[curtisgardner]

Full Title: Scientists Discover That If You Slam Members of Congress Together Under Pressure, Money Is Released

[tet68]

I had one of those Higgs Bison steaks at ted Turners the other night , it was great, and it only cost three million dollars.

[newguy357]

It is certainly valid to argue against such projects based on role-of-government issues, but as soon as the author wrote:

Assume the Big Bang was how it all began. During this event, vast amounts of matter and radiation materialized from nowhere, the light-speed barrier was broken, space became curved, matter-antimatter annihilation destroyed millions of times the mass of the present universe, and other fairly wild stuff happened. A localized Big Bang Lite caused by a particle accelerator is unlikely, but why are we going out of our way to engage the risk?

and

...physicists privately are hoping the new ultraexpensive atom smashers won't find the ultimate elementary particle, the very thing they are designed to find. Wait -- they are hoping the $30 billion worth of projects will fail? Here's the reasoning: If the machines actually do discover what causes matter, how will science lobbyists justify billions more euros and dollars for additional atom-smasher subsidies in the future?

he became merely a delusional idiot.

[LenS]

"But realistically, who's going to read an entire book in a computer browser pane?"

I've read a lot of books on my hi-def 24" LCD monitor. I use really large print so I can sit back. And judging by Baen books, a lot of people are using their free library and/or buying electronic versions of various new books. Plus, Sony's got their book reader and Amazon's got a new one coming out.

[G8 Diplomat]

Scientists Discover That If You Slam Members of Congress

....your blood pressure goes down dramatically

[Physicist]

Wow. Just...wow.

I've seen the deeply ignorant. I've seen the aggressively ignorant (they tend to spout creationism on FR). But not often have I seen the viciously ignorant.

I could deconstruct this article line-by-line--almost every sentence is flatly wrong--but my time would be better spent writing up last night's Eagles game, since ESPN has seen fit to write this instead.

Instead, I'll just point out that when I left physics for programming, my salary doubled, and the work was a hell of a lot easier. Physicists make real sacrifices to do physics. This talk about how physics research is mere "featherbedding" is simply intellectual class warfare.

[PGalt]

Thanks to all contibutors. Thread more interesting than article BUMP!

Music to read this thread by...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVpLLmD98os

[SunkenCiv]

Note: from November 2007.

[LibWhacker]

If I demanded that physicists be taxed to subsidize the writing of my novels, physicists would be outraged.

What a total a$$clown! Any fool can write a novel for practically nothing, but the era of the little guy doing groundbreaking physics on his own dime, in the privacy of his own basement laboratory is largely over. We've led the world in science for a hundred years. Do we now want to start emulating muslims? I thought they were the enemy.