Higgs Boson

The recent cautious announcement that scientists at Europe's Large Hadron Collider may have found the elusive Higgs boson reminds me that this important step in high energy physics could have occurred in the United States except for partisan and regional politics.

More than twenty years ago, at a project in southern Dallas County and Ellis County, Texas, the United States had dug an enormous circular tunnel deep underground near Waxahatchie, Texas, for what was known as the Superconducting Super Collider. This was to be the showcase of US high energy physics, and was a project of the Department of Energy.

I was briefly involved as a contractor working for SSC's project management office.

When completed, the SSC would have been three times as powerful as Europe's Large Hadron Collider, and would have been in operation more than a decade ago. The Higgs Boson would have been old hat by now, and Waxahatchie, Texas rather than Geneva, Switzerland, would be the research center drawing physicists from all over the world.

But by 1990, US research budgets became tighter, other massive projects such as the International Space Station and other scientific communities competed strongly for the dollars. Each of those projects also had supporters in Congress. Just at that time, the Texas Congressional delegation became particularly vocal about balancing the budget. As a result of all of that, coupled with resentment by other members of Congress, support for SSC evaporated.

The project was cancelled in 1993.

An enormous hole in the ground remains under Ellis County, Texas.

No one knows what discoveries the SSC would have achieved by now. Almost certainly the Higgs boson would have been among them.

Since I posted this observation July 5, NYTimes  columnist Gail Collins on July 6 posted a set of more humorous observations about the Higgs, Waxahatchie and American Politics. Worth reading here for a chuckle, but a serious thought as well.