Japan Leads Race To Build Next Particle Smasher
It appears that Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, will not be able to secure the funding to build the International Linear Collider (ILC) as the potential successor of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.
While there is always international collaboration necessary to construct and run a particle collider, it is a lost opportunity for U.S. science, which was able to attract high energy physicists from all over the world until the Tevatron was shut down in 2011.
Nature quoted Barry Barish, the head of the global design effort for the ILC, stating: "Japan is it." Barish and his team already provided the design blueprint of the 31 km (19.3 miles) long collider to an independent committee of researchers. In contrast to the LHC, the ILC is designed to collide protons and anti-protons, whereas the LHC only uses protons. The entire structure that is currently planned to reach an energy level of 1 TeV.
A small version of the ILC called Superconducting RF (SRF) test facility has been constructed at Fermilab for about $60 million. However, the ILC was originally planned to cost about $4 billion, and is now estimated to cost well over $10 billion.
Thanks God we have a Congress that would rather spend money on propping up giant banks and corporations . . . Heaven forbid we actually spend money improving knowledge and education. /sarc
1970's
And the benefit of developing a computer with a GUI, connection with other networks of computers and an 8-bit sound system is... what?
1960's
And the benefit of developing transistors when vacuum tubes are perfectly sufficient is... what?
1900's
And the benefit of developing computers based on vacuum tubes are perfectly sufficient is... what?
1850's
And the benefit of developing a mechanical computer and the first programming language is... what?
Particle Colliders are how we see inside things we can't see. Inside adoms/neutrons/electrons/etc. We're finding out that the smaller we go, the more there is that we though was the end-all of our search... It just keeps going. The Atom, then the quark, and on and on... It's all about learning. Though I'm a bit surprised Japan actually put in for it considering the space it will take and how little they have... strange.
Thanks God we have a Congress that would rather spend money on propping up giant banks and corporations . . . Heaven forbid we actually spend money improving knowledge and education. /sarc
Well to be fair those banks and corporation pay those politicians very well to have them protect their way of business and to keep them alive. BTW I am not being serious and I do believe that saying that advancing our knowledge is too expensive when they are wasting more and getting less is stupid.
1970's
And the benefit of developing a computer with a GUI, connection with other networks of computers and an 8-bit sound system is... what?
1960's
And the benefit of developing transistors when vacuum tubes are perfectly sufficient is... what?
1900's
And the benefit of developing computers based on vacuum tubes are perfectly sufficient is... what?
1850's
And the benefit of developing a mechanical computer and the first programming language is... what?
As long as they don't use pure-concrete construction (lots of schools in earthquake-prone areas in China were built with little steel; concrete lost big time), it'll be fine.
We have built over 27,000 particle accelerators, and only about 1% is used for research (most are used for medical/industrial). None of them have created a black hole yet.
In the 1960's, the US had other stuff to focus on instead of creating NASA.
Today, we enjoy at least dozens of different technologies pioneered by NASA.
Don't Mention the War
And now NASA is all but scrapped... Biggest mistake EVER. When I was a kid I was promised that I would be able to go to Mars in my lifetime, and once I have a discretionary income I will throw a bit of it at whoever can make that closer to a reality.
Exactly! One of the most dangerous projects will get built in a place with the most earthquakes? Please, they couldn't even handle a nuclear reactor.
US Corporate Welfare Program Handouts:
116 billion -- fannie mae
71 billion --- freddie mac
67 billion --- AIG
67 billion --- GEneral motors
45 billion --- Bank of America
45 billion --- Citigroup
25 billion --- JP Morgan CHASE
16 billion --- GMAC / Ally Financial
10 billion --- Chrysler
...etc...
B2 Bomber --- 2.4 billion each
Aircraft Carrier -- 6.2 billion
----
where there is a will, there is the money