
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, November 29, 1993                   TAG: 9404220010
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

COSTS COLLIDE

THE SUPERCONDUCTING super collider is among the victims of congressional budget-cutting, and this is understandable. It was hugely expensive. From initial estimates around $4 billion, the price tag had swelled to $11 billion, and the final cost would probably have soared still higher.

Even so, the decision was cause for sadness. The project might have added important insights to our knowledge of the universe. Well, maybe not to our knowledge; but certainly to what scientists understand about the mysterious subatomic realm.

The history of science suggests, moreover, that such knowledge eventually proves useful, and it also can usher in new world views, as Isaac Newton's natural laws did for John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein's theories did for the relativism and uncertainties of our modern, befuddled day.

Europeans are planning a smaller collider - not a super collider on a Texan scale, but an impressive piece of machinery nonetheless among these massive gadgets that cause particles to smash. So Congress should fund U.S. participation in the project.

Newton didn't need such devices to do his science, but they've grown so costly now that international participation is the only way to pay for them.

by CNB