the first place, not for treating, I get a blank look and they still want the vaccination.

:wtf: :argh: :banghead:

And these are middle class people in Los Angeles.

[Quantess]

45. All you need to know about physics is in the bible.

God makes it happen.
Oh, and, the Earth MAY be round -nowhere in the Bible is it written the Earth is flat-, but the Earth is motionless in the center of the universe, and the solar system revolves around Earth -as written in the Bible.
Any scientist who tells you differently is a godless liar fooled by Satan's tricks.
:sarcasm: :crazy:

[1932]

39. Who needs world's biggest particle collider when you have some of world's

biggest churches?

[Coventina]

44. But we have the Museum for Creation Science!!

:woohoo: