Austria To Pull Out of CERN

andre.david notes an AFP report that Austria has announced its intention to withdraw from CERN, citing budget concerns, adding: "Austrian particle physicists are not happy with this. From HEPHY, the Austrian Institute for High Energy Physics: 'All of a surprise Johannes Hahn... announced that he wants to terminate the Austrian membership at CERN... This [would] affect spin-off projects like the planned cancer treatment center MedAustron... which is dependent on collaborating with CERN... Strangely enough this intention just arrives at a time where scientists are about to harvest the fruits of LHC...' Will other countries follow suit?" "Austria is pulling out of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Science Minister Johannes Hahn announced Thursday, citing budget concerns. The €20M ($26.9M) yearly membership in CERN... makes up 70 percent of the money available in Austria for participation in international institutes and could be better used to fund other European projects, he said. Hahn said he hoped Austria could find 'a new kind of cooperation' with CERN and described Vienna's withdrawal from the project as a 'pause,' noting that some 30 states were already working together with the Geneva-based centre without being members. The newly-available funds will now allow Austria to take part in new European projects, boost its participation in old ones as well as help the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the country's main organization funding research."

Comments

That's ok...

[TheRealFixer]

I guess that means more particles for the rest of us!

Re:That's ok...

[Red Flayer]

I know, right?

I mean, whoop-de-doo, Austria's all "put another shrimp on the barbie, mate" and "crikey! we've got killer spiders mate" and "go root yerself, we're pulling out of CERN!".

The rest of the nations participating in CERN will be just fine without them.

not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no biology here, so no diseases to cure so in the minds of the ignorant it is wasted money. I'm not surprised but definitely annoyed.

Science for science sake is worth while no matter the cost or the expect benefit. The US stimulated its economy by a factor of 10 more then what it put into landing on the moon. One of people who help the British economy the most was a guy named Michel Faraday who thought his discovery of electrical induction was neat but useless. And that isn't even touch on things we take for granted every day, i.e. transiters and LCDs to name only two.

Re:not surprised

[Man On Pink Corner]

It's been difficult to really calculate such, especially compared to alternatives such as *direct* funding of technology research.

Direct funding of directionless research has a pretty terrible record by any metric you can think of. NASA spent about $25B total on the Apollo project, which yielded numerous useful spinoff technologies and companies, inspired countless numbers of engineering and science students, and put men on the moon. Microsoft spends roughly $6-$7B per year on their in-house research budget, which has yielded, well, let's see, Microsoft Bob(tm) and Songsmith.

Admittedly I'm comparing 1960s dollars with current dollars, but still... Bill, just give the money to NASA, for Chrissake.

Even when you're talking about pie-in-the-sky "pure research," people don't tend to appreciate the amount of tangible technology that comes out of those efforts. If you need to do some leading-edge photonic RF work, the papers you read are from NRAO. If you're working on next-gen MRI machines, you're probably interested in superconducting magnet tech developed for accelerators. There are any number of other cases where things you use every day came from applications you wouldn't have cared about at the time.

Obvious Economics of Small Intellects (OESI) ...

[foobsr]

Bank rescue ~90-billion-Euro: big worthy chunk

CERN Euro 20M: too small a particle to care for

As we can learn, big mountains do not help much to gain perspective.

CC.

Re:*coff*

[Red Flayer]

Can anyone name a single discovery in HEP in the last 25 years that has led to a practical improvement of anything whatsoever? The only thing HEP has generated is paper.

Why so short-sighted? Why is it so important that something pay off tangibly within 25 years? Some of the great strides in medication today are applications of HEP-ph of the 30s and 50s that we continue to refine. Who knows what the future holds?

That's the great thing about knowledge. Sometimes the quest for knowledge is the most important part; sometimes the Answers are the important part; sometimes incidental discoveries are the most important part. But we'll never know unless we go for it.

Re:*coff*

[key.aaron]

> Can anyone name a single discovery in HEP in the last 25 years that has led to a practical improvement of anything whatsoever? The only thing HEP has generated is paper.

That's an easy one: The particle accelerators developed for research in HEP have directly resulted in the accelerators used in hospitals for radiation therapy.

Re:*coff*

[MrMr]

You never know what comes out of these projects. I vaguely remember this guy from CERN in 1990 playing with two computers.

Easy to say, not to do

[DesScorp]

"Science for science sake is worth while no matter the cost or the expect benefit."

That's nice and all, and true, but it still ignores fiscal realities. This kind of research is expensive, and there's an economic slump going on right now. What should the Austrian government cancel to pay for this research? Roads? Schools?

Its easy to tell them to keep up the good work, when you're not footing the bill.