Tevatron To Shut Down At End of 2011

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."

Comments

Modern world has its priorities wrong

[hessian]

One silly recession, and everyone's going all budget cuts crazy. They're saving money so that we can have more big Wall Street firms making "profits" by selling financial instruments. The Chinese aren't fooled; they know our currency's about to crash and no amount of paper-shuffling will fix that. We're selling stuff to ourselves and calling it profit, just like in the dot-com boom, without "making" any new wealth.

In the meantime, the science programs we cut (to "save money") form the basis of our future. Our current economy is probably more of a transition than a permanent state. Anyone else think we're screwing up by spending so much time on shuffling paper around to earn money, and so little money on the technologies that could define our future?

Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong

[pellik]

Think of all the money we could save in the long run if instead of paying firefighters or police we just researched how to make everything fireproof and crimeproof.

Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong

[Monkeedude1212]

Because every observatory on Earth was rendered obsolete by Hubble, right?

Even an inferior Tevatron can produce results, two instruments operating at a time is often better than one really good one.

Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong

[Straterra]

At least we'll have hairstylists!

Re:Modern world has its priorities wrong

[Colonel Korn]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[LordNacho]

Even I think that, and I work in finance.

If there were prospects for a young engineer from Oxford, maybe I wouldn't have done what most of the other engineering students did. I think it took one term before everyone realised you can work your ass off for decades designing stuff and getting paid peanuts, or you can work your ass off for a few years designing derivatives and get paid ten times that. Who in their right mind wouldn't go for the gold? That's what society is telling young engineers to go do.

True story: a derivs trader I knew was an engineer (a real one). Asked why he quit early on to work in the City: "I found out what my boss makes."

As it happens, I've carved myself a comfortable niche in the finance world, but for most people who ask me about it, I tell them it's not worth it. Long hours, lots of politics, and in the end, you'll never feel you're paid enough. And in the meantime, (if you're and engineer) you'll wonder what you could have done. My personal favourites: space ships, Formula 1, chip design.

There really are too many kids who want to work in finance. The thing is, they don't have much of a passion for finance either (it does have interesting bits, just not where everyone thinks). These kids end up screwing up both finance AND the rest of the world. Don't do it, kids.

Re:My biggest complaint about Bill Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Clinton spent billions on a supercollider in Texas, and half way through its completion, he canceled the project.

As I remember it, the project lost support as the number of potential sites was narrowed down, because the politicians just wanted the big wad of cash for their state rather than the science it would produce. When it was down to one state, you basically had one state's politicians supporting it.

Re:My biggest complaint about Bill Clinton

[afidel]

Uh, the dude got a Rhodes scholarship to go study political science and economics at Oxford. That puts him in the top .000001% of all college students, which most people would consider genius level. Amazingly his wife is possibly even smarter. You might not like their politics but to question their intelligence just shows your own ignorance.