269 



The question to be explored in the remainder of this chapter is: 

 What arrangements for the flow of technical information and advice 

 have been in effect that have produced so positive a congressional 

 response in a field so abstruse and unrelated to j^olitical values ? How 

 has the Congress met the problem posed by the circumstance that the 

 rate of increase in costs is independent of the benefits to society that 

 the research effort provides ? 



Recapitulation 



High-energy physics deals with the essence of all physical being — 

 the ultimate nature of matter itself. Xo basic research field illustrates 

 more elegantly the modern dilemma of Government sponsorship of 

 science. Thus : 



(1) Tlie field of inquiry has long been one of the most central to 

 the concerns of man. 



(2) The field is said to attract the most highly gifted, educated, 

 and motivated of research scientists. 



(3) Research into the atomic structure three decades ago yielded 

 results applicable to tlie creation of a new technology of warfare in 

 which offense was decisive, defense dubious, and destructiveness 

 intolerable. 



(4) Further penetration of the intricate complex of energies, masses, 

 motions, fields, and interchanges within the atomic nucleus, is certain 

 to yield further basic information — but is equally sure to yield ques- 

 tions and challenges calling for still further research. 



(5) The quest for knowledge of these mysteries is endorsed by 

 groups of outstanding scientists in many foreign countries, and 

 most notably in the Soviet Union ; efforts abroad threaten to match or 

 to outpace those in the United States. 



(6) Tlie possibility, or the fear, that further research discoveries 

 will yield applied results comparable to those produced by earlier 

 atomic research, while not apparently the motivation for the 

 researchers, is an important reason for public support of high-en- 

 ergy physics. Although expectations of further shattering discov- 

 eries are not widely shared by the scientists themselves, the possibility, 

 while remote, cannot be totally dismissed. 



(7) Costs of the research have been mounting with each, new incre- 

 ment of capability for further penetration of the nucleus, with a single 

 installation — the most advanced now entertained in concept — ap- 

 proaching a billion dollars. 



(8) Wide participation in the use of the largest facilities — and their 

 employment as training tools as well as for research — begins to be 

 precluded by their size, cost, need for tight scheduling, and specialized 

 skills associated with their use. Some of the educational reasons for 

 Government sponsorship of science are thus weakened by this trend. 

 The purpose of the very largest high-energy facilities is restricted to 

 front line research in the hands of the most qualified and advanced 

 scholars. The process of separation and specialization seems likely to 

 continue, as the size and power of the newest facilities continue to 

 increase. 



(9) There is no end in sight, no final goal can yet be defined, in the 

 quest for knowledge about the ultimate composition of matter. It is 

 altogether possible that complete characterization of all the "ultimate" 



