Finding God in Small Things

(C) Copyright 2012 Renny Young

We found the Goddamn particle!


This is a happy day for particle science and physics in general; the various Theories of Everything are looking slightly less insane, or at least insane-but-with-some-proof!

I have no idea what the larger connotations are, but I suspect we'll be able to learn them in the next few days; I've been shocked at the quantity of media that this result has gotten.


Here's the data from Google Trends for the search occurance for "higgs boson" in the last 30 days:




I do feel a little bittersweet about this whole matter; until very recently, almost every major discovery of this type used to be Made in America(C) by American scientists.  29 years and 1 day ago the Tevatron Particle Accelerator was activated in Batavia Illinois and was the most powerful Accelerator for over twenty years.  It was shut down this last September because of budget cuts, and stands a powerful illustration of the changing field in Science.  No longer are the major papers dominated by American scientists, and the only research that has any strong chance of getting funded here are projects that can justify a health or medicinal aspect, or kill many people quickly, effectively, and expe.  Most of our research dollars these days go into outlandish military projects, the details of which can remain classified for decades meaning that the public sees little to no benefit (other than a handful more dead terrorists).

Maybe this is just another result of our dysfunctional budging system.  Perhaps science, like every expenditure, must be cut.  But I can't help but feel that when it comes to our government, useful spending is cut first, while research into ways to kill goats with ones' mind blossoms.  The National Science Foundation loses funding year after year, while the Department of Defense "loses" billions of dollars.

One benefit of Science is that whenever someone learns something and shares it, the whole world learns it to.  Science is not a zero-sum game, and we should applaud discover wherever it happens because it usually ends up benefiting us as well.  But on this Day of Independence, it's hard not to look at the declining lead of America in funding research and wonder how our priorities became so messed up.

Copyright 2012 Renny Young