Texas Higgs hunters mourn the particle that got away

[FarCenter]

Now that the elusive Higgs boson has, for all intents and purposes, been goosed into existence, the scientific world is popping champagne corks, lifting pints, and otherwise celebrating CERN's apparent success.

Well, almost all of the scientific world. Deep in the heart of Texas, a small group of dispirited particle physicists are not hoisting celebratory suds, but instead crying in their beers, lamenting the particle that got away.

The Higgs boson was supposed to be theirs, but congressional budget hawks snatched it away when they canceled the US Superconducting Super Collider project in 1993, despite the fact that construction was already well underway.

"Our feelings as American physicists about this great discovery at CERN have to be a little bittersweet," University of Texas theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg told Austin's KUT radio. "This is a discovery that could have been and should have been made in America."

...

Weinberg recalls a debate he had with a US Congressman on the Larry King show back in the day. "And he said he wasn't against science, he just thought we ought to set priorities," Weinberg reminisces. "And I said 'well that's fine, I agree with that. The super collider would help us learn the laws of nature. Doesn't that deserve a high priority?' And he said 'no'."

...

Those 15 miles of tunnels, however, will remain unused, an underground monument to America's fading commitment to pure science.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/05/ssc_and_higgs/

[A HERETIC I AM]

1. I thought it was a damned shame they killed that project

I saw photos of the tunnels in Texas years ago . They were well along the way to completion when it was cancelled. Damned stupid short sightedness



Edit to add that had it been finished it would have dwarfed the CERN site

[marybourg]

2. Do I remember correctly that it was

Texas' own Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R) who cast the deciding negative vote?

[DBoon]

3. "Doesn't that deserve a high priority?"

of course not - they were too busy cutting the capital gains tax

[bluedigger]

5. Locking: Please repost in Outdoor Life n/t