Wednesday, September 28, 2011

And American Science Dies a little More


The giant particle accelerator The Tevatron is shutting down 9/30/11 and a great project becomes victim like SETI, to budget cuts and apathy. (and lets man up here...a healthy dose of ignorance maybe? naaaaaaa, America is the greatest country in the world! It would never bend to the unwashed and uneducated! but I digress)

From the Dvice article:
  • The Tevatron particle accelerator was one of the most powerful machines ever constructed. When completed in 1983 it's two massive underground rings could power beams of accelerated protons and anti-protons at energies of up to 1 teravolt and smashed them together, pulling pieces of the fabric of our universe out of the resulting subatomic debris.
  • The floundering economy and the politicization of science has meant that there's increasing reluctance to fund major research that doesn't have immediate and tangible benefits.....
and what will you say to your grand-children Mr. Senator / Mrs. Representative when they ask why isn't America great any longer humm?

Read the Dvice article here

4 comments:

Dave Tackett said...

Yes it is a sad loss, though the real death of science was the failure to build the larger, better particle accelerators - this one's glory days were behind it.

Particle physics is not a politicized area of science!!!! There are no people marching outside universities either in support of, or opposition to, quarks. In the original Physorg article by journalist (not scientist) Mira Oberman, the charge is clearly an irrelevant political interpolation in an otherwise objective article. It is ironic that she politicized her article by complaining about what she sees as the politicization of other science.

Beam Me Up said...

Maybe it wasnt the glory days I was looking for. But for a fraction can you imagine the learning experience?

You dont need a killer stereo and the biggest and fastest of cars to learn to drive.

I agree, the follow on collider was a massive disappointment when canceled.

Not only is science the walking dead in the U.S. So is science
education.

Dave...thanks for the comment good to know that not everyone has their head buried in the sand.

Rick56 said...

I just can't believe science is no longer thought of a field to be interested in, please feel free to hit yourself over the head with your bible, everything that we do today all revolves around science, electronics ,medicine,entertainment,the internet, science should be one of the fundamental classes taught in grade school through high school, science is the only answer to all of our problems....

Beam Me Up said...

Hey Rick, tell us what you really think man...

Let me explain irony. The very same people that decry tech will use the movable press to get their word out. From there its just a variation on a theme when the anti tech people will use the internet....The difference being that they haven't got a clue how it works. It's a bunch of pipes ya know.... see!? Cargo cult...