Fermilab Particle Smasher Shut Down Permanently

Next week:

Particle accelerator parts on eBay.


:-)

looks like john titor is getting more and more correct everyday

Does this mean they will recycle the old parts and reduce cost of upcoming project?

Does this mean they don't want us to know that muon neutrinos can travel faster than light as it means they'll be jobless and look even more clueless than normal?

Mr LeForge!

Engage!

Except all that stuff about a civil ware breaking out in 2008....yea that guy was spot on!!

No. It means that they're decomissioning an almost 30 year old accelerator.

Since when did scientists/science say they had all the answers? They stick with the theory that has the most evidence and which has the least doubt. Like, before they could prove atoms (protons/neutrons) existed they thought of the 'plumb pudding' model instead of the nucleus and the solid state theory of the universe. How can you expect to know everything straight away before anyone knows about it or it's discovered? Stop acting like you're better than everyone and share with us the secrets of faster than light travel!

Well, so far it seems the world did not end becouse o f those gadgets that they are having fun with.
I do have to say that 20 billion seems a bit expensive for a bunch of brains to have fun with something that we probably wont be using for decades .

Anyway, i only hope that if they create a black hole or some shit like that, that they will warn us first.

I wouldent want to miss the action.

Incompetence of the US in managing science & space programs is the sign of the decline of USA.
Nalliah Thayabharan

you mean the over aged programs sucking money with no real use anymore? There is a new space program coming (Im only assuming you mean manned space program) and apparently a new accelerator program in the works.

It's kind of drag they are shutting it down. With the newer larger one in Europe it may be redundant but it could also still find new important physics data that could change the world or the human race.
They are trying to find that particle that they say has something tied to mass. If they could find it and find they can work with it then we will have faster than light travel or at least 0 to 99.9999999999999% the speed of light in less than a second and Inertial less drive ships and trains and everything else where it would radically change everything.
Learning everything we can about atoms leads to new ways of making different materials or finding a room temp. superconductor material is there to be figured out and shutting it down instead of saving money they give to some county that is so corrupt they would only waste it is crazy. The U.S. really does not know which way to turn these days but seems to be making all the wrong moves as far as it's long term future goes. But the whole world is heading towards a bottomless cliff if they don't get fusion power going in the next 10 years or less because we are heading into an Asia sparked world war over fresh water and other resorces in 50 to 60 years by how things are going now. Or a massive food shortage, civil wars and massive population losses in China, Russia, India and surrounding countries. It is not going to be pretty over there and they are not the only ones that will feel this problem. It will be maybe not as bad in other area's but the whole world is going to be facing sim. problems and the only chance we have can be solved by producing massive power.
Because if we have enough we can take ocean water, make it fresh, pump it anywhere it's needed.And also produce enough hydrogen to power clean running cars and trains and other power supply related issues. It's super important.
It's a power problem and the world should be spending massive amounts of money on solving it before the you know what hits the fan.
The trouble is with the world economy in such bad condition we won't have the resources needed to fix the run-away-train that is heading our way. It's very scary, China knows about it (They are spending over 50 billion on a water pumping system that they know is only a temp. fix....) and so do may smart people that are watching the problem but the world is run by people that only see short term issues because to fix this they have to be ready to commit political suicide because it needs so much of the worlds resources to solve it fast enough and a lot of people will be hurt in the process but it still has to be done or a whole lot larger amount of people will be killed in the long term outlook.
It very well could start WW3 starting between China, Russia and India as the flash point. It is this huge a problem. Global warming is partly the cause of it as well as wasteful uses and pollution of much of their clean water sources. This is no joke.
The only good part is I won't be alive to see it and I really am hoping the Hindu folks are wrong about reincarnation because I do not want to come right back and be born at the start of what is too come. I would want at least 100k year gap or 10 times that long if we are not lucky because what we have started won't be fixed for a long long time if their worst pred. come true with the gas's held in check by the ocean temp.
If that goes then reincarnation won't be a issue because no one will be left to worry about it if that happens. The people that are left can only live under ground or on Mars and the Moon and under ground Earth.
They need to keep these science projects going not for the small things we see but the large that they see, the people who know what to look for when they use these things. It's very important.
This may sound weird but the forced population control that the lack of water and food may save mankind in the long run. The real problem is there is way to many people on such a small planet to support the standards of living that is accepted as normal. It takes too much power and produces too much heat to sustain.
The real solution is forces population control over the entire world to get it down to manageable levels. For this we need a one world Government but this won't happen in time. That is a def. for sure.
We are still poisoned by the curse of nationalism. The curse of the human races tribal nature. It's always been our worst enemy and has killed well over 100 million in just the last 200 years alone not counting all recorded time. And people worry about the amount that are killed by drunk drivers. It's a joke.

how does someone pay for something like this? such a waste of money....

doesn't look like they will recycle anything....all parts have a stress point

Interesting and umm no billcat, 96% off the mark..that is all.

It's called investment, some of the discoveries pave the way for things that make practical use everyday, for example the Space program generated billions in profit even though it cost billions to run - how? Commercial satellites.

So breathe deeply, think hard, how could a particle accelerator be used for practical applications?

ftp://ftp-visualmedia.fnal.gov/pu [...] _Final.pdf

Semi-conductors: The semi-conductor industry relies on accelerator technology to implant ions in silicon chips, making them more effective in consumer electronic products such as computers, smart phones and MP3 players.
Clean air and water: Studies show that blasts of electrons from a particle accelerator are an effective way to clean up dirty water, sewage sludge and polluted gases from smokestacks.
Medical diagnostics: Accelerators are needed to produce a range of radioisotopes for medical diagnostics and treatments that are routinely applied at hospitals worldwide in millions of procedures annually.
Pharmaceutical research: Powerful X-ray beams from synchrotron light sources allow scientists to analyze protein structures quickly and accurately, leading to the development
of new drugs to treat major diseases such as cancer, diabetes, malaria and AIDS.
Nuclear energy: Particle accelerators have the potential to treat nuclear waste and enable
the use of an alternative fuel, thorium, for the production of nuclear energy.
Shrink wrap: Industry uses particle accelerators to produce the sturdy, heat-shrinkable film that keeps such items as turkeys, produce and baked goods fresh and protects board games, DVDs, and CDs.
DNA research: Synchrotron light sources allowed scientists to analyze and define how the ribosome translates DNA information
into life, earning them the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Their research could lead to the development of new antibiotics.
Cancer therapy: When it comes to treating certain kinds of cancer, the best tool may
be a particle beam. Hospitals use particle accelerator technology to treat thousands
of patients per year, with fewer side effects than traditional treatments.

Hmmm let see spend billions of dollars on scientific research that might produce something usefull or solve some of the mysteries of the universe someday or..........spend billions of dollars on the terminally stupid and lazy that is guaranteed to produce nothing more than more terminally stupid and lazy people.

had to close sooner or later, the new one is better in every way. Its like having 2 PCs. One with Athlon And the other with Core i7. If one is barely useful for the stuff your trying to achieve you stop using it. The old one did alot of advances in physics and contributed to better tech in the last 28 years. The new one might achieve significant advancements in the next few years. They already claim proved Einstein wrong about the theory of relativity, where nothing can move faster than light.

I cried. It was like watching them take someone off life support.

"You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?"
-Independence Day

If you have Netflix streaming or similar service check out this documentary about the Tevatron and the people involved made a few years ago.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/atomsmashers/

Those bitching about the cost would probably change their minds.

Fermilab asked for $100 million for the year. To put this in perspective of how "little" this is...

Obama gave that doomed solar panel company $500 million.
The US Government gave out billions of dollars in bailouts, with varying results.
The US spent $15 billion on the "war on drugs", which most of the confiscated drugs was marijuana.
And stuff about the upkeep to keep our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Considering what we spend our money on, $100 million of a "useless" particle accelerator is nothing.

I went to Fermilab when I was around 10 years old on a school trip. That field trip had a lasting and positive impact on me (now 38 years later) in how I view the world and science. Goodbye, old friend.

Used to be scientific research to benefit mankind. Now it's research to benefit some corporations or some filthy rich, greedy billionaires.

it still is. proving that Einsteins theory of relativity is wrong, is a huge change in physics since most of physics is based on that theory. Having claimed to have moves stuff faster than light, makes this project worth every penny invested in it. Not only do we all benefit from this but there are now more possibilities to do stuff in the future. This isnt the kind of research that only benefits some corps and greedy people, the ones that benefit from this the most are scientific investigators. and the investigations from these particle accelerators are used in chip manufacturing and developement for thing like PCs. We all benefit.

No they're still using it for Neutrino testing.

So stupid people shouldn't be cared for? I bet you would fit right in with the Eugenics movement back in the early 1900s.

And lazy? Sure some people are, but to say every who get's it are lazy? LOL republicans, subhumans.

actually, just decades isn't a long enough, more along the lines of a century, i mean what they experiment on there is the most cutting edge you can get before its theoretical.

20 billion is a bit much, but honestly, thats 20 billion over the span of 5-10 years of building, minimum. its allot, but far less than government is use to crapping away, and in this instance, its useful for the future us.