Tevatron To Shut Down At End of 2011 260
universegeek writes "It appears Fermilab's Tevatron will be shutting down by the end of 2011. Rumors confirmed today at the ISP220 conference say that the DOE denied further funding for the project. Looks like the LHC is our only hope in the hunt for the Higgs after all."
Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong (Score:5, Informative)
You are forgetting things like modern computer technology actually does take advantage of some advanced physics like quantum tunneling.
Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong (Score:5, Informative)
I think it was the famous 18th century mathematician Laplace who once said "there is no military application for number theory", and less then 150 years later, its applications (cryptography) where probably one of the deciding factors for the outcome of World War II.
I don't think we can rule out that high energy physics will give us cool stuff to play with eventually.
Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong (Score:5, Informative)
A very large fraction of biomedical research and nanoscale self assembling materials research is dependent on unfathomably expensive high energy physics tools like the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne. Without this kind of beam we'd have lost a big chunk of the most impressive medical treatments now available and a lot of computer technology we take for granted, and the next generation of technology (meaning a 30 year generation, not an iPhone generation) is going to be an order of magnitude more dependent on high energy scattering. And the generation after that will likely include things like fusion.
The thing that's not adding up for you is your lack of knowledge about recent research. If anything, long term research pays off much more now than it did in the early 20th century. And you even point out that we're just now realizing things theorized or primitively demonstrated back then, which is a further demonstration of the huge long-term payoff of basic science research!
Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The Large Hadron Collider, a.k.a the largest scientific endeavor in human history, cost 6 billion dollars.
A Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier costs 8.5 billion dollars, and the US Navy will be introducing ten such aircraft carriers into their arsenal, the equivalent of fourteen LHCs.
I don't think it's science programs that need to be cut.
Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a chart of the spending by department.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=172 [market-ticker.org]
In my post, I may have overstated the size a bit. So I guess we have one additional option -- instead of eliminating two programs, we can eliminate one and then all other government spending. :-)
Here is an article placing the current US deficit at $1.5 trillion:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aNaqecavD9ek [bloomberg.com]
Another interesting site is ShadowStats which shows a more accurate representation of government figures that they have been manipulating over the past three decades.
http://www.shadowstats.com/ [shadowstats.com]
Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, you're just demonstrating her point.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling [wikimedia.org]
Quantum tunneling was first theoretically understood in 1927, and since then it's just been a matter of engineering to take advantage of it. I think her point was that if it's taken 80 years to develop discoveries experimentally evaluated using relatively primitive and low-energy techniques, how much longer is it going to take to every apply something which requires the LHC just to observe. I agree with her, both as a physicist, and as an engineer. There are intrinsic difficulties in applying physical principles which require energy densities which approach that found in the Big Bang.
I don't agree that it means we shouldn't do it, because inquiring minds want to know. However, I do agree that duplicating effort in an attempt to discover things a few months sooner is more about scientist/politician pride than about sane expenditures of resources. If the LHC is the better piece of equipment, then mothball the Tevatron since they're nominally collecting similar data, except that the LHC uses better equipment. All that matters, as there are unlikely to be any national security/interest in the results, is that everyone has access to the data.
Several notes about Fermilab (Score:5, Informative)
1) Scientists will be analyzing data from the Tevatron for years to come. Just because new data is no longer being produced doesn't mean the science stops.
2) Bob Young, one of the founders of Red Hat, credits Fermilab's adoption of Linux as one of the most significant events in success of Linux.
3) Fermilab pioneered the application of super-conductors for use in building the Tevatron.
4) The term "computing farms" was coined at Fermilab.
5) Both the bottom and top quarks were discovered at Fermilab. There is still a lot of science that can be done understanding both. The cancellation of BTev was tragic.
6) The original Linux CD driver was developed by one of the members of the DZero experiment at Fermilab.
Old friend, we will miss you.