LOOKING FORWARD: The PHENIX detector at the RHIC collider analyzes the results of high-speed particle smashups.
Image: BNL
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Gravity's Engines
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Until recently, the American particle collider was a thriving species spanning a variety of habitats from coast to coast. But now it finds itself on the endangered list.
Since 2008 the number of colliders in the U.S. has dwindled from four to one. And the last surviving member of the species, the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., may soon fall victim to the same budgetary blight that has already felled so many other towering scientific facilities. Just last year the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) phased out the larger Tevatron collider at Fermilab in Illinois, citing fiscal constraints. The increasingly rare breed known as the collider is a particle accelerator in which two beams of high-energy particles intersect to collide head-on inside giant detectors, which allow physicists to sift through the wreckage for short-lived particles or evidence of new physical phenomena.
The RHIC collider is one of three major projects now under scrutiny as federal science agencies seek to reconcile their portfolios of physics facilities with tightening budgets. The DoE and the National Science Foundation have requested that a panel of nuclear physicists, chaired by Robert Tribble of Texas A&M University, advise the government on how to get the most science out of limited funds. It appears likely that at least one of the costly projects—either RHIC, the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia or the planned Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) in Michigan—will fall victim to the cost-cutting. Any termination would cost hundreds of jobs and affect thousands of scientist users.
"The three of these things … they can't all fit within the budgets that the DoE has been told to anticipate for the next five years or so," says Steven Vigdor, associate laboratory director for nuclear and particle physics at Brookhaven. "It's conceivable, but I think it's a long shot, that there's a compromise solution that doesn't involve terminating something."
The RHIC collider, with a staff of about 750, could provide the biggest target for cost-cutters. Its operation costs the DoE roughly $170 million annually. But RHIC is also the only facility of the three that is currently in operation, and it seems to be hitting its peak, having recently been upgraded. RHIC rams protons or heavy nuclei from gold, copper or uranium atoms together at nearly light speed to investigate what produces the proton's spin as well as the universe's composition in the earliest instants after the big bang. The high-speed collisions of heavy ions produce a nearly frictionless fluid called a quark–gluon plasma, a hot bouillabaisse of the fundamental particles that form the heart of all atoms. Quark–gluon plasma was first produced at RHIC in 2005, and scientists there are now working to explore at which temperatures the quarks and gluons freeze out from their fluid state into protons and neutrons.
Like the other two facilities, RHIC comes highly recommended by nuclear physics advisory groups. A 2012 report by the National Research Council identified the completed RHIC upgrade, and an ongoing upgrade at Jefferson Lab, as strategic investments whose exploitation "should be an essential component of the U.S. nuclear science program for the next decade."
The Tribble panel operates under the auspices of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC), which provides guidance to the federal funding agencies. Tribble's subcommittee will meet in Maryland over four days in early September, during which time representatives of the various facilities will have an opportunity to lobby for their projects. "We and the other laboratories are taking this really seriously in the sense of a threat to our continued operation, and for FRIB to their continued construction," Vigdor says.
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40 Comments
Add CommentI am sure the free market will take care of it. The free market solves everything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting premise. Let's see if it holds up to scrutiny.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan you:
solve for X 2X^3+7X^2+87=15
Give the reason why some atoms are called Lanthanides and some Actinides?
Describe the scientific process?
I can answer all of those, and I'm one of those supposedly brain dead science hating liberals.
You on the other hand sound like a typical teabagger or troll. Now, pull your head out of your rectum (it doesn't belong there and it's hard to breathe I hear) and get with reality.
P.S. It is not "cannot". The proper form is "can not" or "can't".
Six Suggestions to Get Funding for Particle Colliders:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Speculate about the (vanishingly remote) possibility that if you can combine the forces of these and other particle colliders, they may prove the existence of God.
2. Rename protons and electrons, Republicans and Democrats, and say the collisions will produce more of either one depending on funding.
3. Stop with the jargon and call the damned things Nuclear Terrorist Zappers.
4. Say that you're on the brink of finding the "money" particle.
5. Neutrinos can fly through the Earth. Bet that you can hit a terrorist in Pakistan with neutrinos faster than the military can put a drone in the air.
6. Move to Russia.
somebody's got to pay for building those schools in Afghanistan. And anyway, what's so important about science? Jes** will take care of everything!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishate to say it, but he was right in his spelling of cannot. according to washington state university, "These two spellings [cannot/can not] are largely interchangeable, but by far the most common is “cannot” and you should probably use it except when you want to be emphatic: “No, you can not wash the dog in the Maytag.”" it's even found in websters dictionary and i have seen it myself in many books and magazines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi will admit, his assessment of the left-wing was very exaggerated. in terms of their intellect that is. in the end it wont matter. america will find itself in a state no different then nazi germany and the world will be plunged into chaos on a scale unprecedented in mankind's history by an economic collapse and starvation. oh yes, add a pandemic or two into that as well.
Martin, your comments are hilarious. Excellent post.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBureaucratic barbarians!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRE; "Science is not valued by leftist pseudo-intellectuals."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSez who?
Enuf, youse guys!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf your country wants to do research and remain one of its leaders, you folks will have to be willing to PAY TAXES. Americans want everyone else to pay..There is no social contract wherein the filthy rich contribute a fair share to the running of a society. The middle classes are falling away and the military gets more than the military budgets of ALL THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED! You want scientific research...get the loons in your Congress to fund it instead of yet more fighter jets, military gifts to Pakistan and etc...gifts for their corporate buddies...err..I mean corporate citizens...It is not the fault of Liberals or Progressives..it is the fault of people not demanding proper taxation and allocation of those monies to beneficial projects that include the sciences, education,infrastructures and so forth. The closing of physics facilities will in the end signal to the rest of the world out here that the US has handed over its mantle to others for good.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. You are borrowing 40 cents of every $1 you spend;
2. You will not consider cutting Defense (Repubs) or Entitlements (Dems);
3. And both sides understand that this cannot continue, despite the diatribes of each party against the other
... then you are left cutting a lot out of the remaining small slice of the pie.
Dems and Repubs both guilty, folks. This should be a non-sectarian issue if you believe in the value of basic scientific research.
Dems want to spend more on social programs and real Repubs want to shrink govt (at least the parts they don't like). Neither side going to cut Grandma's Medicare or an army private's pay so that the collider can continue to run.
...although the person who talked about spending on Afgan schools does seem to have a point.
Can you:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSolve for X + 2X = 3?
Give the reason why some liberals are rational thinking beings and some are just scientists at the government trough?
I would imagine you may be able to define it, but I'll bet a nickel you have a very hard time adhering to the scientific process?
If you can answer all of those then you aren't as illiterate as your note sounded even if you are a brain dead liberal.
Just remember, in all your insecurity, that it was those teabaggers and trolls in Boston a couple hundred years ago who helped make possible your infantile rant. Now, pull your head out of the rarified atmosphere of your government granted ivory tower (it doesn't belong there and it's hard to breathe I hear) and live with the reality that it is Obamanomics that has shut down NASA and many other of your, I presume beloved, science projects.
P.S. Cannot is perfectly legitimate. From what do you think the contraction "can't" is derived?
National defense at least is defined specifically in the constitution as a function of the federal government. I cannot (also can not or can't) find any mention of Social Security , Medicare, Medicaid, NASA, NIH, DOE, SBA, or any other of the acronyms beloved of the left.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Americans want everyone else to pay."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe United States, in the past 100 years has made possible the success of many other countries after freeing them from the despotism of others. If not for the US, Japan would not be the 2nd or 3rd leading economy in the world; Europe would probably still be buried in Hitler's rubble; and India would be a large Japanese colony as would China; and on and on. Who paid the bills so that all that would not be so. The US. No one paid, not the UK nor anyone else in Europe. (As a by-the-by, we also mistakenly paid so that Russia's could exist after the "good" war.) I don't believe the US wants everyone else to pay just to pay once in a while. For all that the US has colonized no one, except for some small parcels here and there to bury our dead.
"...the [US] military gets more than the military budgets of ALL THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED!"
The US and its Military services make it possible that most of the rest of the militaries in the world need only have a nominal existence. For the most part, none of them contribute a meaningful iota to world peace. It's those US aircraft carriers floating on the seven seas and those US special nation building Special Forces that are continuously in action around the world, day and night, in a hundred places you don't (and don't want to) know about, who make it possible for all those nominal defense forces around the world to be successful. The rest of the world should be contributing to the US defense budget to help pay their share for their defense and their peace.
"...get the loons in your Congress to fund [scientific research]instead of yet more fighter jets,..." [see above].
I have run out of character space so I will continue in another reply note.
“It is not the fault of Liberals or Progressives..[sic]it is the fault of people not demanding propertaxation…”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this50% of the US population does not pay taxes. The FICA contribution (Social Security) is not a tax (except for the employer). It’s just a forced savings plan for people who won’t otherwise save and will just spend it on necessities of life such as “smart” phones every two years and iPads. If I wanted “fair” taxation policies (and I do), I would see to it that every citizen pays a share of the bill for freedom and thereby has a stake in this country and is not just a recipient of OPM (other people’s money). BTW, for all you “progressives,” the government doesn’t naturally have money, it has to get it from citizens. Some citizens, such as the partiers in Boston in 1775, believe that much of government taxation amounts to stealing. Some citizens today (including "progressives" such as Sec Treas Geithner, Sen Tom Dsachle, and a few Hollywood types to name a few) also appear to believe this.
“…and allocation of those monies to benficial projects that include the sciences, education, infrastructures and so forth.”
When you’re a taxpayer, and not just of the entitlement class (which includes some or many scientists who receive government grants), you like to believe that government is careful with the hard-earned dollars sent to it every year, e.g., good projects like Solyndra ($550M = 35,000 TPE, the taxes paid by approximately 35,000 Americans or Taxpayer equivalents (TPE)).
“The closing of physics facilities will in the end signal to the rest of the world out there that the US has handed over its mantle to others for good.”
Closing of physics facilities in the US began at least 25 years ago with abandonment of the SSC project in Texas. It will likely continue in this country and others (let’s see how long LHC lasts) as fiscal realties set in. It’s not party dependent and is more likely a reflection of the real and competing costs of the entitlement society we have begun to grow and foster (and demagogue) in this country.
Sure, it's the left-wingers who don't believe in science. That's why we insist on creationism to be taught alongside of Darwin, and we're the party of global warming deniers. Like it or not we are losing our advantage in the basic sciences. Our children aren't interested in scientific or engineering careers and the next generation will suffer the consequences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's ok, because we can keep building the military empire instead (/sarcasm).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd science is funny because it is self-fulfilling by nature. If the scientists do not deliver more results due to funding cuts, then we don't have to fund this non-productive scientific enterprise anymore. And never mind the circular logic, because Jesus and Allah love you!
Dear Dr. Jehr1,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome non sequiters there, I believe. I think it's difficult to blame declining roles in science and engineering on creationism and global warming deniers (as an aside, I am a "global warming is caused by me" doubter. But that for another discussion.)
We are losing our edge because many of us have not passed on to our children any sense of self discipline or certain values. Many of us are too interested in self-image and fuzzy morality.
As well, too many parents would like to be their kids best friends instead of their parents. Kids have plenty of best friends and only one set of parents ( if they're lucky). Parents are too often afraid to stand up to their kids.
Of course many kids don't have parents. They have a parent. And that parent may spend much of there time away from their kids and their discipline. Often the parent that's missing is of the male gender and such kids (especially of the male gender) have no role model for male parenthood. And the cycle continues.
And why the parenting problem? At least a significant role, if not the major role, can be attributed to a relaxation of values and a growing adherence to fuzzy morality. More marriages fail than succeed in this country. Teen pregnancy has sky-rocketed in the past 50 years. Single parenthood has almost become a badge of honor. Many see no problem with these kinds of phenomena and endorse them as only a matter of individual freedom and choice.
Again, I have difficulty attributing declines in science and engineering to global warming and creationism.
rodmichael, BS (Ch,E,), MD
We know why this has been happening since they shutdown the big one in the southwest and it's not budget. It's lack of respect for science and education. After all the bible says nothing about accelerators ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would also assign the PC/"smart" phone/Internet revolution no small role in the decline of education in this country. I didn't see a PC until I was in my first year of medical residency in 1977 (an Apple II). I have done OK in terms of career success and computer literacy. Steve Jobs' and Bill Gates' mistaken assertion that PCs would be the panacea for education ills has wrought only worsening education success. PCs should not be presented to students until 11th or 12th grade and then only to learn programming. They should not be connected to the Internet. That's a major distraction to undisciplined minds. Student research should be conducted using the Reader's Guide to periodical literature and other such antiquated reference guides. NOT WIKIPEDIA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother major contributor to declines in science and engineering are Pell grants. Nationally, we pay anyone anything to study anything. Many students, if not most, end up in the very soft "sciences" and other things like art history and art appreciation. And then they end up not only with big debts but no job. And they wonder what happened. If we were serious about a decline in science and engineering roles, we would limit Pell grants to those educational specialties we're interested in nationally.
It's federal taxes that pay for national defense. It's federal tax dollars that pay for SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and most of the other bid entitlements to which we are obligated. It's $16T of federal debt to which our children will be subject. It's $1.5T that is being added to that debt annually, largely due to entitlements. National defense, I believe is only about 5% of the national budget.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's "tariff."
Excuse me. I misstated. The Defense budget is 4% to 5% of annual GDP not of the annual budget. It's been relatively stable at that number for the past 50 years, I believe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"After all the bible says nothing about accelerators ..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeither does the constitution.
A foreign take on declining Science in the USA:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe USA is becoming an extremely religious nation, just like her very dear friend Saudi Arabia, who attacked her on 9/11.
The US response: No! No! No! my good religious friend has not attacked me, it is the Afghan shepherds and poppy growers, never mind they can't fly planes or think beyond conning someone for their next meal.
A Good religious nation can not tolerate science, can it? So shut down science, especially if it does not help kill and maim those who are anti-god.
When Bush jr. took over the presidency President Clinton handed him a surplus - when Obama took over $8 years later Bush jr. handed him an $8 trillion dollar deficit - can't you so called scientists figure out why they're closing down these particle colliders? I'll give you a little clue - the republican strategy is to put the government into such deep debt that science research will have to be curtailed as well as medicare, social security, and anything else the republican don't like - and then blame it all on Obama. Bush jr. didn't raise taxes one cent to pay for the wars, they put everything on credit ($4 trillion dollars - Iraq & and Afghanistan wars) - plus the republicans gave themselves two giant tax cuts that cost the country another $5 trillion (in lost revenue)- they want our kids to pay for everything. The republicans strategy is to tell alot of lies that simple minded people will believe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess you don't read too well. See comment #26.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy dear Vendicar:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'll be darned if you don't speak and pontificate just as I would expect one of the 50% who think they would like things to remain just the way they are. The 50% who pay no [federal] taxes and enjoy the luxury of living by the grace of OPM. My guess is that you're a scientist who lives on the largesse of a grant(s) from NIH or DOE or some other federal agency (provided by taxpayers) that keeps many "scientists" in clover with my $$$.
There's news for "progressives" like you: if you took all the money that the "rich", earning >$250K per year (or whatever the number is today), produce and you won't fill 1% of the Mariannas trench that is our current annual deficit or our current national debt. So the system (beast) you love so much, the "progressive" Obamanomics "plan" (that's a laugh, his only plan is to remain in office), will fail miserably and you'll have less than you will have with responsible leadership by people who actually pay taxes and know what it is to EARN a buck, instead of feeding perpetually on the government tit.
You seem to forget that the military and its surrounding industries are almost (if not completely) dependent on government funding. Sure defense is in the constitution, but how can much of what the military does overseas be considered defense? And why is it fine for the military to run extremely inefficiently and spend wastefully? Look at the F22 program, its pork piled on pork. I do not see how this differs significantly from the programs you disparage. OPM indeed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the Republicans win the presidency, they will take science back to the days of pre-Newtonian metaphysics anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr maybe sub-atomic particles "know" when they're being screwed by Neanderthal Science and will entangle themselves in some spooky, distant place and hide there until the bad guys go away.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout 46% of the our citizens pay no Fed. income tax. Except for stock market wizards like Romney they are mostly poor - they don't make enough to pay the income tax but they do pay sales tax, etc. They may be laid off, or they are disabled, or they are collecting unemployment benefits or social security alone, etc. etc. I'm glad I am not one of them!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn grade school we were taught that "cannot" was slang English. Something that should not be used in our writing. All of my teachers would take off points for it's use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut as you said, it's accepted now because everyone uses it instead of learning the proper form. On the flip side, sometimes this is how new words and cultural terms are born. The improper use becomes so common that the experts just throw up their hands and give in. 8-P
I think that the things going on are not so dependent on Obama. Some strange and not good changes are taking place in US nowadays. As globalization is progressing, the money is pouring in developing countries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne can say: let us cut all military programs and etc.
or let us cut science. But in case of current market economy US prosperity and stability is under a question, in some time under current economy circumstances US will lose the game it defied for others. Precisely for demonstration of US power and stability, all that operations in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan are taking place.
As for science, it is an indicator of more global processes. When the economy is growing, science has more money. But I think, if nothing will change globally, soon science will move to developing countries as well as technology, because it's more efficient, cheaper to do science there.
ok
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazing how the idiot politicians can find trillions to pay off unions, government pensions, take over failed auto companies, banks and bailout half the world but can't seem to be able to find a couple hundred million to fund something useful like colliders or space ships or maybe pay a soldier a little more money.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInstead the American politician has handed particle physics to the French and Space to the chinese. But at least they paid of their overpaid government union employees and their bloated benefits and pensions.
I also cosider that playing with forces we hardly understand, if at all, we may create a particle that can destroy the "world", on whatever level you want to interpret that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt might if there WAS a market for bosons, muons, gluons, quarks, and the like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBasic research is one of the few things that government does well...the very few. Actually the contractors do the work. The government writes the checks.
This is just another indicator of how low the mighty has fallen.
They need to chuck anyone from Texas off of science issues.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI recommend that this problem be given over to Neil deGrasse Tyson. If he can downgrade a planet, he can reduce a budget.
My son is naming his future offspring Boson, Muon, Gluon, Tau, and Quark.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@rodmichael - I let most of your poorly articulated idiocy slide because you just are not worth the effort but this line:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"50% of the US population does not pay taxes."
is so obviously false and down right stupid that I have to make you look like the idiot you are. Do you really think that the federal tariffs paid every time something enters the country or for many products, cross state lines don't get rolled into the cost of goods? Eighty percent of the federal income is from tariffs. Then there are the taxes on phone lines and other services. Tax on gas and electricity. Property tax, sales tax, occupation tax, use tax and licensing fees.
The poor pay much higher percentages of their income in taxes. They may not pay much in federal income tax and some of the poorest get a little paid to them instead of paying in but to say they pay no taxes is just plain assinine. This is why Tea Baggers (NAZIs) will never get real meaningful power.
When you stop focusing on demonizing people and start offering real solutions the people that you offend and the people you claim to hate may actually start listening and voting for you. Do you really think you can win a majority when you alienate half the voter base as a starting point? Then there are those like me that tend to vote Republican but quit when the "Tea Party" started up and the waste of Trillions on the 2 Mideast wars and blatant theft by Cheney via Halliburton completely betrayed everything Republicans claim to stand for.
We have to get the budget under control and install lethal penalties for members of Congress that propose or support deficit spending or raiding Social Security but it won't happen when people like you act like NAZIs. It wouldn't hurt to have states set the pay and benefits for their federal congress people. Congress should never be allowed a say in their compensation.
I'm sure this will have no impact on you at all but weak minds rarely learn.