Warren Mosler noted earlier in the week one of the recent casualties of US budget cutting - the Tevatron collider in Illinois is being shut down due to a lack of funding.
If the project is being shut down because it's not a good idea (the article notes that there's a superior collider operating in Geneva), then while it's sad for the physicists that work on the project it's actually a good thing in the long run - the government shouldn't fund projects that aren't a good idea, and those physicists should be working on something else.
If, as I suspect, the project is being shut because of a perceived need to "trim the fat" and stop spending so much money... that's foolish, counterproductive, and wrong. We'll pay for it in the form of less innovation, worse physics programs, and ultimately lower living standards.
All because of a quaint fear that the US government can run out of dollars. Sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment