Super colliders

[Steven Krivit]

Can someone please tell me what benefits society has received from collider research?
What potential benefits to humanity may come from collider research?

Fermilab says:

"By analyzing the stored data from the detectors, physicists make discoveries about the fundamental nature of matter and energy."

"By smashing particles together at very high energy, physicists gain insight into the processes that took place during in the early universe, in the first instants after the Big Bang. Every second, particle accelerators create millions of "minibangs," producing up to a hundred particles in each collision. By studying these collision events, scientists can discover and explore the laws of nature."



Physics in America at Crossroads and in Crisis, Panel Says
http://newenergytimes.com/Inthenews/2006/NYTPhysicsInAmerica.htm

By Dennis Overbye
The New York Times

Thursday, April 27, 2006

"Physics in America is at a crossroads and in crisis, just as humanity stands on the verge of great discoveries about the nature of matter and the universe, a panel from the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday.

The United States should be prepared to spend up to half a billion dollars in the next five years to ensure that a giant particle accelerator now being designed by a worldwide consortium of scientists can be built on American soil, the panel said. If that does not happen, particle physics, the quest for the fundamental forces and constituents of nature, will wither in this country, it said.

Failure to locate the machine, known as the International Linear Collider, in the United States, the panel said, would force American particle physicists to do their research in Europe, where a major machine is to come online next year, and other places, perhaps Japan.

The blow to American physics would erode the base of science and technology that has fueled innovation, provided intellectual and cultural inspiration and bolstered national security over the last century."