[Physicist]

High energy physics research expenditures, 1960-1995. In the last few years, by comparison, it has stabilized at just under $700 million per year, in 2003 dollars. I'll guess that that's somewhere around $600 million per year on this graph.

I should add that many of the dollars now being spend by the U.S. on high energy physics are directed at experiments and laboratories in Europe. They have the equipment, and we don't.

[Physicist]

I wrote: I'll guess that that's somewhere around $600 million per year on this graph.

Not a bad guess: $700 million in 2003 dollars is $580 million in 1995 dollars. Here's a cool website that has conversion factors from 1665 onwards.

[Aracelis]

I should add that many of the dollars now being spend by the U.S. on high energy physics are directed at experiments and laboratories in Europe. They have the equipment, and we don't.

This brain-drain, coupled with our incredibly lousy public school system, should just about level the playing field - the goal of every true liberal. For instead of being the leader in science and technology, we will now be consigned to a Third-World position.

Perhaps Europe and China will take pity on us in years to come and send us their old, out-of-date equipment.