Fermilab Closes Tevatron Collider, as U.S. Cuts Commitment to Science

September 30, 2011, 12:32 pm

A vivid demonstration of the decline in the U.S. national commitment to science is playing out today near Chicago, where the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is shutting down the Tevatron, which for most of the past two decades has been the world’s most powerful particle collider. The day is being marked by speeches, parties, and reminiscences. It’s also ending without the discovery of the Higgs particle, the hoped-for feather in the cap of scientific breakthroughs at the Tevatron, and with nearly 30 of the estimated 80 American universities that conduct high-energy physics research having already left Fermilab for a more advanced particle collider in Europe.

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http://twitter.com/GerardHarbison Gerard Harbison

What we’ve abandoned is fundamental research. We’re still spending billions on (to quote the Announcements & Funding Opportunities that just arrived in my mailbox from NSF) “Sustainability” “alternatives to petroleum” “recycling of key elements essential for sustainability” etc.etc.
Science has been co-opted by an extreme environmentalist agenda that, at bottom, has little to do with science.
collegeeducator

Agreed with Gerard comments. I happen to be a fiscal conservative that is quite happy to support basic research with increased funding. I think how the Hubble and its family of instruments have taught us much. I think a human space program is essential for many reasons. Too much of government spending seems to be narrow pork barrels, regardless of political orientation.
raymond_j_ritchie

The Orion program to get back to the moon is gone.
The manned (sorry personed) Mars program is dead.
The shuttles are in museums.
The Tevatron is closed down.
The Chinese will be on the moon by 2020.
It is hard to find anyone in labs these days who were born in the USA.
A science career is unattractive in the USA because the career structure is lousy.
Millions are spent of algal biofuels which anyone who really understand photosynthesis can tell you cannot work.
The windmill worshippers will soon run out of places to put them and in any case they cannot provide base-load electricity.
No effort is being made to get Thorium reactors to work. They would produce about 1% of the waste of uranium reactors. Thousands of tonnes of Thorium are dumped as waste.
Soon NSF will be funding intelligent design projects by Executive Order.
archman

The facility is not completely closing down. One of the two collider rings will be maintained for other research. The second ring will have some of its components removed for use in other laboratories.

The very nature of high particle research dictates that the biggest collider makes the previously biggest collider rather redundant. The closing down of the Tevatron was inevitable, once the European collider began operating.
zewatson

A sad day.