268 



duction of hardware and components is not crucial, wliile rejection 

 rate is likely to be high — especially in items close to the state of the 

 art; useful applications to commerce or even to other fields of science 

 of the skills required do not appear to be consequential. In the jargon 

 of economics, the industrial skills associated with a large accelerator 

 might be dysfmictional for capacity to produce goods economically to 

 satisfy other human requirements in competitive markets.' 



IMoreover, if the justification of support for high-enei-gy physics 

 is based on benefits that are irrelevant to the purposes that motivate 

 the scientists, while tlie costs are directly related to these purposes, 

 then a social anomaly is at hand. Costs and benefits to society are on 

 ditierent scales of values; they are independent variables, and the lat- 

 ter cannot logically be used to justify the former. 



To the extent that there is merit in acquiring national prestige 

 through excellence in an undoubtedly prestigious scientific field, this 

 factor might also warrant consideration. However, it appears that this 

 sort of prestige is costly to acquire and highly perishable. In 1968, 

 after nearly three decades of steadily rising national contributions 

 to the high-energy physics effort in the United States, during which 

 period the Members of Congress were repeatedly assured that the 

 United States was in the forefront of the science, an advisory panel 

 on high-energy' physics of the Atomic Energy Commission warned 

 that "Leadership in high energy physics is expected to pass from the 

 United States to Western Europe and the I'.S.S.R. in the next few 

 years unless the U.S. funding trend for this frontier field is radically 

 modified." ^ 



ConsideroJions of conthiued Government support 



In summary, the quest for knowledge about the ultimate composi- 

 tion of matter involves scientific curiosity, indirect benefits (educa- 

 tional, economic, cultural, technological) accruing from a vigorous 

 program of basic research, the advantages of enhanced national 

 prestige, and the possible implications for national defense. 



The costs of the quest are rising steeply, both to acquire larger and 

 more powerful accelerators, and to operate them. Progi-ams of research 

 in Western Europe and the Soviet Union parallel those in the United 

 States. No evident cutoff point in the further pursuit of knowledge in 

 the field has been found. There is no assurance that the projected 

 200-Bev accelerator will resolve the fundamental questions of matter, 

 nor indeed that they will be answered by a projected 800- to 1,000-Bev 

 accelerator now under study funded by the AEC. 



In short, each increment of increase in power or intensity of 

 accelerators, sensitivity of detection apparatus, and skill in data 

 management and analysis, opens the way to further disclosures but at 

 the same time raises new questions that can be answered only by further 

 incremental increases of greatly increased magnitude in research 

 capability. And each further incremental increase in research capa- 

 bility is provided at an exponential increase in costs. 



s "The Status and Problems of High Energry Physics Today," a report of the High Energ>' 

 Physics Advisory Panel of the Atomic Energy Commission, .Tan. .30, 1968 ; In U.S. Congress 

 Joint Committee on Atomic Energy," AEC Authorizing Legislation, Fiscal Year 1969. Hear- 

 ings Before the * * * on Nuclear Rocket (Rover) : Space Electric Power: Physical Re- 

 search ; Raw Materials ; Isotopes Development ; Biology and Medicine ; Plowshare : Special 

 Nuclear Materials ; Communitv ; Program Director and Administration ; Training, Edu- 

 cation and Information and Weapons." Feb. 7 and 21. 1968, pts. 1-3. 90th Cong., 2d 

 sess. (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), pp. 12,07-1(222. 



