Blog of Movie
Joe's comment - I think The Higgs particle deserves more attention than it is getting. I think it is a shame that American scientists are forced to go elsewhere to study in their particular field. I think American businesses are already outsourcing enough and now a government funded project is losing money. I think it's wrong.
- Higgs-Boson particle is infinitely small "god particle" said to give mass to everything
- Fermilab is using the particle accelerator (the Tevatron) to find the Higgs by speeding up protons and smashing them into each other
- As Fermilab draws nearer and nearer CERN is Switzerland builds the LHC a particle a particle accelerator 27 kilometers in circumference
- Fermilab funds are substantially cut by the government putting the Higgs research in terrible danger
- The separator spark in the Tevatron experienced problems and it was shut down for 2 weeks to fix it
- In Summer '06 Fermilab produced 1 inverse femtobarn which is a measure of the gazillions of collisions produced since March '01
- Fall '08 LHC will be up and running
- Fermilab is looking for the Higgs at 115-135GeV
- They developed e- cooling which makes more antiprotons which means more collisions
- CERN has 7x more energy making it hard for the LHC to find the "light Higgs"
- The bump of data John's group previously found, which was rumored to be the Higgs, disappeared
- December '07 62 million more is cut from the budget and many scientists are forced to work at CERN
Joe's comment - I think The Higgs particle deserves more attention than it is getting. I think it is a shame that American scientists are forced to go elsewhere to study in their particular field. I think American businesses are already outsourcing enough and now a government funded project is losing money. I think it's wrong.
I thinks that the Higgs research should have some of its funds pulled. There are better things that we could be using that money on instead of finding the particle that gives things mass. Though it may be important in some cases there are better fields that that money could be put towards as of right now.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, i agree and kind of disagree with the workers at Fermilab. I mean i think the government could give them more money to find this so important Higgs Boson, but its not the end of the world if the other lab finds it. I think that there are also more important things to use our limited money on. We could give Fermilab a little bit more money to find Higgs Boson, but i think there are also more important things.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the government is doing the right thing by cancelling higgs research facilities. Those funds should be used for applied research in something like biology. Thus if they came up with anything, it would be a much shorter distance to transfering that data into something helpful in medicine or something that helps mankind.
ReplyDeleteMoney is the main source of all the trouble. Every type of science and research is competting for goverment funding. In my opion Fermilab is not one of the more important areas of research. More money needs to go to medical research and other resaerch that effects the way humans live. Fermilab is very intteresting but has no direct effect for living. It is only new, cool, interestting knowlegde.
ReplyDeleteI think that Fermilab is a good concept. Who wouldn't want to find out something brand new that no one had ever discovered before? Ultimately, however, that discovery, assuming that there will even be one made, will not affect the day to day life of mankind. In my opinion, there are some things funded by the government that should come before Fermilab, such as education, national security, and military services.
ReplyDeleteI think that the government was right in cutting funds for Fermilab. I don't think the Higgs Boson would do much to help mankind. In the long run I think the money given to the science branch in government can be used for things much more important than Fermilab. Medical research would be a better place for the funds to go because that could help mankind much more than Higgs Boson could.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with the lady at the very end, how she said basically, what's the point of all this, why look for something that we don't even know exists. Cancer is right here, killing people, we should fix the stuff we can fix instead of chasing after a magical purple flying dragon that we don't even know if we can find. Billions of dollars could be going to save lives instead of searching for a black cat, in a dark room, that we don't even know for sure is there. But that's just me, I am going to step down from my soap-box and let someone else take the floor.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm on the soapbox now......
ReplyDeleteI agree with the government's decision to suspend funding for the tevatron at Fermilab. However, in June this year, the gov. reinstated funding for it (http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive_2009/today09-06-03.html) I don't think they should have done this. I think that although it would be nice for America to be the first country to discover the Higg's Boson, it would be fine if CERN finds it before Fermilab. When/if CERN finds it, it's not like American physicists will never know what they found. I'm sure the results will be passed on to everyone, so why have 2 multi-billion dollar projects going on in 2 countries?
I agree with government cutting funding for Firmilab, the government has a limited amount of funds to use and those funds should finance things that have practical purposes for the American people. The goverment should concentrate their resources on practical problems like finding alternative energy sources and cures for deseases like Alzheimers which afflicts millions of Americans. The scientists at Fermilab should have never become so dependant on government funding in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the lady that asked why we are spending so much money on this particle accelerator, when there still isn't a cure for cancer or AIDS, etc. This particle accelerator isn't helping take people off the streets or curing sick people is it? No, then why are we spending so much money on it?
ReplyDeleteI feel in between both sides. When the budget was cut from Fermilab, it was unneccessary and unorthodox. The government should have not completely cut from it, if they were in the first place, but given them a portion of the budget to have them be able to work with what they have. I also feel like it is an important concept to figure out all the information they were trying to find, but what about the other things that need to be found or researched or discovered. Those things are also equally important.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the decision to suspend funding on Fermilab's tevatron, due to the fact that the Higg's Boson is not considered to have any use if we discover it. The analogy of sending a probe to discover the area over the clouds was not well thought out, as there are things in the rest of the universe that we may be able to use, but the Higg's Boson is a random particle that will only satisfy our want to learn. With the economy in its current place, and so many scientific problems facing us at the current time, satisfying this want to learn isn't worth the millions of dollars that we spend on the Tevatron.
ReplyDeleteThe decision to cut Fermilab's budget was the right call. The Higg's Boson is a particle that has no use, other than fill a gap in our knowledge. With the economy in its current shape, the decision to cut the budget of the Tevatron and use the money elsewhere may help bring up the economy. Using the money elsewhere to fund a project with application seems a more logical choice than a project with no application.
ReplyDeleteI believe that at the heart of this dispute about Fermilab there is a much deeper problem. As the science writer-lady put it, "We have to make science sexier." This shows how the overall interest in scientific discovery has decreasied among our generation. The only way to fix this is to continue to support experimantal sciences. And to do this, you don't have to take away from research looking for cures, just invest intelligently.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, everyone is talking about putting money into things that are "more important" than the Higgs. Investment in experimental sciences is under-rated. How do we know the Higgs won't impact our daily life? When scientists were experimenting with the nucleus of an atom, did everyone else realize that it would open up a completely new form of energy, and be the source of the most dangerous weapon the world has ever seen, the atomic bomb? Probably not. The creation of the LHC doesnt defeat the purpose of the Fermilab either. If the Higgs mass is less than what the LHC can find, then Fermilab will be the only place to find evidence of the Higgs. We shouldn't fully finance Fermilab, but we should keep it running, in case they discover anything else. Also, Fermilab is the only one operating right now, and working dependently.
Any success at Fermilab will encourage younger generations to be more interested in scientific discoveries, and that will lead to finding cures for potent diseases, and efficient energy sources.
I really like the comments the scientists said about the decrease in science. In todays society, especially in high school, the science orientated kids may not be the most popular. Many very scientifically-smart high schoolers are drawn away by peer pressure. Many dont open up to see their own possible fate. The physicists comments fit very well with the flow of the movie, and it made a great point about sticking with school and not culture
ReplyDeleteWhen the government canceled Fermilab's funds; I'm looking with the view of a Fermilab employee. When they lost their funds, they in essence lost the ability to continue their search for the Higgs Boson at full capacity. They were in a race against the CERN, and now without the huge amount of government money that they needed to continue their research, they would be left virtually "helpless." In a way, I feel for them, because they jump started the search and they should've been the ones to find it completed when the Higgs is discovered.
ReplyDeleteI think more funding needs to be diverted to applied research. Basic research is good because it gives you brand new knowledge and occasionaly contributes in a big way to our way of life. Applied research is a safer bet for improving technology, but doesn't usually create large leaps in science. We don't need to gamble on a particle we don't even know exists, we need to improve on what we already know.
ReplyDeleteI think that all the money that is being cut out should go to applied research than basic. Applied is better because it helps create more ideas for future problems. Basic research doesn't. I'm not saying that research to gain knowledge is a bad thing, but it shouldn't be the focus of all things.
ReplyDeleteDisagree that the U.S. took the funding but i do believe that they should transfer that funding to something more productive. These scientists had their chance. Why can't we as a human race together look for the answers to solve these problems. yes cancer is a problem, but its not going to get any better unless we all work together. So far the cure for it is rough, Can we make it better. There could be a kid in india who finds the cure. That is the point, there is no right place to put the money, rather there is only a plethora of ideas that are in desperate need of it. why cut fermilab. why not cut salaries. why not put money into something that will make a return. there is no right answer....
ReplyDeleteI think that the government made the right call about cutting fermilab's funding because i think they are spending millions on a possible wild goose chase, that the higgs might not even exist why waste that much money while we could be reaserching something that will acctually make a big contribution to everyday normal people's lifes. what i mean by the everyday normal peoples thing is that the money should be put into finding the cure for life threatening diseases or something like maybe helpin our bad economy right now.... hey but thats just what i think and its not like the government really cares about what i think.
ReplyDeletei wish i had seen this movie but it seems that there is too much funding going towards fermilab and it should be going twards research instead.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is disappointing that Fermilab will be shut down, the U.S. government can't be blamed for deciding to cut them. The United States has enough financial troubles already. I think that it is enough that money is being devoted to scientific research that we can see will have practical applications. Besides, CERN is now functional, and is more productive than Fermilab. If CERN discovers the Higgs Boson, they will share it with the entire world, so there is really no need for the United States to be financing Fermilab when a better atom-smasher is being funded by someone else.
ReplyDeleteWhile I support applied research over basic research, I also think that if we put no funding towards basic research, we risk losing any interest in that field, or even having specialists in that field to begin with. Somebody needs to be working to keep the interest in the field alive, so when we have the cure for cancer and there are no more starving people in Africa (as examples), we can turn to unlocking the secrets of the universe. It's a rough dichotomy, though, from the accountant's perspective.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the team stated that they generally know beforehand if their budget will be cut, but they didn't find out until the government conference. While I understand that the film was biased towards the researchers, and I don't fully understand the government process for making and announcing these decisions, that seems, for lack of a better phrase, unprofessional. If you'll forgive a little hyperbole, it makes about as much sense as running a TV ad announcing who you're firing.
I think that it was ok that they stopped some of the funds to Fermilab since there is really much better more useful research that can be done. I do feel bad that it happened, but I think that their research could wait til after some other important things are funded and discovered.
ReplyDelete