Possibility of Particle Accelerator in U.S.

Physics in America is at a crossroads and in crisis, just as humanity stands on the verge of great discoveries about the nature of matter and the universe, a panel from the National Academy of Sciences concludes in a new report.
The United States should be prepared to spend up to half a billion dollars in the next five years to ensure that a giant particle accelerator now being designed by a worldwide consortium of scientists can be built on American soil, the panel said. If that does not happen, particle physics, the quest for the fundamental forces and constituents of nature, will wither in this country, it said.

Does anyone else agree with the sentiments in this article? I, personally, strongly believe that the United States is in need of a particle accelerator, or multiple ones, within U.S. territory if we are to have any hopes of progressing in particle physics in any of the ways that Europe is.

I've noticed a certain lag in U.S. particle physics research in the past few years, and Europe is more and more becoming the absolute superiority in this field of research. If this accelerator is not built, I believe that not only will it yield short-term problems, but the long-term effects in new innovation could be just short of disastrous for the reputation that the U.S. has created for itself in scientific discovery. Some of the work and research that CERN gets out of these particle accelerators is amazing. You can read about some of it on their website:
public.web.cern.ch...

Therefore, I agree with this article, and think the construction of particle accelerators is a very important step in the future scientific discoveries of the United States.

Any other opinions on this.

The link to the original article is:
www.nytimes.com...


[edit on 28-4-2006 by Omniscient]

Whats wrong with the fermi lab?

we have other particle accelerators, none probably to the scale of this one but we have them.


Honestly I dont see that spending a half a billion dollars on a new particle accelerator as being useless, after all we blew far more than that on this war.

so I think it would be worth it, would it leave physics in the dark age in the US? I doubt it.....physics has been extremely important in the US for years.

Well, I don't think that the effects would be evident immediately; but as the article says, if United States scientists began to commute to Europe in order to conduct their physics studies, it could cause a long-term decline in the study of particle physics in the United States which could prove to have very negative effects on future potential technological innovations.

Wow, that was a pretty long sentence.

I read "Angels and Demons." CERN just wants to blow up the vatican. (j/k)

Originally posted by XphilesPhan
Whats wrong with the fermi lab?

The physics is being sacrificed by the govt during tough budget times, pure and simple. Fermilab saw a couple of promising projects canceled, and so did Brookhaven National Lab. There is nothing wrong with the lab, except it's hard to explain to laypeople the value of really deep fundamental research. It's getting just too philosophical for most. Do you see my point? It's not like sending a man to Moon, which is infinitely more palpable.

we have other particle accelerators, none probably to the scale of this one but we have them.

I know, I'm sitting next to one.

Honestly I dont see that spending a half a billion dollars on a new particle accelerator as being useless, after all we blew far more than that on this war.

Half a billion dollar doesn't buy much of an accelerator these days. It's a multibiliion dollar investment. I won't go into gory technical details of the machine physics.

so I think it would be worth it, would it leave physics in the dark age in the US?

Yes and no. We still participate in European projects in a major ways so we have access to world class apparatuses. Then, the impact on the US science and tech would have been much greater if it were here.

Well part of the problem the article talks about is our scientists having to go to Europe to have access to these "better" particle accelerators. I think it would be worth a multibillion dollar investment. Much more useful than this "War on Terrorism"; but then again, what do I know? I'm just a stupid citizen.

THE particle Accelerator in Illinois in fricking huge... I used to live by it.

And what about the STANFORD accelerator in the Bay Area /California??

That does not count?

Originally posted by Tony_Poremba
THE particle Accelerator in Illinois in fricking huge... I used to live by it.

Actually the accelerator in Illinois is only 4 miles in circumference; while the one in CERN is 27 km in circumference, which is around 16.767 miles, not to mention the fact that many aspects of the Illinois accelerator are fairly "outdated" compared to the newer European ones.

As for the Boston accelerator, I couldn't even find any information about it; maybe I'm not looking very well? I did find a little information about one near ?Chicago? though?

EDIT: No wonder I couldn't find any information about a Boston accelerator, you said California. .

Now that I've read a little bit about the Stanford one, this one seems to be newer and more up-to-date technologically than the Illinois one, but still doesn't seem to be near as good as the one/s in CERN. An improvement just seems like a really good idea IMO, since particle physics is what I believe to be one of the most important aspects of science in terms of determining creation.

Source for Stanford particle accelerator:

www-project.slac.stanford.edu...

Source for Illinois particle accelerator:

www.fnal.gov...

[edit on 1-5-2006 by Omniscient]

posted by Omniscient

Actually the accelerator in Illinois is only 4 miles in circumference; while the one in CERN is 27 km in circumference, which is around 16.767 miles, not to mention the fact that many aspects of the Illinois accelerator are fairly "outdated" compared to the newer European ones.

Maybe it was in the late 1960s or even the mid 1970s, but there was a Federally funded accelerator planed to be built in Texas, which would have been 16 or 17 miles in diameter, or about 50-54 miles in circumference. The project was cancelled after 2-3 years of preliminary work. Too expensive. It seems the initials ‘CWCW’ [edited by Vor78 to SCSC] were used to describe it. Hey, it’s all Intelligent Design at the Oval Office.


[edit on 5/3/2006 by donwhite]

donwhite, now that I think about it; I actually think the CERN has a particle accelerator that is 16 miles in diameter.

Just point and laugh

But shouldn't there be a better way to study microscopic particles than building a 27km donut.. say in a microscopic environment instead of a huge one

Im not sure how this would work.. not really sure how the accelerators really do their work either.. but is such a gigantic machine really needed to find such small particles

Originally posted by SilverSurfer
Just point and laugh

But shouldn't there be a better way to study microscopic particles than building a 27km donut.. say in a microscopic environment instead of a huge one

Im not sure how this would work.. not really sure how the accelerators really do their work either.. but is such a gigantic machine really needed to find such small particles

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the larger the 'circle', the faster that particles can be accelerated on it, provided the rest of the machinery involved is up-to-date and advanced.

Originally posted by donwhite

posted by Omniscient

Actually the accelerator in Illinois is only 4 miles in circumference; while the one in CERN is 27 km in circumference, which is around 16.767 miles, not to mention the fact that many aspects of the Illinois accelerator are fairly "outdated" compared to the newer European ones.

Maybe it was in the late 1960s or even the mid 1970s, but there was a Federally funded accelerator planed to be built in Texas, which would have been 16 or 17 miles in diameter, or about 50-54 miles in circumference. The project was cancelled after 2-3 years of preliminary work. Too expensive. It seems the initials ‘CWCW’ were used to describe it. Hey, it’s all Intelligent Design at the Oval Office.

That would be the Superconducting Supercollider. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993.

Originally posted by vor78
That would be the Superconducting Supercollider. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993.

I did a quick search on the Superconducting Supercollider.

The Superconducting Super Collider (often abbreviated as SSC) was a ring particle accelerator which was planned to be built in the area around Waxahachie, Texas. It was planned to have a ring circumference of 87 km (54 mi) and an energy of 20 TeV per beam, potentially enough energy to create a Higgs boson, a particle predicted by the Standard Model, but not yet detected. The project's director was Roy Schwitters, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University.

The system was first envisioned in the December 1983 National Reference Designs Study, which examined the technical and economic feasibility of a machine with the design capacity of 20 TeV per beam. After an extensive Department of Energy review during the mid 1980s, a site selection process began in 1987. The project was awarded to Texas in November 1988 and major construction began in 1991. Seventeen shafts were sunk and 14.6 miles of tunnel were bored by late 1993.

During the design and the first construction stage, a heated debate ensued about the high cost of the project (the last estimate was $8.25 billion). An especially recurrent argument was the contrast with NASA's contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), which was of similar amount. Critics of the project argued that the US could not afford both of them.

54 mile circumference, that is quite big. Too bad they cancelled it. It actually says the primary reason for cancelling, coupled with the cost, was the fact that there was "no longer a need for the technology following the collapse of the Soviet Union." Pretty pathetic of an excuse if you ask me...

Originally posted by Omniscient
Pretty pathetic of an excuse if you ask me...

Given the cost, it's a pretty damn good excuse to stop such grand megalomaniac projects for prestige or whatever.

Originally posted by Simon666

Originally posted by Omniscient
Pretty pathetic of an excuse if you ask me...

Given the cost, it's a pretty damn good excuse to stop such grand megalomaniac projects for prestige or whatever.

I think we'd be better off spending that 8.25 billion in particle research than building more WMDs.

posted by Omniscient: “donwhite, now that I think about it; I actually think the CERN has a particle accelerator that is 16 miles in diameter.

SilverSurfer: “Just point and laugh . . But shouldn't there be a better way to study microscopic particles than building a 27 km donut.. is such a gigantic machine really needed to find such small particles. [Edited by Don W]

O/P: Yes. I'm pretty sure the larger the 'circle', the faster that particles can be accelerated, provided the rest of the machinery involved is up-to-date and advanced.

The Texas proposal was a “SCSC” - Super Conducting, Super Collider - and it was claimed to be able to accelerate a particle to about 97% the speed of light. The larger - bigger - the device, the faster the particles. Super Conducting refers to cooling the coils with liquid air or nitrogen, down to around -250 F. That in itself would have been a great achievement. As you lower the temperature in any conductor, the resistance drops. In accelerators as in sex there is no good substitute for size.

[edit on 5/3/2006 by donwhite]

posted by Omniscient

posted by vor78
That would be the Superconducting Supercollider. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993.

I did a quick search on the Superconducting Supercollider.

STORY. The Superconducting Super Collider (often abbreviated as SCSC) was a ring particle accelerator which was planned to be built in the area around Waxahachie, Texas. It was planned to have a ring circumference of 87 km (54 mi) and an energy of 20 TeV per beam, potentially enough energy to create a Higgs boson, a particle predicted by the Standard Model, but not yet detected. The project's director was Roy Schwitters, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University. The system was first envisioned in the December 1983 National Reference Designs Study, which examined the technical and economic feasibility of a machine with the design capacity of 20 TeV per beam.

After an extensive Department of Energy review during the mid 1980s, a site selection process began in 1987. The project was awarded to Texas in November 1988 and major construction began in 1991. Seventeen shafts were sunk and 14.6 miles of tunnel were bored by late 1993. During the design and the first construction stage, a heated debate ensued about the high cost of the project (the last estimate was $8.25 billion). An especially recurrent argument was the contrast with NASA's contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), which was of similar amount. Critics of the project argued that the US could not afford both of them. END

54 mile circumference, that is quite big. Too bad they cancelled it. It actually says the primary reason for cancelling, coupled with the cost, was the fact that there was "no longer a need for the technology following the collapse of the Soviet Union." Pretty pathetic of an excuse if you ask me.

And me, too. The cost of 3 nuclear subs. We’d still have had more than 40! It’s all priorities. Choices. But, what the hay, With God On Your Side, who gives much of a darn about knowledge?

Intelligent Design defined. “If you cannot explain it to me, then it is intelligent design.”

Originally posted by Simon666

Originally posted by Omniscient
Pretty pathetic of an excuse if you ask me...

Given the cost, it's a pretty damn good excuse to stop such grand megalomaniac projects for prestige or whatever.

I'm sure that you'll find plenty of good excuses to stop such criminal waste of public funds as the war in Iraq is. We are paying what, $100 to $150+ billion a year? One month of that madness pays for an accelerator that would have been the jewel of American science and in my humble opinion, as one who has worked on instrument design for the SSC, would have advanced the American science immensely. Prestige is only part of it. You still want to have the most advanced science in the world to remain a relevant world power.

The European project (the LHC) has lower energy but larger luminosity, which makes the measurement more difficult.