General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why do so many cling to the idea of american exceptionalism? [View all]longship
(40,416 posts)The US had the largest particle accelerator on the planet at Fermilab.
In the early 90's Congress funded the Superconducting Super Collider which was to eclipse any other accelerator in existence or planned, even the now champion of physics technology, the LHC
Here's the story on the SSC. They dug part of 56 mile long tunnel for it in TX at a cost of 2 billion bucks (including significant infrastructure to support it). Then, Congress killed the project over President Clinton's objections. It cost another 2 billion to shut the project down! The argument was that we couldn't afford both the SSC and the ISS, the International Space Station.
So now our excellence in advanced experimental physics has gone over to Europe. And if that wasn't enough, Congress recently shut down the Tevatron, Fermilab's large accelerator which has been at the forefront of physics for decades and still is doing great work including their recent announcement of possible evidence for the Higgs boson
Bummer!