w******n
发帖数: 118 | 1 其实啊，以咱王所的忽悠水平，哪能忽悠得过温伯格啊。看看安德森三十年前反对ssc
的文章，拿来喷王所，一点都不过时。
The Case Against the SSC
I would like to lay out the scientific case against the Superconducting
Supercollider because I think many of my colleagues who understand this case
are hesitant to make it, not least because some of the arguments are two-
edged. I am very hesitant myself, because I am not against the project,
except insofar as it competes for resources which I see as needed more
elsewhere.
Let me organize my thoughts in terms of four slogans, each of which is aimed
at sowing doubt about one of the myths supporting the unique value of
elementary particle physics.
1. Science can be fundamental without being irrelevant.
2. Money is important, but manpower and education are more so, and money
affects these.
3. The term "spinoff" should be erased from the language.[/color]
4. The golden eggs are very seldom produced by the golden geese.
1. The first slide in many general talks given by my colleagues in high-
energy physics is a length scale spreading from the "Planck length" (way
below elementary particle size) to the size of the cosmos. They gesture
deprecatingly toward the center of this scale (where we and our atoms and
all of everyday life sit) and say, "Of course, we know everything there, and
the only fundamental science is at extreme scales." Well, we don't know
everything there. We haven't the foggiest idea what drives the new high-
temperature superconductors, or what makes a snowflake, or how the mind or
the economy works. What is more, nothing high energy physics can do will
ever be of the slightest direct help in solving these overwhelmingly hard
problems.
We have long since learned everything particle physics can tell us about the
behavior of ordinary matter, even of nuclei, and probably of the stars
themselves. If the particle physicists tell you they will understand even
the Big Bang better as a consequence of the SSC, they are being wildly
optimistic; and if they claim any other relevance, they are wrong. Their
fundamental physics has become so "fundamental" as to be almost totally
irrelevant, even to the rest of science.
2. Particle physicists have a way of comparing the cost of the SSC to that
of a battleship or a missile and making it out as not very big on that scale
. The catch there is that that much money spent on this kind of science is
going to have a large effect on how we use our really bright, well-trained
technical people, and on how we educate them. They are a resource that is
extraordinarily scarce and getting much scarcer: so scarce that it is
beginning to be a surprise to hear an American accent in the physics
departments of this country, because we are having to fill in more and more
with immigrants and visitors in our junior positions.
3. One of the great arguments for spending money on large technological
projects is always the "spinoffs." One spinoff that is adduced for large
accelerators is superconducting magnets. I was closely associated with the
group at AT&T Bell Labs that invented these magnets in 1960, not as a
spinoff from anything but as a consequence of a fundamental research program
on superconducting materials, with no public funding and probably few
prospects of getting any even then. Their further development was indeed
carried out partly by wisely administered public money from the service
agencies and partly by industry, and then by small instrumentation firms
concentrating on scientific uses. So far as I know, the truly innovative
part of this technology owes nothing to particle physics.
4. Those who manage the funding of science have a very strong prejudice in
favor of large expensive projects and large unitary laboratories or centers.
The amount of money available for free, unprogrammed individual research
dwindles. Unfortunately, it is not the large, expensive programs that
produce really new things. Of the last three major developments in
superconducting materials, none of the breakthrough discoveries took place
in the United States, the Chevrel materials being discovered in France and
Switzerland, heavy electron superconductors in Germany, and high Tc oxides
in Switzerland. Even once La2CuO4 appeared, the next confirmations appeared
in Japan and then in Beijing. The materials themselves were primarily
studied heretofore in India and in France.
This preponderance of overseas work is due in part to the poor funding of
small science here, and in part to the channeling of what research we do
into large facilities, which for the most part, are not places where you
discover breakthroughs, or in which serendipity can operate. Rather, they
are places in which you test breakthroughs once you have them. Innovative,
small group work in this country must not be cut back in favor of the large
facilities.
In conclusion, let me say that I too want to know what the ultimate
structure of matter in the world is going to be, as well as how the Big Bang
happened, and I want to see an accelerator going far beyond the present
limits eventually built. I do not accept that doing so is as urgent as many
other scientific needs of the country—in space science, science education,
and above all in the rescue of our strong tradition of innovative,
fundamental small science, which is now being carried on in only a few
universities (such as Cornell), industries (such as Bell Labs) and
government institutions (such as Los Alamos), all of which are in a somewhat
embattled state. A fraction of the budget earmarked for the SSC could
easily restore our prominence in this area, if given, say, to NSF and
restricted to small science uses.
It disturbs me to see accelerator physics viewed as a nationalistic,
competitive race; science is too serious a matter for that. And if the lack
of the right accelerator here at exactly the right time is really going to
kill high energy physics, I must say it is better off dead, if only for the
crippling lack of imagination that attitude reveals.
In 1977 Anderson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with John H. Van Vieck
and Nevill F Mott. He is Joseph Henry Professor of Physics at Princeton
University, Princeton, NJ 08540. This article is adapted from testimony
before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology on April 7 in
Washington, D.C. | w******n
发帖数: 118 | 2 为了做到知己知彼，王所在反驳老杨的时候为什么不把这个文献好好读读呢？国内的人
怎么没有去想把这个文章翻译出来贴在网上。当今活着的物理两大霸主C. N. Yang And
P. W. Anderson都反对这个东西，看起来对撞机不是一般招人恨。 | s*****V
发帖数: 21731 | 3 Anderson是搞凝聚态的，这个等于经费竞争者。 |
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