And after we've funded all the poets, painters, and sculptors who'd make the country worth defending, who'd have the millions left over to pay for a giant particle accelerator.
Wilson's comment reflects the arrogant 1960s "how can we afford not to spend the money" attitude that caused us so much trouble in those days.
I do notice that Wilson was an accomplished sculptor as well as a scientist.
But that also points to another fault in those 60s academics: they didn't have much understanding of what made most other people tick.
Pastore had the better part of the argument on this question.
Build the project or not -- but don't use highflown rhetoric to mock the concerns of ordinary taxpayers.
Yes, to me, a particle accelerator in the U.S. that is the best in the world REALLY does make me respect our nation and love our culture more than if we did not have a cutting edge particle accelerator in the U.S. and needed to send our Physics graduate students to Europe to study.
Science is as worthy a pursuit as painting or poetry, and having great Scientists as our countrymen makes me as proud as having great painters writers and poets. Science can also possibly be of greater use; but it needn't be directly applicable to national defense in order to be of value.
Perhaps R.R. Wilson was a bit touchy on the subject, having worked on the Manhattan project (that is the Nuclear bomb program for those of you in Rio Linda). He obviously bristled at the suggestion that all physics could be good for was making a bomb with a bigger boom.