Newsweek: The Large Hadron Collider

Yeah, 3rd grade history.

Obiviously not smarter than a 5th grader.

For the non-US readers, there is a TV game show called Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? wherein the contestants have to answer 1st through

smitherinos

How about getting some teachers to play?

John

I don't think so. They do not go hand in hand.

ass

It couples to itself. Gluons both feel and are the agent of the strong nuclear force, too.

As I believe I just said, it is not unusual at all for five to ten decades to pass before useful applications arise from fundamental research. If you find that an abomination, that's fine -- lobby your congressman to stop funding fundamental research. As for myself, I consider it an unwise display of impatience.

's

An anecdotal case does not signify a trend, let alone a welcome trend. Keep in mind that presently, 90-95% of our technology is based on control of the electromagnetic interaction with a healthy sprinkling of quantum mechanics --- including chemistry, electrical engineering, computing, optical communications, molecular biology, and so on. The fundamental research on these was in full swing 120 years ago and 70 years ago, respectively.

Patience, grasshopper.

PD

When this ten thousand crowd of our best minds realize after results analysis that they can get no more with the LHC than with current less energetic accelerators, a sufficient number may at long last draw the conclusion that the Copenhagen trend has been wrung dry and may start considering possibly more promising avenues more likely to start feeding again productive applied research.

Andr=E9 Michaud.

How can anyone argue with this kind of logic? >:->

Cheers! Rich

Which amount ($17.6 Billion) is approx. 4 (four) percent of what they're spending ($439.3 billion) on war and weapons of mass destruction.

Thanks, Rich

Saddam Hussein Wanted Dead or Alive. $439 Billion Reward.

So... where's Osama?

We've been paying gigabucks per year for the manned spaceflight program for four decades. Net return is zero, or negative if you count the deaths. All those resources, engineering talent, scientists, workers, energy, may as well have been used to dig holes and then fill holes.

John

uhh.. took me about 5 seconds to find that article. I can only assume that alot of NASA technologies get moved into the business sector when the costs come down. In NASA's attempt to explore the heavens, they obviously come up with alot of smaller technologies that we never hear about.

I guess poetic crap like "Expand the scope of human knowledge" and "Because it's there" doesn't mean much to a mundane like yourself.

So, don't go!!

But don't put restrictions on what other people want to do. Hell, if the military would stop buying nuclear-missile-carrying submarines and B2 bombers and aircraft carriers, the savings would cover the entire cost of NASA since its inception.

However, I do support you in the respect that it's been funded with taxes - this is bad; people need to have the option to _not_ pay for it. Of course, the same should be said of war and WMD spending; I wonder how many people would write a check for $1400.00 to support the wars and invasions, if the payment were optional?

Thanks, Rich

You pulled those numbers out of thin air.

Do you have a recent example of something that sat around for a century unused and then made a big splash? I can't think of one. Note that we aren't talking about Leonardo's helicopter, here--he didn't know how to make one fly. We're talking about Faraday's dynamoelectric effect, or the transistor, or....?

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

The robotic probes have delivered excellent, amazing science. The manned stuff, zero.

I would if I could! I'd make a pretty good emperor.

John

I loved the repair of one of the mars rovers,(huey, dewey?), with the priority inversion problem when they sent up the source code and got it to compile it and reeboot.

That problem solving excersise was not given enough air time on the TV progs, Real Belt and Braces Engineering

martin

-as

we

Sure.

Newtonian gravity -- proposed 1687. First practical application, if you want to call it that: discovery of Neptune 1846 (16 decades). First big splash: planned trajectories of launched satellites 1950s (26 decades).

Mendelian genetics -- proposed 1866. Ignored until 1918 (5 decades). First big splash: industrial agricultural breeding for harvest crops

Boyle's law -- proposed 1662. First practical application: Savery engine 1712 (5 decades). First big splash: Watt engine 1775 (11 decades).

Coulomb's law of charge redistribution in conductors - 1785. First application: Faraday cage 1836 (5 decades). First big splash: Electrodynamic revolution 1890's (11 decades).

Sadly I agree with you. The only thing the ISS provides is a relatively safe destination for the shuttle to fly to for damage inspection.

It would be interesting to see what the water ice detected near the lunar poles might be like. We have only looked at a few small spots on the lunar surface. And it would be fun to bring back some Apollo era momentos, together with some lunar dust and rub the fake lunar landings nutters noses in it. I expect China will be next on the moon.

Manned space flight is still useful for some purposes although I do largely agree with you that robotic missions are the way forward unless and until we run into something that our robots cannot handle.

Flesh and bone is too fragile in interplanetary space. Even in near Earth orbit like the ISS they get a fair suntan from the solar wind.

Regards, Martin Brown