Fermilab shuts down particle accelerator due to lack of funding

I'd say the government spends more than enough on cultural and artistic projects. For one, those are areas where good works have never fallen out of favor. They just run their course and crawl off and die in a corner when they no longer matter.

Fucking Austerity measures!!!

This is the kind of stupid thing that is a critical mistake, but it isn't causing problems RIGHT NOW so people don't think it's a problem because people can't see more than RIGHT NOW and sometimes TOMORROW or NEXT WEEK if they're really good.

There's a reason most people can't diet. This is another symptom if the same problem - being too focused on the short term.

That and all the delicious sugar.

I think you mean high fructose corn syrup.

Historical hindsight is a good example of why canning scientific research is a surefire way to end your empire.

I'm referring to it as any thing of a sugar like composition that triggers the "sweet" response in humans.

Meh, laziness and the fact that "tommorrow", the most common to start, never comes.

edited 4th Oct '11 3:41:16 AM by Mandemo

This is the thing no Keynesian (not even Krugman) ever accounts for. What good is short term stimulus today if in 10 years we default and go into bankruptcy? That's the entire point of the austerity measures and proposals sweeping the globe. Save the country's futures, rather than make them look good for only today.

But that's drifting away from topic.

How are you going to make tomorrow better if you eff over today, though? If you take out today's companies so there's no base of infrastructure and company knowledge and no jobs for people to get experience, if you take out today's schools so the workers of tomorrow have a substandard education in the first place, if you take out today's wealth and welfare programs so people can only focus on getting food on their tables and nothing more... tomorrow doesn't look so good.

Tom, you know full well that that post was inflammatory and needlessly political for this thread. Don't just say "Dawp but that's off-topic." Go back and thump the post.

Just a quick question. When's the last time a particle accelerator has actually discovered anything of practical use (i.e. could lead to a new technology and better lives for the public)?

There was a great West Wing speech which covered the pioneering of particle accelerators and theoretical physics in general.

edited 6th Oct '11 7:53:25 AM by johnnyfog

Spintronics are twenty minutes away.

What is the use of wheels? What is the use of fire? What is the use of children? What is the use of language?

Damn those particle accelerators that we just finished building are totally useless for not having created any useful applications. Let's scrap them before they're even finished building. Instead let's build some flying hum vees. Those are useful.

Well, if CERN did accidentaly prove that FTL is possible without Divided By Zero happening, it could lead to some nice applications in future.

Of course there particle accelerators don't have any direct results. You can't expect that they smahs atoms together and you got a jetpack(or something like that). Perhaps, in future, what we have learned from these experience can result in more efficient energy sources or something.

That's one thing to remember with theoretical science: it takes time to moe from theory to pratical application.

@Nate The last time? Don't know, but one example would be proton therapy. Proposed 1946, first test 1954. Continued development until 2002.