The Atom Smashers November 24, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in Fermilab, USA, science.10 comments
The Atom Smashers (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/atomsmashers/) will show on PBS on Tuesday night. It looks like it focuses on Fermilab and the particle physics research occurring there. I like their tag line:
After funding cut backs, Fermilab—a premier U.S. government research laboratory focusing on particle physics—is struggling to survive. Physics, politics and international competition collide as scientists race to find one of the most elusive sub-atomic particles ever theorized: the Higgs boson.
Elsewhere on the site the film makers claim they don’t try to answer questions – but rather to get you to "think":
We hope this film will raise the awareness of America’s strange relationship with science. We don’t attempt to answer questions in our film, but rather to raise them. Is this research worth doing? Should we care about it? Should the U.S. participate in it or let it get done elsewhere? Also, we hope to help demystify science and scientists. We’d love it if a viewer came away thinking, “You know, those scientists are not really that different from me."
That last line being one of the main points of this blog!! Leave a comment if you get a chance to see it – I’d like to know what you think!
This show is part of PBS’ Independent Lens project. I have no idea if it will be available online. I hope so as I don’t have a TV receiver (their videos online are all very short, so I might be out of luck)!
P.S. Sorry about the links (and lack of them) – the computer I’m on doesn’t have my normal blogging software and so is a pain-in-the-butt to use.
The LHC is too big to fail! November 17, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in USA, politics, science.5 comments
A friend of mine and I were discussing the bailout. The consensus seems to be that large companies – like GM and Chrysler – are too big to fail.
Can we say the same thing about a science experiment like the LHC? 
Could we apply for extra science funding under the bailout program?
Keeping Perspective September 22, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in USA, politics, science.3 comments
The bailout proposed by the US government to keep our financial system afloat is going to be about $700 billion (US). I’m guessing that is going to rise to about $1 trillion or so by the time all is said and done. I can’t really fault the government on this – now that we are here something like this has to be done. It looks bad to even myself and I’m sure if I knew more about economics I’d be even more scared for the US financial system.
The LHC cost about $7 billion. So, you could build 100 of those for the price of this bailout. But it doesn’t stop there – this is going to be a hang-over the US budget will be paying off for years to come. Guess what is going to get hit… you got it. I’m sure funding for science in general is going to be down in the future. Ugh. Not only is that 100 LHC’s worth of science (all types of science!!) we could have done, but it will mean less science in the future as well.
How stupid is that!? I don’t know who to get pissed off at either – this seems to be a problem of group think. Like the echo chamber of the blogosphere.
To the Moon and Mars – Is It True? September 3, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in USA, politics, science.5 comments
I’m still in Ottawa, gently re-integrating myself back into North America. I can actually stay up past 9pm now (jet lag!). Going though old email I stumbled on this:
The Democratic presidential candidate has called for the U.S. to lead the way in terms of space exploration, and wants to put astronauts on the moon yet again.
On top of that, he also wants to pursue the eventual goal of putting astronauts on Mars.
Barack Obama has come out and stated that by 2020, he wants another U.S. trip to the moon, and has also promised full support, with a great deal of funding for NASA.
Is that really Obama’s position? Wait. I guess I can look at his web site now… Under Issues on his site Science isn’t listed. Wait — I was about to get lost in how little Science is mentioned on his web site – which is a whole other post. Just concentrating on NASA… Ok — couldn’t find it under issues. I did find this position paper. I found it via a search engine, so I’m not sure exactly what it was (talking points for a speach, etc.). But it directly addresses space exploration. First of all, it is balanced. It notes that basic research (for climate change, etc.) has all been cut. And that funding would have to be restored.
But it still talks about human space flight – and almost always as a feel-good exercise rather than something scientific. When he gets to the meat of the human space flight component of what he wants to do, he starts with the following:
Human spaceflight is important to America’s political, economic, technological, and scientific leadership.
and then
He supports a funding goal that maintains at least 10 percent of the total exploration systems budget for research and development.
So, 90% is all about feel good and getting back to the moon and mars, and 10% is about doing the actual science. Also, why is he so fixated on the microgravity experiments that were to take place on the International Space Station before funding cuts eliminated them?
I am a bit disappointed in this. I really don’t think it is a good use of our countries resources to send a person to Mars. I’m all for sending more robots there – lots of them. Much cheaper (it doesn’t matter so much if they don’t come back). And the science they can do is better (the rocket fuel you save on not sending a human you can use to send extra equipment).
I’d like to see this country get on with funding real science. And less of this:
“When I was growing up, NASA united Americans to a common purpose and inspired the world with accomplishments we are still proud of. Today, NASA is an organization that impacts many facets of American life. I believe NASA needs an inspirational vision for the 21st Century. My vision will build on the great goals set forth in recent years, to maintain a robust program of human space exploration and ensure the fulfillment of NASA’s mission….”
US ATLAS Construction: Check! July 2, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in ATLAS, USA, science.2 comments
This is a by-product of big science – and the resulting management and budget oversight. The last bit of the ALTAS detector was shipped over to CERN a long long time ago. For example, at UW, we spent almost three years running continuous production for the forward muon chambers (the picture is that of one of them being lifted into place). The last one left our lab more than 2 years ago (might even have been 3 now). In fact, an astro-physics experiment has chopped up the large granite block and taken over the space already.
A project like ATLAS evolves. There is no real beginning. And it will be hard to identify an end. People will be working on it long after it has ceased to take data, for example.
But that isn’t true for the bureaucracy. Budgets and oversight demand a definite start and a definite end. And that just happened for the construction phase for the ATLAS project in the USA. The budget was tied off. No more money for construction. All wrapped up.
I originally wasn’t going to write anything about this. From the point of view of science and public interest in how ATLAS is doing this is, basically, a non-event. What do you care as long as ATLAS sees collisions and produces physics? You don’t care so much about the meat grinder aspect, just that the sausage tastes good, right?
It was the fairly continuous stream of emails that came after the announcement that changed my mind. It has slowed to a trickle now, but there is still about one a day congratulating everyone involved. From the point of view of the managers and people working in the funding agencies this is really a very big deal. BTW — most of the people managing this both inside and outside the funding agencies are scientists or ex-scientists themselves. At any rate — many of these folks labor outside the public eye, but they have done a great job keeping ATLAS going in the USA. After all, without funding, there is no way I or anyone else could participate in the physics! Howard Gordon, at Brookhaven, is mostly singled out for keeping the project on track, though many other names are mentioned.
As one of the congratulatory messages said: “On to operations!”… which happens to be what the physics phase of the funding will be called. 
Weird to see how the bureaucracy in a project like this maps to the real life.
UPDATE: Fixed Howard Gordon’s affiliation.
More Funding For All Of Science March 28, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in USA, politics, science.1 comment so far
Persis Drell (SLAC director), along with Steven Chu (LBNL director), and Thom Mason (Oak Ridge Director) had a chance to visit the house speaker the other week.
We explicitly told the Speaker that we three Directors of major research institutions were not asking for anything for our individual laboratories. Our message was that a broad national commitment to scientific research and innovation was necessary—and that this would certainly create an environment in which we, and our partners in the academic community, could compete and thrive.
Exactly. I couldn’t agree more.
I personally doubt there is much more than can be done for this year’s budget mess (but I’m in favor of trying!!), but perhaps we can convince congress to be ready for the ‘09 budget – which probably won’t be settled until well after the election.
The Exchange Rate March 26, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in USA, physics life, science.2 comments
As I write this the exchange rate is about $1.54 US to one euro. This will probably come out the middle of next week – no telling what it will be then.
When I moved over here on July 1 the dollar was $1.35 US (see Yahoo! Finance).
Even though France is helping out by paying me a per-diem over here, it is paid in constant dollars. Darn.
Our graduate students and post-docs over here are in the same boat. They are also paid in constant dollars. It is worse for them, of course, as they are paid less than I am and so have less of a cushion to fall back on (I don’t even want to talk about what has happened to my savings account during the stay over here!).
Indeed, we just had to raise the student’s battle pay in order to account for the exchange rate difference. Where does this money come from? Our grant, of course. To supplement the grant so that it can accommodate these increases we are asking for extra cash, of course, but everyone doing physics over in Europe is in the same boat and there just isn’t much extra money in the various funding agencies coffers after the last budget battle.
I don’t see the dollar coming down soon. I keep hoping it will plateau. This latest turn-around is, I think, only temporary. But it is definitely cutting into our ability to send people over to Europe, and we do science with people – less people, less science. It started with a small fraction of bad loans, which is slowly claiming more and more people – and now spreading out from the housing sector to the financial sector and… to the science sector. If there is such a sector!
BTW – when the insurance adjuster dropped by we talked a bit about the financial crisis in the US. He said it was a scandal: “Why haven’t you guys caught the people responsible?”
"I do." October 17, 2007
Posted by gordonwatts in USA, politics.1 comment so far
Should we believe? I read this while trying to not work on the talk I have to give tomorrow.
Mr. Mukasey noted that a 2002 memorandum by Jay Bybee, an assistant attorney general at the time, stating that the president had the power to circumvent the Geneva Conventions as well as laws banning torture, was later disavowed and superseded.
“Would it be a safe characterization of what you’ve just said that you repudiate this memo as not only being contrary to law, but also contrary to the values America stands for?” Mr. Leahy asked.
“I do,” the nominee replied.
“Thank you,” Mr. Leahy said. “Is there such a thing as a commander-in-chief override that would allow the immunization of acts of torture that violate the law?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Mr. Mukasey said.
On one hand, this is encouraging to hear. On the other hand, he isn’t exactly going against any current practices in the Bush administration — as he noted, they have already decided that memo is wrong. But what about all those other memos that came afterwards that redefined various practices as “not being torture?”
