270 



particles to be found in matter (now approaching 150) will eventually 

 be explained in terms of a composition of two or three particles of 

 still finer mesh — in the same way that the atomic elements were reduced 

 to combinations of the electron, proton, and neutron. Or it may be that 

 there are merely more and more different kinds of particles or clifferent- 

 sized pieces of energy /matter dislodged from the nucleus by different 

 energies of impact. 



(10) As the research proceeds, fewer and fewer researchers, more 

 and more remote from the rest of the scientific community, equipped 

 with more and more costly accelerators, supported by more and more 

 elaborate and costly recording and computing equipments, are making 

 discoveries more and more remote from public understanding, and 

 more and more unrelated to human reality. 



The dilemma presented by these 10 circumstances is that — 



To halt the research is to expose the Nation to the fear that 

 discoveries by other nations will jeopardize U.S. security; 



To pursue the research at the rate desired by the scientists who 

 are engaging in it, for an indefinite future period, would be to 

 })reempt resources from other sciences, throw the national scien- 

 tific effort out of balance, reduce research and educational oppor- 

 tunities, and delay progress toward U.S. objectives other than in 

 science ; 



To pursue the research at a lower level, on a "stretched out'' 

 schedule, would result in frustration of those engaged in the in- 

 quiry, lessened efficiency in the use of facilities, increased possi- 

 bility that scientists elsewhere would achieve more rapid results 

 damaging to the security and prestige of the United States ; and 



To enlist the scientifically minded nations of the world in a 

 more tightly organized and fully international research program 

 might reduce the costs to each, and reduce the possibility of some 

 technological surprise in nuclear weaponry, but might also reduce 

 the quantitative opportunities for participation by U.S. scientists, 

 and the national prestige of the United States through eminence 

 in the field. 



II. AD\^CE TO THE COXGRESS ON HiGH-ExERGY PhYSICS 



In the presenting of a case to the Congress for Federal funding, no 

 field of basic research has approached high-energy physics in the vol- 

 ume, scope, variety of forms of presentation of data, detail of cover- 

 age, and number and eminence of advocates. Immediately after World 

 War II, several Government agencies shared the task of supporting 

 this area of basic research. The Office of Naval Research, and later 

 the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science 

 Foundation, all contributed to the funding of the discipline. How- 

 ever, the AEC early assumed a predominant role. 



Not long after the Soviet sputnik achievement stimulated an en- 

 larged national scientific effort in the United States, a forum to assist 

 in the coordination of the Federal support of high-energj- physics was 

 provided by the Technical Committee on High-Energy Physics 

 (TCHEP), a committee of the Federal Council of Science and Tech- 

 nology (FCST). General science policy recommendations were gen- 

 erated bj^ the President's Scientific Advisory Committee (PSAC), 



