快猫短视频

Washington DC

PARTICLE physicists in the US have a new spring in their step. In his
budget request for 1998, President Bill Clinton last week asked for $450
million over eight years as a contribution towards the Large Hadron Collider
(LHC), the huge particle accelerator due to be built at CERN, the European
particle physics centre in Geneva.

鈥淚鈥檓 absolutely delighted,鈥� says Sidney Drell of Stanford University in
California, who chaired a panel that urged American participation in the LHC
following the cancellation of its counterpart in the US, the Superconducting
Supercollider, in 1993. Physicists hope that the LHC will uncover the Higgs
boson, a hypothetical particle that is thought to give other particles their
mass.

In an unusual move, the budget request calls for Congress to approve eight
years鈥� worth of expenditure on the LHC in one vote. This would avoid the annual
budgetary trials that have bedevilled major science projects in the US, and
which eventually sank the supercollider.

The budget request follows an agreement with CERN last December which set the
contribution needed for the US鈥檚 physicists to participate fully. However, it
does not include some $80 million needed from the National Science
Foundation (NSF) as its contribution towards the LHC鈥檚 two particle detectors,
CMS and ATLAS. Neal Lane, the NSF鈥檚 director, says that the foundation鈥檚
governing board has to agree to this expenditure before it is put to Congress
for approval.