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Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
Did anyone pick up on the recent announcements from the scientific community?
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature. The LHC is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. The collider is contained in a circular tunnel, with a circumference of 17 miiles, at a depth ranging from 160 to 574 feet underground. It crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, with most of it in France.
The LHC is one of the most expensive scientific instruments ever built. The total cost of the project is in the order of $4.4 billion for the accelerator and about $1.1 billion to fund the cost of experiments. The funding of the construction of LHC was approved in 1995 by the French government.
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Recently it was announced that what had been the largest and most scientifically productive particle accelerator in the world, located at the Fermi Laboratories in Batavia, Illinois, will be shut down as the result of the failure of the U.S. Congress to fund it's continued operation.
How do you feel about some of the most important scientific research the world has ever known now being owned by France? Many of our leading quantum physicists are extremely critical of the failure of our government to continue to fund such a productive scientific program. This type of research has been fundamental to the development of various U.S. nuclear programs which have produced both advances in the sourcing of energy as well as all of our nuclear weapons.
How much time do you think our Congress spent even thinking about the contributions the basic science represented by facilities such as this has contributed to our economy and national defense? It seems to me that they've been too busy arguing about other ideological issues and trying to get themselves re-elected. |
Out of my element on this but how does this story from December play intot this....
"BATAVIA, Ill.-- The announcement to invest $20 million in capital funding for Fermilab was made Friday.
Governor Pat Quinn says the investment is part of his Illinois Jobs Now! initiative and that the money will be used for the construction of a new building. Additionally, 200 new high-tech jobs will be created from the expansion.
Ground was broken Friday on the new facility, which will be part of Fermilab's Illinois Accelerator Research Center Complex.
Governor Quinn says the new addition to the facility will put Illinois in the forefront of world technology. "
http://www.centralillinoisnewscenter...135747218.html