Japan Leads Race To Build Next Particle Smasher

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.

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  • freiheitner
    And the benefit of spending billions on this particle smasher is... what?
    Reply
  • SirGCal
    The real problem is putting a pricetag on science and exploration. It's bad enough what it'll cost to RUN the place if/when it's built... But good grief... Help em out with building it...

    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.
    Reply
  • Now theres a particle smasher race? One country will build one so big that will destroy us all!
    Reply
  • catswold
    Yeah the great unwashed masses have the intellectual curiosity of an ant. We almost had a super collider (the SSC) in Texas, but the morons in Congress decided it cost too much. It would have eclipsed even the LHC, with a loop of 87 kilometers and energy level of 20 TeV.

    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
    Reply
  • TheBigTroll
    why in japan? earthqaukes are pretty common there. could cause some serious troubles
    Reply
  • Camikazi
    catswoldYeah the great unwashed masses have the intellectual curiosity of an ant. We almost had a super collider (the SSC) in Texas, but the morons in Congress decided it cost too much. It would have eclipsed even the LHC, with a loop of 87 kilometers and energy level of 20 TeV.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. /sarcWell 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.
    Reply
  • neoverdugo
    To be honest, I'd prefer to invest money on this type of research than wasting them on warfare and saving the rotten asses of murderous bankers
    Reply
  • fantasticles
    el psy congroo
    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    freiheitnerAnd the benefit of spending billions on this particle smasher is... what?
    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?
    Reply
  • A Bad Day
    TheBigTrollwhy in japan? earthqaukes are pretty common there. could cause some serious troubles
    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.
    Reply