Land Of Big Science

While undoubtedly there is truth to what the article says, America has been pretty fickle with science and is not footing enough of the bill this time around, it marginalizes the substantial contributions made by Americans on the CMS and Atlas detectors. I would argue that this is merely contributing to the current problem with American science rather than remedying it. Rather than understanding that a large portion of the data from the LHC WILL travel through American electronics, the average American will believe particle physics are for Europeans and that his nation is no longer on the cutting edge. This would discourage Americans from going into the field and cause them to consider it a lost cause. (yes it's an external problem)

The truth is that the American contribution to the project, while essential, has been largely ignored by the news media. (don't even ask me about the original quote. "essential, but limited" it can be taken several ways) An excellent example is the nice picture of the endcap muon systems on CMS that almost every news organization shows. Conspicuously absent is the fact that the vast majority ( chambers, electronics, and frame(I think the frame)) of this particular section was made and designed by Americans. Does essential, but limited mean that if the Americans got up and took away their electronics, the LHC wouldn't have a detector for another five to ten years?

My take on the project is that, while their contribution isn't what it should have been monetarily, the American contribution has been concentrated in strategic areas. This means that the actual American footprint on the project far exceeds their financial contribution.

Dear oh dear. Sadly, ZONAOX, you emulate the last part of your nom de plume. You approach this like a bull in a china shop without even clearly making your point (plus, gotta love the "invective").

America and the world needs to broaden their talent search from just acedemics to include naturaly gifted scientist. There are naturaly gifted scientist just as there are naturaly gifted artist. In fact art and science enhance each other. Lots of the discoveries made these days are done by finding analogies and appling what is known about them. This requires an artistic mind. The acedemics alone have not been able to solve the worlds problems, they need help. If America did this it would put us ahead and be democracy of science. wo

America as well as all nations need to expand their talent search to include not only academics, but naturally gifted scientist too. There are naturally gifted scientist just as there are naturally gifted artist. As a matter of fact art and science enhance each other. Lots of our discoveries these days come from artistic analogy and require an artistic approach. If America did that first we would surely get ahead. It"s the democratization of science and much needed to solve current problems





eliminating the need to spend those billions and

Somewhere around the time of the Reagan administration America began to take a certain strategy regarding several social & educational issues, including health care, our effect on the environment, our dependence on foreign oil, & our relationships to other countries. That strategy can be described as declaring victory on an issue then turning our backs on it. Any uncomfortable fact is simply disregarded as irrelevant because we won.
History will eventually force us to confront the fact that the rest of the world did not stop running because we declared ourselves the winners. The longer we delay that confrontation the more we will have lost in the meantime.

The US is more interested in being the master of the world and thus put all the money and efforts in waging wars, causing sufferings and destructions. Whatever contributions the US had on science have been overshadowed by the wars and invasions. Even as the Europeans are colliding atoms, the US is persuading their leaders to intimidate Russia. This is what the US is good for, being the chief bully!

Seriously, what is wrong with Americans? Why do you always have to bring things down to Science v Religion, Obama Vs Bush, Iraq. You're not the only people in the world. This is a great achievement for all of mankind it's not as if we're going to keep the data from the experiments and not share it with anyone who didn't contribute (which the US did). Grow up, Physics is not a competitive sport.

As in cycling the head of the group constantly swaps its leader, I see no problem in the US not being the very first in a particular moment. Its being a role model to look at and an example especially of pragmatism, something that maybe lacked post World War II Europe even where brainpower was present, cannot be questioned. I never forget that USA was originally a branch of Europe. It is where some of the otherwise constrained European brainpower could breath fresh air in order to give fulfilment to its own natural features.

I find it uncanny that both the article itself and the topic of the article seem to underline a core difference in mentality. While Americans are still obsessed with the 'contest', the Europeans have focused on the 'interest'.

Is it any wonder, when you have a screwball Evangelical crowd behind the Republican's that blocks stem-cell research, want us to believe that the Earth is 6,000 yrs. old , ahe real dumbing down of America will get into high gear if McCain is elected.

Budget deficits and the belief that the science wasn't worth the cost only partly caused the Superconducting Supercollider's abrupt end. Fear by the O&G industry of a breakthrough in cold fusion clinched the decision..

Good point. US is (rapidly) declining in other areas of science and technology as well. As an example, I have a Ph.D. in nanotechnology, but the most exciting work (amongst R&D organizations) is carried out in Europe (IMEC). I am sure this is true for other areas as well. For example, guess who is the biggest investor in solar power?

And yes it is not as much an attractive place for bright people to pursue their interests in research. While the rest of world has copied the US model, the US has lost (loosing) its vision and involved in nonsensical arguments (e.g. whether climate change is man made or whether intelligent design is scientific).
As am immigrant from India, I came to the US for its opportunities in science and technology. If I have to turn the clock back 20 years, it is unlikely I would come to the same conclusion. This is also clear in the % of top students from India interested in the immigrating to the US. When I graduated almost 50-60% or more of my undergraduate class immigrated to the US, now that section has dropped to much less than 10%. This might be welcome news to the paranoid folks. But the problem is, you cannot get rid of the smart folks, and you are better off having them work for you. Although the lower and mid end of world population still wants to immigrate to US, the top end does not. This should be alarming. The opportunities in R&D and advancement is much more in their home countries.
It is also clear the kids in US have realized pursing a career in Physics or Engineering is worthless. It is much more lucrative and monetarily satisfying to have a career in Finance. This is in sharp contrast to the rest of the world where a good fraction of the brightest pursue technology. So the bottom line is, can a country of financial analysts, lawyers, and doctors dominate the rest of the world in this century, or such a country fade away? Unfortunately, I think it is the latter, although a number of economists think the former. However, I don't know of any civilization in human history that dominated the world without being a technology superpower.
A simpler way of putting it is that US is increasing becoming a state where religion is mixed with politics. History shows this is a ticket to decline.