Beyond the God Particle (2 page)

Using a modern mathematical theory developed in the 1950s by the Nobel economist Robert Solow, it became possible to calibrate the spectacular growth of the global post–World War II economy. It was found that the spectacular growth was not due to the usual economic activity of bank lending and gambling on commodities futures. There was something else most definitely driving the boom. Some sort of “
exogenous input
,” as Solow called it, was driving the creation of new businesses and new high-quality jobs aplenty. In fact, using Solow's sophisticated mathematical economic model, one could calculate that 80 percent of the postwar growth was coming from this mysterious exogenous input. But what exactly was the exogenous input?

The answer came in the 1990s, just as the SSC was being terminated, largely by the efforts a young and somewhat maverick member of the priesthood of economists named Paul Romer. The answer is almost obvious, yet it took more than 200 years from Adam Smith's
The Wealth of Nations
to figure it out. The answer is (drumroll):
economies grow because of investment in science!
Basic science, applied science, all science. All scientific research pays a handsome dividend, and the more science the better. One
should invest in all sciences at once, from green science to hard cutting-steel science, from biology to physics. One should invest in a diversified portfolio. If you want to have a great economy, with jobs and prosperity for all, then you
must
spend your money on basic science. In fact, there is virtually no limit to the return on your investment. And, there is virtually no other way to do it. If you must practice austerity, whatever you do, don't cut the science budgets. And if you really spend enough money on science, you won't need to have austerity!
¹

The fact that science drives economic growth is almost obvious to most people (certainly obvious to physicists and their neighbors), yet it took the eggheads of economics more than 200 years to figure it out on their terms. This is a very good thing because it provides a firm foundation to the relationship of science to society and human activities, which in turn provides a basis for making public policy for the investment in science by governments and for incentives to collaborate. Whatever one may think of the actual “science of economics,” we believe that Solow's and Romer's (and others’) discovery—that economic growth is driven by science—is right and true. When we think of all the many times our colleagues have heroically boarded flights to Washington, DC, to go argue for more science spending with their congressmen, only to return exhausted and disillusioned, we wonder if perhaps they should have also visited the Federal Reserve, where they may have found more sympathetic ears.

THE BIGGEST “EXOGENOUS INPUT” EVER

It's not hard to see the “exogenous input” of science into our economy at work. In fact, and again in the ironic 1990s, perhaps the grandest example of all was playing out. In 1989, a young, obscure, and virtually unknown computer scientist at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, wrote a project proposal to the laboratory's Computing Division, at which he was employed. Berners-Lee proposed to develop a “distributed information system.” Now what, you may ask, is a “distributed information system”? Is it what you get when you throw your unbound PhD dissertation up in the air on a windy day? Even Berners-Lee's boss may have been similarly confused and might have written on the cover of the proposal, “Vague, but exciting,” as he gave
the green light to the project. Little did he know that he would have just unleashed the greatest information revolution humanity has ever seen and which today garners many trillions of dollars worth of new gross domestic product per year for all the people on Planet Earth.

Tim Berners-Lee conceived of the basic tools that could meet the demand for information sharing over computer networks, initially only between particle physicists, all over the world. He founded the World Wide Web, which has now expanded far beyond the geekish community of particle physicists. It has changed the way we all live, work, and even think. By Christmas of 1990, Berners-Lee and associates had defined the Web's basic concepts, those funny names like “URL,”“http,” and “html” (never have such cryptic acronyms been typed by so many in such little time and on such a grand scale). They had written the first “browser” and stuff called “server software.” The World Wide Web was soon up and running.
²

In 1991, an early Web system was running for the particle physics community for which it was originally developed. It rapidly began to spread through the academic world of the particle physicists to Fermilab, to the Stanford Linear Accelerator, to Brookhaven National Lab, to the University of Illinois, and beyond, as a wide range of universities and research laboratories started to use it. In 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois released its Mosaic “browser,” the first modern window-style navigator for the Web that could display in-line pictures and that was easy to install and run on ordinary PCs and Macintosh
^®
computers. A steady trickle of new “websites” soon became a torrential flood.

The world's First International Conference on the World-Wide Web was held at CERN in May 1994 and was hailed as the “Woodstock of the Web.” And although Al Gore took some heat for claiming to have “invented the Internet,” he did sponsor the key legislation, passed in 1991, that made the ARPANET a high-speed data transmission network, open to the general public.
³
This largely stimulated the usage of the Web and subsequent development of the browsers, as well as new software languages for the Internet, and catapulted the accessibility and ease of use of the Internet for everyone. Soon there would be Yahoo!
^®
, Google
^®
, Amazon
^®
, and countless businesses and exploits and things to browse on the Web, and vast web-based commercial activity, from finding a mate to buying a
house or ordering the best coffee and doughnuts. The Web is now blended into the entire worldwide telecommunications system. The economic valuation and impact of the World Wide Web is inestimable.

The Internet and World Wide Web were direct consequences of basic research in the science of particle physics. Particle physics is a worldwide science involving large teams of many people collaborating on single projects, and it was in dire need of a worldwide information-sharing system. It provided the unique and essential paradigm for the development of the World Wide Web. If US particle physics received a mere 0.01 percent (a hundredth of a penny on the dollar) of the tax revenue per year on the cash flow it has generated by inventing the World Wide Web, the Superconducting Super Collider would have been built in Waxahachie, it would have discovered the Higgs boson ten years ago, and we'd now be well on to the next machines—electron colliders, very large proton colliders, and a veritable star-ship of a particle accelerator called the Muon Collider (which we'll discuss later).

THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP: THE US CONGRESS

We call them our elected “leaders,” but it was ultimately Congress that could not seem to find the “leadership cojones” needed at the critical moment in the SSC debacle. In a typical fit of budget austerity, concealed by faint praise for the great scientific endeavor, Congress officially killed the SSC on October 31, 1993, following a key vote in the House of Representatives on October 19. Austerity had become the modern political tool, and American science slowly began to be strangled by it. The new economic theory, indeed the obvious fact of growth driven by scientific research, got, and still gets, no traction on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

Upon perusing the 103rd Congressional Record from 1993 (HR8213-24), we find some of the ironic testimony and the prevailing ill winds of that time. We have provided a
fictional caricature
here to illustrate the gist of it all—any resemblance to real testimony or persons is merely shockingly accidental:

Hon. Mr. X:
     “Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that I am stirred into reluctant opposition of any further funding for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). The Superconducting Super Collider would indeed be the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator in the world, and it may indeed be the largest scientific facility and allow for the largest and most profound physics experiments ever done. It would even ensure America's lead in science and technology and innovation well into the next century and beyond. Indeed, it would stimulate our best and brightest youth to consider science as a career and to develop a sustainable future for all of us. This unique research tool could perhaps unlock some of nature's greatest mysteries and give us a better understanding of our entire universe. Who knows what new inventions and spin-off products it may lead to, and what brilliant young minds will be inspired and how it will vastly improve our lagging science education system? If we're ever going to have a
Starship Enterprise
in the future, we'll certainly need a Super Collider today. The project would also attract some of the best and brightest physicists and scientists from all the nations around the world to the United States, compensating for our pathetically meager funding for scientific education here at home, further leading to the development of new critical technologies, and securing America's leadership position in fundamental physics research for the next century. Why, it would even help promote peace on Earth!
     However, with the mounting federal budget deficit (not to mention severe pressure from my majority whip), it has become increasingly difficult over the past couple of years for fiscal conservatives such as myself to vote for any expensive scientific endeavor. We'll support better technologies for oil drilling, but a Super Collider is just too hard for me to support. (I really haven't a clue what one is.) Federal spending has to be prioritized, and this has been steadily eroding my support for the SSC. We have to get on with starving the beast of a federal government that has such a voracious appetite.
     Voting against the Superconducting Super Collider is, for me, a very difficult decision. Much of the SSC's research and development is being conducted in colleges and universities in my own district. Nevertheless, I feel strongly that this is a prudent and responsible vote. If other nations will benefit from discoveries and technology produced by the SSC, why shouldn't they contribute to its construction? Or build their own? The Superconducting Super Collider is simply too expensive for the United States to build on our own. And I will not raise taxes on my overburdened wealthy constituents. The economy can only grow by the efforts of American businessmen. In fact, I'm planning to sign a brand new “pledge,” crafted by my dear friend, Mr. Grover Norquist, that I will never vote to raise taxes again.
     Our country has been a world leader in technology, and we must continue to support our nation's scientific research programs. The SSC, however, is a program that we simply cannot responsibly fund. Although proponents have argued that the potential scientific benefits outweigh the high costs and that the SSC should be an immediate priority, I'd just like to see a few more roads in my district and a lot more oil drilling and coal mining. And, I might add that if humans were meant to see quarks and “God Particles,” God would have given them tiny eyeballs.

The final vote to support the continuation of funding for the SSC in the House of Representatives was 159–264, the nays having their way with it. The construction of the tunnel for the Superconducting Super Collider was about a third complete, and more than two billion dollars had already been spent.

It wasn't just Congress's fault. There were many problems in the management and attempted execution of the SSC project and plenty of blame to go around. It's very hard to pinpoint exactly what killed the SSC because it was a mélange of reasons. We don't want to indulge in dredging it all up, and the interested reader can read about it at any of the numerous websites provided to you by high-energy physics and Mr. Tim Berners-Lee and associates.
⁴

But for science, all of science, and as an engine of economic growth and prosperity in the US, the termination of the Superconducting Super Collider was an unmitigated disaster. If Congress was truly a body of
leaders
, it would have moved forward on the SSC and found a way to make it happen.

The massive drilling machines of the SSC were abandoned in the half-completed tunnel where they stood. The tunnel itself carved in the frail Austin chalk, its sump pumps unplugged, has now filled with water, its walls soggy and collapsing, the heavy equipment dissolving away like some far-off shipwreck. Sage brush once again rolls in the wind through the downtown streets of Waxahachie, as plywood panels creak and shutters clap against walls, like some late-night replay of
The Last Picture Show
.

IS IT RECOVERABLE?

Over the years big science has increasingly fallen victim to the political process. Sadly, in the US, it seems not to be recovering. Particle physics in the US has not enjoyed the construction of a new cutting-edge particle accelerator since Fermilab's Tevatron was built in the 1980s (expanded with its Main Injector in the early 1990s). Big science in other fields, such as nuclear fusion and astrophysics, has also lost many similarly large-scale projects. Today, many people now question whether modern American-style democracy can ever manage grand science endeavors again. They wonder, are Americans, through visionless leadership, endless partisan bickering, and Machiavellian ultra-rich special interests and their lobbyists now destined only to sit watching TV in their devalued homes, fearing the mortgage collector, their jobs threatened, with their devalued currency, fighting multifront wars, making a mess of the planet with their fossil fuels, while the grand discoveries and exploration of the ultimate frontiers—and the burgeoning future economies this will bring—happen in Europe, China, India, and elsewhere? With the discovery of new phenomena, such as the Higgs boson at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, will indeed come direct and indirect applications that can resuscitate moribund economies. But is this is now less likely to happen in America?