Higgs and Us

There is an interesting sidelight to the Higgs discovery made by the mostly European team and announced, provocatively, on the Fourth of July. The Superconducting Super Collider built at the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland was, in the 1990's, funded by American money and the decision to withdraw the money delayed the advances and removed Americans from prominence there. More, Fermilab, built  outside of Chicago in 1967,  was one of the original potential sites for the  Large Hadron Collider (LHC)  but federal funding was withdrawn and the new collider was awarded to Geneva. The Fermilab collider was closed down for lack of funding in 2011. University of Michigan physicist Gordon Kane says that had the funding been maintained, the Higgs would have been an American discovery with its eventual collateral advances.

I know that sounds a bit wistful--and regressively nationalistic--but cultures that don't aspire don't achieve. With all the talk about "government investment," this looks like a good one not done.

If you search Fermilab now you get articles about local bison.