Part I - In which the U.S., in the midst of the Cold War, aspires for greatness in science and arranges to build a particle accelerator of incredible power. The following is a fictitious account littered with facts.
"Things on a very small scale behave
like nothing that you have any direct experience about. They do not
behave like waves, they do not behave like particles, they do not behave
like clouds, or billiard balls, or weights on springs, or like anything
that you have ever seen." - Richard Feynman
Scene 1: A High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) hearing (Department of Energy (DOE)) for the consideration of the construction of a 20 TeV Supercollider. It's 1983.
Scientist #1: Originally, the atom was conceived to be a fundamental unit of matter. The name "Atom" is literally greek for "indivisible". At the turn of the 20th century, with the discovery of the electron, it became clear that the atom was in fact made up of smaller parts. The idea of atoms consisting of electrons and a nucleus was developed in the 1910s. In the 1930s it was determined that these nuclei consisted of protons and neutrons. In the 1960s we figured out these protons and neutrons were made up of quarks and in the 1970s we finalized something called the Standard Model that explains more things than I have time to relate. Suffice it to say that in 70 years we've come a very long way in our understanding of the fundamental particles that make up matter.
Scientist #2: Yes, we now know that an atom consists of electrons orbiting a nucleus. A
nucleus consists of protons and neutrons bound by the nuclear force (a
residual strong force analogous to the van der Waals force, except involving the strong force between nucleons). Protons and
Neutrons are made of quarks, three each to be exact, up-up-down for the
former and up-down-down for the latter. The quarks are held together by
the strong force. Then the details become much more complicated involving concepts such as total angular momentum, baryon number,
electric charge, isospin, charm, strangeness, bottomness, topness, and color charge. From this a particle zoo ensues, hundreds of unique hadrons.
Panel Member #1: How confident are we in our understanding as it stands today?
Scientist #1: To directly answer your question, we think we pretty much understand what's going on, but we have reached certain limits in how much we can test what we think we understand. That, of course, is why we are here today.
Scientist #2: Last summer leading particle physicists attended a meeting in Snowmass, Colorado to discuss elementary particle physics and future facilities. For 5 years there has been talk for the need of a 20 TeV proton-proton collider. A workshop from Cornell on accelerator technologies and another workshop on detector technologies from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory made it apparent that such collider is now possible.
Scientist #1: That's why today we are urging the immediate initiation of a multi-
TeV high-luminosity proton-proton collider project at the earliest possible date. Details are provided in the reports submitted to your office.
Panel Member #2: We will evaluate your recommendations and decide how to proceed. Thank you for your time.
Scientist #1: Please do, and when you do, please consider this. When J.J. Thomson discovered the electron, a subdivision of the indivisible atom, scientists were surprised. At that time, the periodic table was well established and although there were inconsistencies regarding atomic weight, scientists didn't imagine something as small as an electron would be found inside atoms. Everyone at that time thought they pretty much understood what was going on, just as we think we do today. It's not that they were wrong mind you, it's just they found when they looked more closely there was much more detail than they expected.
Scientist #2: And when Bohr suggested the energy of an electron in orbit about a nucleus is quantized in 1913 to solve the problem of electrons spiraling into the nucleus, it led to a brand new field of science called quantum mechanics. Something no one could have anticipated resulting from studying atoms.
Scientist #1: That's true, and who could have imagined peering into the nucleus of an atom would lead to the atomic bomb with force far beyond any other weapon in history? We urge you to remember that this science, seemingly without practical purpose, inevitably revolutionizes the world through it's discoveries. It is no different from the first time man worked with Bronze, or Iron, or Plastic. We cannot be certain of what we will discover, but we can be reasonably certain it will change the world.
Panel Member #1: My friends, rest assured we understand the importance of maintaining a lead in scientific discovery. Certainly we will never allow ourselves to fall behind the Soviets in developing new science and new technologies. It is essential we maintain our technological and scientific lead.
Scientist #1: Rest assured, the SSC is critical for future progress in particle physics and technology in general.
Over the next year the HEPAP chartered preliminary studies regarding the technical and economic feasibility of a 20 TeV collider. Three designs were developed, each with their own costs. After much work with National Laboratories and collaborating Universities, the technical details were worked out and a design was selected and presented in a Conceptual Design Report written in 1986. This was by no means a finished product, many details regarding the accelerator and detectors needed to be worked out, but the Department of Energy was satisfied it could be done, and in January 1987, the DOE recommended the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) project proceed. President Ronald Reagan signed off on the project and after a very complicated and political selection process, in 1988 Texas was selected to be the location of the SSC. The total construction of the SSC was estimated to cost 4.4 Billion dollars.
End of Part I
Relevant Links:
http://www.hep.net/ssc/new/history/appendixa.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
http://www.damninteresting.com/americas-discarded-superconducting-supercollider
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom
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Re: The Superconducting Super Collider - A Tragedy in Two Parts
