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  Posted By: <+|r|+> @ 01/07/2009 6:29:58 PM

  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.

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  Posted By: palsgrove @ 11/06/2008 12:13:26 PM

  sri, 2200m/s, you have both addressed the heart of the matter. What is also staggering to consider is that the US congress voted nearly instantly to fork over $700 billion to bail out the financial sector, and that figure would have funded the LHC several times over! But to that project, only %500 million? And how many millions of dollars, collectively, have been spent in the courts of the US to defend or debunk "creative design"?
  Shame on us. We have become a nation of consumers and traders, when once we were leaders in technology. Now, our biggest boast to sciences is that our lawyers and financiers can grab up the licensing quicker than most others in the world.
  Sri also has described the root cause. We have kept our shores open to the "lower and mid end of world population," and have done nothing to encourage the best and brightest to continue to come here for their education and, ultimately, contributions.
  Our Statue of Liberty says, in part, "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wrethed refuse from your teeming shore..." This epigram will soon be our epitaph if we cannot re-enter the scientific community with some shadow of the presence we had in the past. When we led the pack, the world advanced WITH us. It would be ludicrous for us to expect it to wait for us to catch up.
  As an American, I am proud of our scientific history, but I am scared beyond belief for our future...

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  Posted By: Bitbytr @ 09/15/2008 9:30:37 AM

  Science Is under attack. It stems from the invasion of (self-righteous, right wing) politics. It is under attack from trivialisation by bloggers like yourself. There is nothing awry with parents watching Dicsovery Channel - ESPECIALLY with their children. It is nigh-on impossible for someone unfamiliar with the realm of particle physics to "pick up a book and applying it" - even though they may well apply physics in their everyday life!
  
  We need in the US to place more emphasis on the need to understand our physical world in terms that people NOT in the field can understand. Moreover we need to educate our kids at an early age in SCIENCE, not simplistic, outmoded faith based interpretations of our universe. It is indeed pathetic that their would be erstwhile intelligent and educated people making bellicose and high-handed statements that serve only to ostracise themselves and others that try so hard to bring deficits to the public attention.
  
  Why don't you write a nice, simple "abstract" of what the LHC is trying to discover; don't feed it to us with "sugar cubes" but well thought out and reasoned description that ignorant, pathetic souls lie myself might grasp...?